America’s Middle East : The Ruination of a Region

From the Gulf War to Gaza, a compelling analysis of how and why Washington ensnared itself in the Middle East, benefiting no one.

After Hamas’ shocking attack on 7 October 2023, the United States stood firmly behind Israel’s near- genocidal war on Gaza and escalating conflicts with Lebanon and Iran—despite international and domestic moral outrage, and significant damage to its broader global agenda. How and why has Gaza become only the latest such paradox in thirty-five years of Middle East policy? What does its destruction mean for America’s place in the world?

America’s Middle East charts the United States’ disastrously failed approach to the Middle East since the end of the Cold War, as aspirations for US leadership in a calm region have instead produced political instability, armed conflict and humanitarian catastrophe. Marc Lynch exposes policymakers’ refusal to learn from repeated calamities; the failure of each president’s efforts to transform the Middle East in America’s image; Washington’s inability to pivot away from the region; its unwillingness to take seriously the views of Middle Easterners; and its consistently mistaken belief in the possibility of forging a regional order which ignores the Palestinian issue.

Moving between American politics and Middle Eastern realities, this incisive account explains why US policy has not changed despite its horrifying human costs, from Iraq and Syria to Yemen and Libya.