Steven A. Cook is a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is The End of Ambition: America’s Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East.
Four people stand while holding a banner that reads Gaza: Action Not Words. On the banner the names of thousands of children who have died as a result of the war.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump participate in a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Demonstrators raise their phones showing images of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest against cartoons depicting Khamenei published by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, outside the French embassy in Iran's capital Tehran on January 11, 2023.
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the nation regarding the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites as seen on a television screen in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 21.
Israel's Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu smiles as he delivers a speech during the launch of the Likud party election campaign on March 4, 2019 in Ramat Gan, Israel.
President Donald Trump addresses the audience at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center while attending a Saudi-U.S. business investment forum, on May 13, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
A collage photo illustration shows Donald Trump gesturing with arms wide. In front of him are headshots of Benjamin Netanyahu and Vlodymyr Zelensky, images of immigratns and ICE police, a tattered EU flag and America First signs.
People walk along Tehran’s Karim Khan Zand Avenue past a building with a landmark anti-U.S. mural with the slogan “Down with the USA” and skulls replacing the stars on the U.S. flag.
A protestor sits with a book "A Fairer World Is Possible" by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in front of Turkish riot police officers during a rally in support of Istanbul's arrested mayor in Istanbul on March 23, 2025.
Walid Jumblatt, the Druze former leader of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), and his son and current party head Taymur Jumblatt meet with Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, interim prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir, and other Druze leaders during a visit to Damascus on December 22, 2024.
An Israeli soldier watches from a tank turret as Palestinians return from Egypt to the Gaza Strip on July 29, 2007 at the Israeli-controlled Erez border crossing.
Donald Trump watches his friend Steve Witkoff speak at the White House Opioid Summit in the East Room of the White House on March 1, 2018 in Washington.
Reporters raise their hands in the foreground as Donald Trump gestures with his arms wide behind a podium. On the left, Benjamin Netanyahu looks sideways at Trump from behind a podium.
