BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 METHOD:PUBLISH PRODID:-//Telerik Inc.//Sitefinity CMS 15.4//EN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Eastern Standard Time BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYHOUR=2;BYMINUTE=0;BYMONTH=11 TZNAME:Eastern Standard Time TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20250301T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYHOUR=2;BYMINUTE=0;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:Eastern Daylight Time TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:The Moynihan Institute’s Practice of Global Politics \;semi nar series presents \;Steven A. Cook\, \;director of the Middle Ea st Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.Book Abstract:Following a l ong series of catastrophic misadventures in the Middle East over the last two decades\, the American foreign policy community has tried to understan d what went wrong. After weighing the evidence\, they have mostly advised a retreat from the region. The basic view is that when the United States t ries to advance change in the Middle East\, it only makes matters worse.In \;The End of Ambition\, Steven A. Cook argues that while these analys ts are rightly concerned that engagement drains U.S. resources and distort s its domestic politics\, the broader impulse to disengage tends to neglec t important lessons from the past. Moreover\, advocates of pulling back ov erlook the potential risks of withdrawal. Covering the relationship betwee n the United States and the Middle East since the end of World War II\, Co ok makes the bold claim that despite setbacks and moral costs\, the United States has been overwhelmingly successful in protecting its core national interests in the Middle East. Conversely\, overly ambitious policies to r emake the region and leverage U.S. power not only ended in failure\, but r endered the region unstable in new and largely misunderstood ways.Steven A . Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studi es and director of the Middle East program at the Council on Foreign Relat ions (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-M iddle East policy. Cook is the author of \;The End of Ambition: Americ a’s Past\, Present\, and Future in the Middle East\; False Dawn: Protest\, Democracy\, and Violence in the New Middle East\; The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square\, which won the 2012 gold medal from the Was hington Institute for Near East Policy\; and Ruling but Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt\, Algeria\, and Turkey.Cook i s a columnist at \;Foreign Policy \;magazine. He \;has also pu blished widely in international affairs \;journals\, opinion magazines \, and newspapers\, and is a frequent commentator on radio and television. His work can also be found on CFR.org. DTEND:20261104T220000Z DTSTAMP:20261020T053411Z DTSTART:20261104T203000Z LOCATION: SEQUENCE:0 SUMMARY:Book Talk | Steven Cook | The End of Ambition America’s Past\, Pres ent\, and Future in the Middle East UID:RFCALITEM639280568511737566 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

The Moynihan Institute’s Practice of G lobal Politics \;seminar series presents \;Steven A . Cook\, \;director of the Middle East Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Book Abstract:

Following a lo ng series of catastrophic misadventures in the Middle East over the last t wo decades\, the American foreign policy community has tried to understand what went wrong. After weighing the evidence\, they have mostly advised a retreat from the region. The basic view is that when the United States tr ies to advance change in the Middle East\, it only makes matters worse.

In \ ;The End of Ambition\, Steven A. Cook argues that while these ana lysts are rightly concerned that engagement drains U.S. resources and dist orts its domestic politics\, the broader impulse to disengage tends to neg lect important lessons from the past. Moreover\, advocates of pulling back overlook the potential risks of withdrawal.

Covering the relations hip between the United States and the Middle East since the end of World W ar II\, Cook makes the bold claim that despite setbacks and moral costs\, the United States has been overwhelmingly successful in protecting its cor e national interests in the Middle East. Conversely\, overly ambitious pol icies to remake the region and leverage U.S. power not only ended in failu re\, but rendered the region unstable in new and largely misunderstood way s.

Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies and director of the Middle East program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Cook is the author of \;The End of Ambition: America’s Past\, Present\, and Future in th e Middle East\; False Dawn: Protest\, Democracy \, and Violence in the New Middle East\; Th e Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square\, which won th e 2012 gold medal from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy\; and  Ruling but Not Governing: The Military and Po litical Development in Egypt\, Algeria\, and Turkey.

Cook i s a columnist at \;Foreign Policy \;magazine. He \;ha s also published widely in international affairs \;journals\, opinion magazines\, and newspapers\, and is a frequent commentator on radio and te levision. His work can also be found on CFR.org.

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