The US has limited ability to influence a regional cold war and needs to choose its priorities carefully. This will be the most important story for us in the next decade as we try to get out of the Middle East without abandoning our allies and making the situation worse.

In the fate of Egypt and its Christians, we should read one crucial fact: neither democratic nor authoritarian governance delivered anything resembling equal citizenship.

In every major Muslim country, governments use, abuse, and instrumentalize religion, but they don’t merely use it; they feature it…

Ignoring the democracy versus pluralism dilemma fails to address the core issue facing both communities at the onset and consequently will not yield a Middle East friendlier to human rights and religious liberty. This debate is one that governments and politicians themselves cannot lead. Civil society is where this discussion must take place, and believers themselves are the ones who should lead it.

It’s hard to deny that America’s record in the Middle East has been pretty poor overall. If we hope to better secure our interests, advance our values, and protect those who share them, we need to study the last century of mistakes and do our best to correct them.

Recently, Robert Nicholson sat down with Ambassador Frederic C. Hof to discuss the tragedy of Syria and American foreign policy in regards to the ongoing crisis.

In More Than a Doctrine, Randy Fowler argues that, even though President Eisenhower didn’t have a reputation for being a powerful orator, his speeches had a profound effect on the Middle East.

Dr. Hellyer is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the RH Centre for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in DC and Senior Associate Fellow in International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The downward trend in foreign aid spending by the US government is not a function of the American people losing interest in foreign aid. After all, it has never been popular. More likely, it’s a function of presidents no longer defending foreign aid, explaining it, or connecting it to the national interest.