Is The Middle East Irrelevant?

Is the Middle East more irrelevant than the role it currently plays in our geostrategic approach? Philip E. Auerswald argues as much in the latest issue of the American Interest (subscriber only to access the full article, I'm afraid). This strikes me as a fairly clever bit of counterintuitive thinking as well as an exercise in contrarianism. Nonetheless, the article is at least worth reading. The latest issue is on newstands now, so it is probably worth picking up if this sort of thing interests you. And it should.