Steven A. Cook
Foreign Policy
Washington, DC, United States
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Past articles by Steven:
The Deeper Reason Netanyahu Won’t Arm Ukraine Against Russia
Jerusalem’s ties to Moscow are partly about security. They’re also about illiberalism. → Read More
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022: Why Palestinian Flags and 'Free Palestine' Banners Won't Change Anything
Protests at the World Cup are basically meaningless on the ground, where a conflict exists that has no solution. → Read More
How U.S. Support for Syrian Kurds Actually Benefits Erdogan
Washington’s relationship with the YPG is a useful foil for the Turkish president ahead of the 2023 election. → Read More
Biden Was Always Going to Need Saudi Arabia
Trying to make Mohammed bin Salman a “pariah” was bound to fail. → Read More
The BDS Movement Has Already Lost
Where it counts—in the halls of government and boardrooms—the effort to boycott Israel doesn’t even register. → Read More
The Middle East’s Kumbaya Moment Won’t Last
The diplomatic resets and outreach underway are just competition by another means. → Read More
America’s Middle East Friendships Are Dying a Natural Death
It’s time to recognize they were living on borrowed time. → Read More
Islamism Is Ready for a Comeback
The death of political Islam in the Middle East has been greatly exaggerated. → Read More
Erdogan Has Never Been in This Much Trouble
Surrounded by rivals amid a collapsing economy, the Turkish president is facing the longest odds of his life. → Read More
Why Dictators Always Pretend to Love the Law
There’s something farcical—but entirely rational—about the way authoritarians such as Egypt’s Sisi invoke legal justifications for repression. → Read More
Unvaccinated Police Officers Could Become America’s Own Insurgents
Iraq and Egypt show how hard it is to get rid of a militarized security force. → Read More
Democracy Was Never Going to Stop Islamist Terrorism
Twenty years after 9/11, U.S. policy in the Middle East is still based on a fundamental mistake. → Read More
Cracks Are Growing in the Erdogan Regime
Turkey is more politically unstable today than at any other point in recent years. → Read More
The Short Arc of History of Ben Rhodes and Generation X
Ben Rhodes’s new book about global politics reveals the limits of the Obama administration’s worldview. → Read More
How Sisi's Egypt Beat Biden’s Human Rights Policy
Egypt is again proving useful to the United States—for now. → Read More
The Biden Administration Doesn't Know Why Syria Matters
Why is the United States still struggling to figure out what to do about the Assad regime? → Read More
From Saudi Arabia to Syria, Who Is Hot and Who Is Not in the Middle East
The Biden administration wants to downgrade the region. Here are the countries he can ignore—and the ones he can’t. → Read More
Biden’s Foreign-Policy Values Aren’t ‘Normal’
The new president wants his strategy to seem reassuring. It’s anything but. → Read More
America Needs Protection. So Does the Regime.
The U.S. military secured Joe Biden’s inauguration. But the new administration also needs to treat the armed forces as a potential threat. → Read More
America’s Vaccine Diplomacy Is AWOL in the Middle East
China and Russia are spreading their vaccines—and forging new ties—to some of Washington’s closest allies. → Read More