article_snippet: It's a misguided perspective that is actually hurting the United States.
article_snippet: Yet these efforts -- pursued across Democratic and Republican administrations and intensified after 9/11 -- have clearly failed.
article_snippet: As a result, the Middle East today is less stable, more riven with sectarian and ethnic conflict, and more violent than at any point in the Middle East modern history.
article_snippet: And the United States, in a textbook illustration of "imperial overstretch," has made the United States weaker, both regionally and globally.
article_snippet: the United States's quest for Middle Eastern hegemony has failed for many reasons.
highlights_snippet: Middle East less stable than at any point in modern history .
  