The cost of the West’s retreat from this troubled region is predictable, since we must deal with several threats that endanger Western security, and that would not disappear with withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan: terrorism, Islamist radicalism, nuclear threats (Pakistan, Iran), proxy wars and regional conflicts (Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kashmir), and looming disintegration (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and in the longer term in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula).