I think that the Middle East has had more or less the same level of atrociousness over the last 4000 years, but the rest of the world didn't know about it, because there was no CNN or Youtube. I don't think the United States is doing anything that is going to change affairs over there. For the Iraq war, the US lost 4,424 soldiers, had 31,952 war wounds and expended $2 trillion dollars (that's $6,269 per U.S. Citizen) to topple Saddam Hussein. Now, Iraq is arguably in a worse state than when it had the ruthless secular megalomaniac at the helm.
If the US is going to make a difference in the Middle East, it has to go about doing things differently. If it is not going to make a difference, then it should leave. The US has 319 million people to take care of, and is the third most populous country in the world. If there is aid, I'd like to see it spent on fixing the United States and some of the Western Hemisphere problems, such as Haiti and the bad parts of Mexico.
Obama's remark about more people dying in bathtubs than from terrorists is wrong. First, it is not the government's job to protect people from bathtubs, and by extension old age. Second, terror isn't just a rare cause of death. It is what it sounds like, scars society, and curses the ground where it occurs. We don't have to feel bad when an elder falls in the bathtub, breaks her hip and then dies under anesthesia. That's called dying of old age peacably in your sleep.
Just a few meandering thoughts.