Shifting Sands

The United States in the Middle East
Joel S. Migdal revisits the approach US officials have adopted toward the Middle East since World War II, which paid scant attention to tectonic shifts in the region. After the war, the United States did not restrict its strategic model to the Middle East. Beginning with Harry S. Truman, American presidents applied a uniform strategy model to the Middle East rooted in the country´s Cold War experience in Europe to regions across the globe, designed to project America into nearly every corner of the world while limiting costs and overreach.