Mass Ignorance in the US

It is surprising that in a country that is so heavily involved in the Middle East people know so little about the geopolitics of this region. What is even more surprising is that this country that allocates so much of its resources to research allocates relatively so little to the Middle East studies.
In fact the policy of the US in the middle east has been quite childish that its outcomes were sometimes quite predictable by the arab world but not so by US analysts.
The current debate is focused basically on whether any change in the number of troops in Iraq can bring about an end to the civil war. Of course some people do not hide their complete uninterest in ending any conflict in the middle east if it is at the cost of sending more troops. But for the people who are still willing not to leave Iraq in a complete mess, I get the feeling, are overlooking an important aspect of a civil war. A civil war can not be policed. It is not something you can crush, because the more you try the more you feed the fire. Or are they still believing their own stories of insurgency or Al-Qaida versus good Iraqis story ? Everybody else is talking about a civil war. In any case the discussion ought to look for a political solution by bringing the parties in Iraq closer to each other. It is a difficult task but the Lebanese war tought us that this is the only way to get lasting peace.