Photo by NurPhoto via Getty Images Las Vegas rules don’t apply to the Middle East. Put another way, what happens there doesn’t stay there. Various administrations in recent years – both in Europe and in the US – have turned a Nelsonian eye to this truism, hoping that their luck might eventually turn. When the Syrian uprising first began in 2011 Barack Obama and David Cameron hoped to contain the trouble “over there”. More recently, officials in the Biden administration boasted of the Middle East being the quietest it’s been for decades, ignoring the smouldering embers of resentment across the...