Strategic Recalibration: The U.S. Role in the Middle East
Virtual Briefing Series
Wednesday, September 11, 2024 | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM ET
The events of 9/11 marked a pivotal moment in U.S. foreign policy, reshaping America’s role in the Middle East and leading to two decades of deep engagement in the region. From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the broader War on Terror, the U.S. has played a central, often controversial, role in attempting to reshape the Middle East. This journey has been fraught with both significant achievements and tragic missteps, leaving a complex legacy that continues to influence global politics today. Has U.S. involvement truly served its national interests, or has it only deepened instability in the region? And what should America’s role in the Middle East look like moving forward given the current regional instability?
As we reflect on this 23rd anniversary, join us on Wednesday, September 11 from 12 to 1 PM ET for a conversation with Dr. Steven Cook, Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies and director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the recently published Oxford University Press book, “The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East” where he will answer these questions and more.
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SPEAKER:
Dr. Steven Cook
Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies and director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Cook is the author of False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East; The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, which won the 2012 gold medal from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Ruling but Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey. Cook is also the author of the recently published Oxford University Press book, The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East.
Cook is a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine. He has also published widely in international affairs journals, opinion magazines, and newspapers, and is a frequent commentator on radio and television. His work can also be found on CFR.org.
Prior to joining CFR, Cook was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution (2001–02) and a Soref research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1995–96).
Cook holds a BA in international studies from Vassar College, an MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He speaks Arabic and Turkish and reads French.
About The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East
Following a long series of catastrophic misadventures in the Middle East over the last two decades, the American foreign policy community has tried to understand what went wrong. After weighing the evidence, they have mostly advised a retreat from the region. The basic view is that when the United States tries to advance change in the Middle East, it only makes matters worse.
In The End of Ambition, Steven A. Cook argues that while these analysts are rightly concerned that engagement drains U.S. resources and distorts its domestic politics, the broader impulse to disengage tends to neglect important lessons from the past. Moreover, advocates of pulling back overlook the potential risks of withdrawal. Covering the relationship between the United States and the Middle East since the end of World War II, Cook makes the bold claim that despite setbacks and moral costs, the United States has been overwhelmingly successful in protecting its core national interests in the Middle East. Conversely, overly ambitious policies to remake the region and leverage U.S. power not only ended in failure, but rendered the region unstable in new and largely misunderstood ways.
While making the case that retrenchment is not the answer to America’s problems in the Middle East, The End of Ambition highlights how America’s interests in the region have begun to change and critically examines alternative approaches to U.S.-Middle East policy. Cook highlights the challenges that policymakers and analysts confront in developing a new strategy for the United States in the Middle East against the backdrop of both political uncertainty in the United States and a changing global order.
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