Dr. Youseff Chouhoud will present on Mideast Realignment and Israel-Hamas at 10 a.m. Friday at the Deltaville Community Association building at 17147 General Puller Highway in the next program in the Deltaville Great Decisions lecture series, America’s largest discussion program on world affairs.

Three successive American presidents have made it clear in the aftermath of the disastrous occupation of Iraq their preference to reduce military commitments in the Middle East to focus on competition with China, a release from the group stated. But extracting the U.S. from the Middle East has proved difficult.

The United States still has major interests in the region, including oil, Israel and the challenges posed by Iran, the release continued. The current war between Israel and Hamas and other Iran-backed proxies drags the U.S. back to active conflict mediation regardless of its preferences.

Chouhoud is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Christopher Newport University,...