U.S. President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan described the Middle East in late September 2023 as "quieter" than it had been in two decades.

That assessment did not age well.

Just eight days later, Hamas launched a deadly surprise attack from Gaza into Israel, triggering a war that devastated the Palestinian enclave and spread turmoil across the region — a cascade of crises that has cast a cloud over Biden's foreign policy legacy as he prepares to leave office on Jan. 20.