Obama Faces a More Volatile Mideast in His Second Term
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President Barack Obama’s new national security team will contend with a volatile Middle East that’s far removed from his 2009 pledge in Cairo to create “a new beginning” between the U.S. and Muslims around the world.
The Arab Spring revolutions that the administration in 2011 saw as pathways to democracy have traded Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Qaddafi, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and, perhaps next, Bashar al-Assad for instability and growing Islamist radicalism in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria.