America’s Middle East Limits One year after the Arab revolutions began with so much promise, the trends have turned darkly ominous in the two key countries at the heart of the Middle East-Egypt and Syria. At this time last year, many of us hoped we might be witnessing the start of the most significant and positive change in the Arab world since the creation of the modern Middle East after the First World War. But, events are now moving very quickly in the opposite direction, highlighting the sharply reduced influence of the United States, until very recently the most important outside power.