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For ordinary people living in the Middle East’s many crisis spots — from war zones in Syria, Yemen and Libya to dysfunctional, enfeebled states in Lebanon and Iraq — it won’t matter much whether President Trump or his Democratic challenger, former vice president Joe Biden, is in the White House next year. Both the Trump administration and that which Biden served saw the region’s tangled conflicts and yearned for an escape. Neither managed to do it. Instead, U.S. air campaigns intensified, and U.S. troops remain deployed across numerous countries. For all its stated desire to disentangle itself from the Middle East, Washington has a hard time letting go.
