LOL, it wasn’t a matter of a shortage, it was a matter of getting sidetracked from Reagan’s goal.
Reagan had a plan to end the Cold War and getting bogged down in the ME was not helpful in that plan.
Reagan pulled off the impossible with little loss of life, so he was doing something right.
and he let Iran kill 247 marines before he realized he was doing the wrong thing? You don’t pull out because you got people killed; you kill those who attacked them. That’s what a world power does. Our blunders have made us gun shy and the Iranians know how to run us. Maybe Trump will bring back the threat to them.