A sweeping narrative account of the last five years in the Middle East and a timely argument of how and why the Arab uprisings failed.

In The Pragmatic Superpower, Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon reframe the legacy of U.S. involvement in the Arab world from 1945 to 1991 and shed new light on the makings of the contemporary Middle East.

"There is a tendency to believe that Egyptians rebelled against Hosni Mubarak.... That is true, but it is not entirely accurate," writes CFR Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies …

A balanced, even-handed account of the forces that are driving Iran, Israel, and the United States toward crisis, and what can be done to defuse it.

A critical examination of how the legacies of military control in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey affect political development in these countries, highlighting the often-overlooked difficulties of promoting democratic change in military-dominated political systems.

Read an excerpt of Restoring the Balance. The next U.S. president will need to pursue a new strategic framework for advancing American interests in the Middle East. The mounting challenges include…