The Middle East? Which has almost no industry? Which has large percentages of their population without education? It's beyond our power to make beat these guys?
My suggestion: Give it a try.
It is the Middle East
Normally the patterns of history are reassuring. To hear of Tsarist Russia pressing for warm-water ports or 18th century England fighting hegemony on the continent or Ming China clashing with Japan over the fate of Korea is to feel a continuity, a comprehensibility, in human affairs. But in "The Jewish War" ( a History of the Jewish Revolt in AD 60 ) the shock of recognition is just a shock. Here, sixty generations ago, is nearly the same cast of characters engaged in exactly the same obsessive, vicious and fatal behaviour for the same terrifying reasons on the same cursed, reeking, ugly chunk of land. - PJ O' Rourke The 2000 Year Old US Middle East Policy Expert
“The Empire of Japan? — It took us less than 4 years to get an unconditional surrender.
The Third Reich? — It took even less time.”
Our society has fundamentally transformed since WWII. The can-do, unified, godly culture that beat back evil then is now fifty percent the same kind of evil that we’d fight. I’d class liberals with Islamists on the side of evil even though the Islamists would execute the liberals; the liberals don’t believe that and would continue to side with them. If we had to refight WWII with our current society we’d lose. Imagine how the embedded reporter from CBS would portray the casualties from any battle on the 6:00 news. The home front would rapidly elect anybody on the promise of “winning with honor” by getting the hell out.