This second edition of ‘New Directions’ invites the two inevitable questions: what has changed? What has remained the same? At fi rst glance, readers will assume that in a chapter devoted to the United States and the Middle East in the wake of the region’s on-going upheavals, the emphasis would be on change rather than continuity. Such a conclusion is premature. Persistent turbulence in the wide range of countries from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen and Bahrain has produced a constant search for stability in Washington. Now, as at the time of our fi rst edition, few subjects of US foreign policy reveal a larger chasm between theory and practice than the Middle East.