Acting and Reacting in the Middle East

Part of the Global Forecast 2015

When mass protests broke out in the Arab world in 2011, the Obama administration saw opportunity. The president helped push longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak to step down from the Egyptian presidency, noting, “I think history will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation in Egypt that we were on the right side of history.”

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Jon B. Alterman
Senior Vice President, Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and Director, Middle East Program