Those who suggest that the United States as a superpower is weaker in the Middle East today than nine years ago overestimate the impact on the region of the Bush administration’s frenetic invasions and occupations. Iraq and Afghanistan were off in corners of the Middle East, and the US clearly got bogged down in them fairly quickly. If anything, many countries in the region, such as Syria, felt they benefited from the US quagmires in the sense that Washington was preoccupied elsewhere. Hosni Mubarak in Egypt also blew off Condi Rice’s demand that he democratize.
Still, it is certainly the case that the diplomatic and military relationship of the US to the region is changing.
