Does anyone else get the feeling we're way over our heads in the Middle East?

By "we", I mean Americans and this Friedman column takes a look at our historical political initiatives there.

The Bush team, by contrast, in eight years has managed to put America in the unique position in the Middle East where it is “not liked, not feared and not respected,” writes Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast negotiator under both Republican and Democratic administrations, in his provocative new book on the peace process, titled “The Much Too Promised Land.”

“We stumbled for eight years under Bill Clinton over how to make peace in the Middle East, and then we stumbled for eight years under George Bush over how to make war there,” said Mr. Miller, and the result is “an America that is trapped in a region which it cannot fix and it cannot abandon.”

In general, when I read commentary on the Middle East (which, I'll admit, is not nearly as often as I read about domestic policy, but I try to stay informed) -- most of the article is spent explaining how things work and why, with very little concrete advice on how to proceed. Sometimes I get the feeling even the author isn't certain of the knowledge he or she is relying on. Makes me wish I had taken a Middle Eastern history course in college, or something to help me understand this whole situation better. I want to muse on this some more, but in the meantime, if anyone has any resources they'd like to recommend, I welcome it.