Look at the team of foreign policy advisers for Obama. It is not surprising that there is not a single Middle East expert in the team. For years now, Middle East experts are deliberately excluded from foreign policy making in the U.S. government. The view in the U.S. government (after the demise of "the Arabists" and their marginalization from policy making) is that Middle East experts are not sufficiently fanatically pro-Israeli. The definition of a Middle East expert is now to have people who are fanatically pro-Israeli and who support any killing of any Arab/Muslim anywhere in the world, and who think that Israeli wars and occupations are way too mild. Dennis Ross of course never studied the Middle East, although he brags that he can say "shukran" when prompted. Bruce Riedel of course is also no Middle East expert, although he worked on Middle East issues in the Clinton administration. He once in the 1990s told Daniel Pipes' journal (Middle East Quarterly) that it is not true that Arabs are critical of U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iraq. Kid you not.