Dude, this shit is hard to sum up in a couple sentences but I'll try my best. If we look at this from the angle of keeping western soldiers off the battlefield, then yes they do work. The main problem with drone strikes is how they create more terrorists than they kill in their strikes when civilian casualties inevitably happen. Drones are coming whether we like them or not, we see them being used in current wars like in Ukraine, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh being used for things like recon and artillery placement. The point where whatever little support I have for drones ends when we start hearing about self-guiding and firing UCAVs that kill other human beings based on algorithms, only nature and other humans should have the ability to kill men, women, and children.
The problems of the middle east stem from so many factors like post-colonialism, religion, economic inequality, lack of education, the list goes on. I think that after 40 years of close military intervention and support in the region, whatever benevolent goal the American government had got shipped out the window and now we are merely extracting as much oil as we can and shoring up the defenses for whatever spark finally ignites a massive war (most likely the collapse of Saudi Arabia). That is why we continue to support shitty allies like Israel who blatantly subjugate the Palestinian people, and it is also why we are moving our focus to Iran who's Shia doctrine is far less barbaric than the Sunni Wahhabi-based Islamization that we are slowly seeing dominate the region.
I could write forever about this, but i'm kinda getting tired and it's really hard to properly say everything without writing 20 pages worth of stuff that you already know.