Better late than never
Leave it to an American academic to state the obvious some thirty years after the fact: the ‘American Middle East is finished’.
someone finally gets it.
TalleyrandAug 24, 2026
Leave it to an American academic to state the obvious some thirty years after the fact: the ‘American Middle East is finished’.
Professor Marc Lynch gets the diagnosis largely right. But not the prescription:
More broadly, stability at the regional level requires that the United States recommit to international human rights norms, oppose secessionist movements in countries such as Syria and Yemen, deter partners’ military interventions and proxy wars in places such as Sudan and Libya, and stop urging the Iraqi and Lebanese governments to disarm the Iraqi militias and Hezbollah before they are fully prepared to do so. Stability at the domestic level requires democratic change. For the United States, that means encouraging reform, including human rights protections, and calling off the bargain that has allowed autocratic allies to get away with grievous repression. This message will not be welcome in Cairo, in Riyadh, or indeed in many other capitals. But no real transformation of the regional order will be possible without addressing the pathologies of its regimes.
New American policies would not create a stable, peaceful Middle East overnight. At first, they would win little public applause from a region that has grown accustomed to American hypocrisy and abuse. Later on, the rise of more democratically responsive governments in the region would likely cause considerable headaches as ambitious politicians competed to condemn and denounce the United States. But in the long run, a Middle East populated by regimes that are less willing to follow Washington’s lead on unpopular policies or to suppress public opposition would likely be more stable than the region of today. Washington struggles to conceive of a Middle East it does not dominate and to imagine real alternatives to the present regional order no matter how badly it has failed. But that order is ending, and this may be U.S. leaders’ last chance to change course. If they cannot, they will watch the American Middle East fade away like the European empires that came before.
Sorry, Professor, that ship has sailed. Here’s a better plan, modelled on the earlier British withdrawal: Beijing, you sort it.