I think this would be a great option if we could pull it off. We've spent decades appeasing Israel and creating enemies in other countries, so it's a bit late to just cut them off now. We need to stop painting Arab nations as the bad guys and Israel as the good guys and be a bit more realistic.

Yes! And bring 'em home now, not later.

This is the only sensible option on this list. The Middle East is divided into (1)rich countries with oil (Kuwait, the UAE); (2)overpopulated, dysfunctional countries without oil, (3)overpopulated, dysfunctional countries with oil (Iran and Saudi Arabia) and (4)Israel. In addition to its chronic political and economic problems, the region faces a catastrophic ecological/demographic crisis over the next decade. In short: The Middle East, including Israel, is going to be an even poorer and more fanatical place in 2020 than it is now, and there is nothing we can do about it. Marxist and white-guilt historiography nonwithstanding, the US and Britain are not responsible for the problems of the Middle East. The problems of the region are mostly home-grown.

What is important is not to make a bad situation worse, as we are doing now. The invasion of Iraq and support of Israel can be justified in abstract, simplistic moral terms (Saddam bad, Israel good...) but in practice it has only made things worse. Wasting American lives and money so that Iraqis can murder each other in freedom, and encouraging terrorist recruitment by further humiliating, brutalizing, torturing and murduring Arabs, is cruel, stupid and more than a little insane. Likewise, Israel can defend itself perfectly well without American troops and billions of American $$$s/year. If Zionists and Evangelical Christians want to fight Israel's wars (WWJD?), they are welcome to do so, provided they give up their American citizenship and move to the West Bank. American involvement in the Middle East should be limited to preventing predatory attacks on oil producing countries, as in the first Gulf War. Aside from that, the less the US has to do with the Middle East, the better. UPDATE: Hotel283, please explain to me the benefits to the US and the world of (1) Foreign aid payments to Israel of $80 billion+ since 1974, and a bribe of around half of that to Egypt/Mubarak.
(2) Supporting the ruling Saud dynasty of Saudi Arabia, one of the most corrupt and repressive states in the world, origin of Osama Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers; also the leading financier of fundamentalist Islam world-wide.
(3) Invading Iraq for non-existent weapons of mass destruction; alienating pretty much every country in the world except Israel; taking pictures, now quite familiar across the Arab world, of American soldiers torturing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib; more recently, killing two dozen civilians in cold blood, including women and children; starting what looks to be a destructive, uncontrollable civil war ending in massacres and ethnic cleansing; killing thousands of people and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars to create a giant heap of rubble and corpses, The New Iraq. For all our good intentions, we are not doing ANY good in the Middle East, and we are making lots and lots of enemies. Unless we get out, now, The World's Most Powerful Nation (TM) is going to become The World's Most Hated and Bankrupt Nation.

This is an option? The most powerful nation in the world has an obligation to consort with the nations of the world, not isolate themselves from them. It didn't work in the thirties, it won't work now.

Yes this is a great idea lets do it we can go back to riding horses and buggys. Instead of flying you can just catch the Stage coach. Brilliant idea, I however am not giving up my carbonmonoxide producing four wheeled carriage.

The American government have already meddled in matters that don't concern it (though what's new there). That's like asking for aid in Iraq. It's _your_ mess, _you_ clean it up.

That also means getting out of Iraq,pronto. It may be too late for this option.

Why not? Americans read and write on a 7th grade level and they have the mystical and logical answers to a centuries-old debate? We haven't mastered take-out food yet we have all the answers in the Middle East. Has it occurred to any of you that we simply have no idea what we're doing? Gee. . .you mean people don't like it when outsiders (with no prior knowledge or experience) come in and impose rules without consideration of your political and religious feelings? Shocking.

That'd be a helluva ballsy move. I'm for it.

This sounds really tempting. Just let them all kill each other, seeing as it's what they really want to do anyway. However, regional battles like this have a way of spilling over into surrounding countries. And Israeli propaganda be damned, the combined forces of every Arab country in the region would be absolutely no match for Israel. Israel also has nuclear weapons, which none of the Arab states do (Republican propaganda be damned), and who's going to restrain them from using their nukes? No, this obnoxious little country may be the cause and focus of a large percentage of the world's troubles, but we can't just pull out now. We're all in, and we have no one but ourselves to blame. And maybe the British.

That situation in the Middle East is very delicate, and I am wary of any military involvement whatsoever in this conflict, but we cannot just let this problem go unchecked. First of all, if we did this, we would garner resentment from both the Israelis and the Palestinians and may risk terrorist attacks from either country. I believe that the United States, by destiny rather than choice, is the big brother of the world. It is our job to be the couriers of freedom AND peace.

America should get their noses out of other countrie's business'. Who has given America the right to go into other countries and tell them what to do? Why does America feel the need to support the most violent regimes against potential liberators? (the Isreali government against the PLO, the British government againt the IRA, the Bolivian government against Che Guevara, the list goes on and on) America seems to want to go into any country they don't have anything to do with to make themselves seem morally surperior. They support the Israelis who have massacred innocent Palestinians and of course the Fascists listed above. Do you want a simple answer to the question, "How should the US handle the Middle East crisis?". They shouldn't.

Then how the SUV's gonna run!

It would be a great idea. But, we cant forget our Israeli friends. We could stay out of the Muslim countries if we just started drilling our own oil in Alaska.

This is not even an option. We cannot sever all ties from the Middle East. It would be very foolish to allow the United States to loose its prestige on the world stage by allowing isolationist forces take over our foreign policy. We have responsibilities in the region to maintain the balance of the worldwide oil trade. Without our influence, the world market would go into a tailspin, creating scarcity which will lead to war. It is a cycle that has been repeated throughout history and one which we should not repeated again.