This acclaimed book brings together scholars and diplomats from the Middle East, Europe, and North America to provide an objective, cross-cultural assessment of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. This fifth edition has been substantially revised with greater emphasis on current events, including the policies of the Obama administration, Islamist perceptions of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and the U.S. relationship with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Updated throughout, this edition also features five new chapters on the superpowers and the Middle East throughout the Cold War; the Bush and Obama administrations and the Arab#x13;Israeli conflict; contemporary U.S.#x13;Syrian relations; the importance of ideology to U.S.#x13;Iranian relations under the last three administrations; and U.S. relations with Al Qaeda.

David w. Lesch is professor of Middle East history in the Department of History at Trinity University. Dr. Lesch is the author of a number of books on the Middle East, including 1979: The Year That Shaped the Modern Middle East, The New Lien of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria, and The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History. Mark L. Haas is associate professor in the Political Science Department and the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy al Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He is the author of The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789-1989 and Ideologies and American Security in the Middle East.