@ouguoc even now, the median USian cares very little about the ME, other than the more tangible implications its crises have here. for her to care much less, some kind of stability would have had to emerge in the ME, or some less US centric form of global governance would have needed to emerge, or our global village, the technological Babylon in which geographical distance no longer translates to social, political, economic distance, would have had to become undone (likely via some catastrophe).