Crown Center for Middle East Studies

Was the U.S. Ever Hegemonic in the Middle East? American Power and Regional Disorder in the Post-Cold War Middle East

A Crown Seminar with Gregory Gause

February 5, 2025
11am -12:15pm EST
Online (registration required)


For decades after the Cold War, U.S. power in the Middle East was unchallenged globally and dominant regionally. Yet, since the Gulf War of 1990-91, almost every U.S. initiative in the region has ended in failure. How can we reconcile such enormous power with repeated policy failures? In this Crown Seminar, Gregory Gause, in conversation with Eva Bellin, examines this seeming paradox by interrogating the concept of “hegemony,” a term often used to describe the American position in the post-Cold War Middle East, and exploring alternative ways to understand the challenges to U.S. power in the region.


F. Gregory Gause III is professor emeritus of international affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University and a visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.

Eva Bellin is the Myra and Robert Kraft Professor of Arab Politics in the Department of Politics and the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University


This event is free and open to the public.

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