wants to focus on the Asia-Pacific region and, surprisingly, it means what

wants to focus on the Asia-Pacific region and, surprisingly, it means what it says. Only a year after troops withdrew from Iraq, that country is not talked about in Washington, like an embarrassing relative. In North Africa, the US military has taken a back seat while the work of toppling Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and driving back the jihadists in Mali has been left to Franco-British forces. Syrian policy is one of drift, where the administration finds all options unpalatable. In Egypt, Washington has set a red line for the Muslim Brotherhood leadership: it must adhere to the peace treaty with Israel. Everything else is negotiable. This week the Pentagon revealed that it would no longer be stationing two aircraft carriers in the Gulf region, as it has done for most of the past two years, due to cuts in the defence budget, and the possibility of even more stringent ones if Congress fails to agree on raising the US debt ceiling. The Iranian nuclear programme remains a priority in Washington, but the carrier decision indicates a less warlike stance. One cannot say that US power is ebbing, but there is a clear lack of political will in Washington for decisive action in the Middle East. For now, the logic is that regional powers will have to take more responsibility. Egypt, although impotent at the moment, will have to find its role. The US needs to talk to Iran if there is ever going to be a compromise on its nuclear programme. Maybe Egypt could help. Both Egypt and Iran have denied a report that General Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds force, a division of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the man responsible for Iran's military operations in Syria, visited Cairo in January. There was no reaction in Washington to this report. If there is going to be a resolution of the Syrian crisis without a decade of Lebanon-style war, then allies of the US will have to speak to someone of the calibre of Gen Suleimani, a far more important figure than Mr Ahmadinejad. Could this lead to a historic compromise between the Muslim Brotherhood and the ayatollahs to create a new Islamic front spreading revolution? HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028736