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Of course foreign policy plays a role. And that foreign policy is dictated by oil. No real shock there.
The alternative, however, is even less appealing than fostering some anger in the region and having a tiny percentage of lunatic fanatics try to do something about it.
Staying out of the region means the equivalent of giving control of the U.S. economy (and most of the western world, while we're at it) to a region controlled by people with a mindset roughly a millenium behind the times. The U.S. wrote off that proposed approach 30-some years ago when OPEC, Egypt and Syria managed to absolutely cripple to US economy (and the Netherlands) when they concluded the west's support of Israel during yet another war was unacceptable.
Find an alternative energy to oil and we can get the hell out of that craphole of the world. In the meantime however, the much maligned U.S. presence in the region is ironically the most stabilizing force they have. The closer to something resembling stability that region sees, the better things are for the civilized world. For now the rest of the western world (translated: Europe) can protest and bitch about the U.S. interaction in the Middle East while at the same time reaping the benefits of said presence.
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