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America has spent nearly two decades fighting costly wars in the Middle East while its regional and near peer competitors significantly gained strength and now pose major threats to the United States and its allies. To focus on these threats, America is seeking a way to extract itself from the post 9/11 "endless wars" in the Middle East. These wars have failed because America ties its ability to achieve its strategic goals to ineffective local governments. The U.S. must cease its cumbersome nation building efforts to address the terror threat from the region while refocusing on major threats posed by Russia and Iran. The U.S. can accomplish this by exploiting existing local conflicts to fulfill counter-terror objectives while bogging Iran and Russia down in conflicts they cannot sustain. To achieve this the U.S. must move its operations out of the limelight of military action and diplomacy into the shadows of covert action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]