Twenty years after 9/11, U.S. policy in the Middle East is still based on a fundamental mistake.

The United States has dialed down both its presence and role in a region that it has dominated for nearly a half-century.

Mikhail Gorbachev will be remembered in the West for laying the basis for more constructive relations to ease the end of the Cold War, but vilified in Russia for speeding the Soviet Union’s demise.