Our approach to the whole complex Arab/Islam thing, which goes back centuries and millennia, demands a lot of intelligence coupled with wisdom. How's our intelligence community? Well, it has certainly fallen since the Reagan years. But even given intelligence capabilities, we need to make wise choices. We need to understand in the flux of these people's internal fightings that although our best interests may be served by supporting one guy today, we may need to be directly against him tomorrow.
The Bible puts it best and is a good guide for our foreign policy with these people, "Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves." I would add that we also need to be prepared to defend our country with strength.
The arab/islam thing is really not that complex.
The root is Amalek.
Our problem is that Amalek is contagious. There is a wider cleanup-job now than when God commanded their removal.