Osamah F. Khalil

• 2026 Spring
  • IRP 495 Distinction in International Relations Seminar

Osamah Khalil is a historian of U.S. foreign relations and the modern Middle East. He is the author of "America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State" (Harvard University Press, 2016), which examines the influence of U.S. foreign policy on the origins and expansion of Middle East studies and expertise from World War I to the Global War on Terror. It was reviewed widely, including in the London Review of Books, Al Ahram, Publishers Weekly, the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence, Commonweal, and was named by Foreign Affairs as a Best Book of 2017.

He has also been a frequent media commentator and contributor, including for the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, Al Akhbar, and Al Jazeera. He teaches courses on the history of U.S. foreign relations, the Cold War, the history of international relations, America and the Middle East, and the Vietnam War and popular culture. In 2018, he received the Chancellor’s Citation for Faculty Excellence and Scholarly Distinction.

• Books
  • Khalil, O. F., A World of Enemies: America's Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden. Harvard University Press.
  • Khalil, O. F., "United States Relations with China and Iran: Toward the Asian Century." In Bloomsbury Academic. , 2019.
  • Khalil, O. F., America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State. Harvard University Press, 2016.
• Journal Articles
  • Khalil, O. F., "The Radical Crescent: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Lebanese Civil War, 1973-1978." In Diplomacy & Statecraft. , 2016.
  • Khalil, O. F., "The Crossroads of the World: U.S. and British Foreign Policy and the Construct of the Middle East." In Diplomatic History. , 2014.
• Encyclopedia Entry
  • Khalil, O. F., "American Orientalism." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Butler, J. (ed.) Oxford University Press, 2022.
• Essays
  • Khalil, O. F., "Seven Questions on U.S.-Middle East Relations." SHAFR Passport, 2025.
  • Khalil, O. F., "History, Silence, and Mythmaking Twenty Years On." In Roundtable . SHAFR Passport, 2023.