US Foreign Policy toward the Middle East: Navigating an Uncertain Era

US foreign policy toward the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the face of the 2011 Arab uprisings has encountered many and varied challenges: some manageable and others daunting and immensely difficult to meet. Given today’s regional changes and uncertain prospects, traditional US foreign policy tenets and practices need to be readjusted to better reflect US different and evolving interests, motivations, and capabilities. This paper examines the US reaction to the Arab Spring in an attempt to answer the following questions: (1) what effect have the democratic uprisings had on US foreign policy? (2) why has not the Arab Spring brought about a drastic adjustment in US foreign policy as a result; and (3) why, in spite of nearly a half century of US involvement in the region, do US policymakers still have limited understanding of—and even less ability to foresee—such uprisings there? These are profound questions worthy of addressing. Our central argument is that the 2011 democratic uprisings in the MENA region have become an alternative to civil war and authoritarianism, presenting new challenges not only to these regimes and but also to the broader US foreign policy toward the region.