There is no 'creating' a difference in Middle East. It has to be by consensus and permission of those that hold the purse strings.
Persian Gulf time bomb: America's risky commitment
USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 1997 by Barbara Conry
The bombing that killed 19 U.S. troops in Drahan, Saudi Arabia, was one consequence of the high-profile military presence in the region, and there is great potential for similar attacks in the future.
The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was a watershed in U.S. policy toward the Persian Gulf region. The American military response to that invasion was not a foregone conclusion--a fact that often is forgotten in light of the popularity of the Gulf War and the widespread support for follow-up operations against Saddam Hussein. There was intense debate about how the U.S. should respond. Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense at the time of the invasion, has recalled that the Bush Administration "really needed some time to come to grips with this basic, fundamental question of our strategic assessment of what this meant. Did it matter that [Saddam Hussein had] taken Kuwait?"...
...Managing security in the volatile Persian Gulf region, however, is an expensive and high-risk strategy that is not justified by American interests. Current U.S. strategy is based on numerous flawed assumptions, is plagued by internal contradictions, and exhibits a potentially dangerous complacency about the risks associated with high-profile American involvement in the region. Moreover, the very tactics that are intended to safeguard U.S. interests may jeopardize those interests in the long run.
According to the May, 1995, United States Security Strategy for the Middle East, Washington has adopted a three-tiered approach to Gulf security. The first tier is strengthening national self-defense capabilities to allow each country to bear primary responsibility for its own defense. The second is promoting regional collective defense to enable states in the area to cooperate during periods of heightened regional tension. The third is enhancing the capabilities of the U.S. and, nominally, other states outside the region to repel major threats to the southern Gulf region.
In reality, though, Washington has made only modest, largely cosmetic, efforts to encourage the southern Gulf monarchies to develop national or regional self-defense consequences....
