Reuters/Jonathan Ernst The Trump administration's approach to the Middle East restores a regional strategy that has long had broad bipartisan support and was once the standard for US presidents — just not the most recent ones. If people do not like Trump's policies in the Middle East, it likely has less to do with Trump than the shortcomings of America's longstanding policies in the region. There are three basic components of his approach: fighting terrorism, containing Iran, and supporting Israel. It has become banal to say that the Middle East is a mess and that the region's absurd maelstrom of death, violence, degradation, corruption, extremism, and authoritarianism is made worse by the Donald Trump administration's apparent absence of any strategy. Trump's approach to the region seems at first glance to be all sword dancing, orb-gripping, and tough-guy rhetoric that is dangerously lacking in substance.