I am not a great student of the Middle East. It is largely a mystery to me. It usually seems to get worse and worse, with all the participants behaving in an entirely irrational and dangerous fashion.
There seems to be a very big problem with the response of the EU to the election of Hamas by the Palestinians. It paid for elections, it monitored the elections, and then when the result of the democratic process was not the one that it wanted it just rejected it. Either democracy is a good thing and will solve the problem, or some external control must be applied. But it seems to me that the response to the election of Hamas will simply polarise the Arabs even more away from the West.
The Western-leaning 'quartet' - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Jordan - seem increasingly marginal.
The West's long support for Iraq in its long war with Iran, and the generally terrible treatment Iran has received from the West is another unacceptable aspect of the West's behaviour. It seems now that it is almost inevitable that the USA will resort to bombing the Iranian's nuclear plant. This is a very bad development indeed.
If only someone in the White House could see sense. I war against Terrorism, like a war against any abstract noun is bound to fail. It is simply going to result in the religious alignments in the middle east being made even more important than they are now.
