Two years ago, it would have made little sense to host an event like the one sponsored by NYU Law School's Center on Law and Security on Wednesday evening -- a discussion entitled "Power Politics: Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Leadership in the Muslim World." The event brought together Middle East experts Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, and Toby Craig Jones, a Rutgers University assistant professor of history who studies history of state-building and Shia-Sunni relations, moderator Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security, and a group of journalists, academics and students to discuss U.S. policy in the Middle East. What would have been the point? There was no reason to expect there would be a shift in thinking with the current administration. Now things are different. And, as Greenberg explained in her concluding remarks, the event was a harbinger of change. Americans are moving from a fantasy of democracy promotion, a phenomenon that has dominated U.S. thinking in the Middle East for years, to a reality-based engagement with the dynamics of the region -- an approach ignored during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The ongoing disaster of Iraq must be addressed, since U.S. involvement there has brought about new configurations of power in the region. The main reason people in the Middle East are angry at the U.S., explained Nasr, is not because "it meddled in Iraq" but that "it empowered Iran." The question remains: "How are we going to change Iranian behavior? So far the strategy [of the U.S.] has not been effective," he said. "They keep building centrifuges, and they don't take the U.S. seriously." Changing that mindset, and sorting out a new policy toward Iran, will be one of the most important tasks of the next administration. Luckily, discussions on how to do these things are already underway. --Tara McKelvey
