The 2013 updated fifth edition of the acclaimed The Middle East and the United States brings together scholars and diplomats from the Middle East, Europe, and North America to provide an objective, cross-cultural assessment of US policy toward the Middle East. Regional experts David W. Lesch and Mark L. Haas include a new chapter dedicated to the events of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, looking with a special eye to the impact on US interactions with the region.The text also features five new chapters discussing the superpowers and the Middle East throughout the Cold War; the Bush and Obama administrations and the Arab-Israeli conflict; contemporary US-Syrian relations; the importance of ideology to US-Iranian relations under the last three administrations; and US relations with al-Qaida.Carefully edited and reorganized to place a greater emphasis on current events, The Middle East and the United States provides comprehensive and authoritative coverage of US foreign policy and Middle East political history from the first World War through the Arab Spring and beyond.