Well, we could have decided not to be a great power, or the leader of the West.
The roots of this go back to centuries of Muslim decline vis a vis the West. To make matters worse, the Arabs lived under Turkish rule for four centuries and had the title Caliph appropriated by the Turkish emperor, their holy places occupied by the Turks.
Then came the fall of the Turkish Empire after WWI, creating a power vacuum in the Middle East. The Arabs thought they had been promised a state with Damascus as the capital (very significant, the capital of the Arab empire at its greatest extent). But, they were double-crossed by the British and French who carved most of the region into colonies.
The Arabs gave up on their traditional leaders and turned to fascism to resist the Western powers, with Nazism as a useful model. In addition, they turned to fascism's favorite tactic, terror. Gradually, most of the colonial and pro-Western regimes fell to fascist parties or movements.
At the beginning of WWII, pro-Nazi regimes had to be toppled in Syria, Iraq and Iran. Sound familiar?
After the war, they reasserted themselves, but as leadership of the West transitioned from Britain and France to the U.S., guess who became their number one target?
Could we get out of the cross-hairs? Maybe. Give up on the West and start a Fortress America. Abandon Israel to a second Holocaust (although they might not go as easily as you think). Let Iran have the bomb. Allow the Taleban and AQ back into Afghanistan. Let Las Vegas post odds on whether AQ or Iran will emerge dominant in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Then pray that once primacy in the region is sorted out among probably several nuclear powers, that they have no interest in reclaiming former Muslim lands in the Balkans and Iberian peninsula and will not interfere in the world economy or flow of oil to enhance their power further. I.E., pray that they will be the first new power in history to be content with their initial gains.