When Egyptian youths battled draconian police tactics in recent demonstrations, they made a point of showing journalists the inscription on the tear-gas canisters that had been hurled at them: Made in the U.S.A. It symbolized an important point: U.S. support of autocratic governments for the sake of stable, pro-Western regimes in the oil-rich and strategically vital Middle East has long been an inconvenient truth. The bottom line is that political Islam, in some form, will be a significant factor in much of the Arab world and beyond. U.S. foreign policy must come to grips with this emerging reality.
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Accepting Political Islam
With protests against regimes in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, the West fears a new era of Islamic political power in the Middle East. There are four reasons it shouldn't.
Monthly Issue
April 2026
In this monthly issue, we examine how our understanding of energy — and how we source and use it — is evolving.
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