Abstract: More than 15 years ago, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. would be ‘pivoting towards Asia’ in its foreign policy focus. Subsequent administrations indicated the same desire to focus on China and Asia. Yet time after time, developments in the Middle East prevented such a pivot by the U.S.. What is it about the region that demands continual attention from the U.S. and other great powers? Is it just oil, or is there something else going on?”
David Romano holds the Thomas G. Strong Chair in Middle East Politics at Missouri State University. He is the author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2006 — also translated into Kurdish, Turkish and Persian) and the co-editor of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurdish Issue in the Middle East (Palgrave Mamillan, 2014) and The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics (Lexingtoon, 2020). From 2010 to 2020 he wrote a weekly political column for Rudaw, the largest Kurdish media site, and in 2024 he served as a visiting professor at the University of Kurdistan in Hawler (Iraqi Kurdistan).