The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 hen you look back, some years can be seen as having inflected history, moving men and events along paths they would otherwise not have taken. 2001 — the year of 9/11 —was such a time. 2009 shaped up as another, not just for the decisions that were made but for those that were not. The second President Bush bequeathed his successor a set of thoroughly broken policies in the Middle East and the near-total estrangement of the United States from former allies and friends in the Arab and Muslim worlds. President F O C U S O N I R A Q & I T S N E I G H B O R S T HE M IDDLE E AST : F ORKS IN THE W AY F ORWARD T HE STAKES FOR GETTING U.S. POLICY RIGHT IN THE REGION ARE HIGHER THAN EVER . H ERE IS AN OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES . B Y C HAS W. F REEMAN J R . W Laszlo Kubinyi