America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region with Marc Lynch

Watch our recent Buffett Book Talk with Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and author of America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region.

From the Gulf War to Gaza, America’s Middle East examines how and why Washington became entangled in the Middle East, situating US policy within the broader trajectory of its post-Cold War foreign policy in the region. Professor Lynch charts the United States' controversial approach to the post-Cold War Middle East, where he claims aspirations for US leadership and a calm region have only produced war, instability, and humanitarian catastrophe. Moving between American politics and Middle Eastern realities, Lynch will discuss his thoughts on why US policy has not changed despite ongoing human costs.

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About the speaker

Marc Lynch, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, serves as the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies, the Middle East Studies Program, and the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University, where he teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics and international relations. He is a contributing editor for The Washington Post's Monkey Cage political science blog, editor of the Columbia Studies on Middle East Politics series from Columbia University Press, and a former nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His previous works include The New Arab Wars: Uprising and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2016), The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East (Public Affairs, 2012), and The Arab Uprisings Explained: New Contentious Politics in the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2014). He is best known for coining the term Arab Spring in an article for Foreign Policy.