if you need help, i'm a history minor and crank out papers like that about 9 times a semester. you want tough, talk to me after you've taken a final exam consisting of 2 questions that account for 100% of your grade in a class.
The short answer to the question, by the way, is that the both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were too embroiled in the Cold War to try to deal with the Middle East. Tensions started after WWI when the Ottoman Empire was dissected by European nations who had no idea how to separate countries according to ethnic groups instead of land masses, so historically bellicose factions were forced to coexist. After WWII, the Soviet invasion of Iran didn't help things, and finally the creation of Israel was the straw that broke the camel's back. After that, things were perpetually downhill.