Looking beneath the surface of strategy, policy, and daily operations, the author uses the analogy of weaving to review the United States’ historical responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. He shows why we must marshal all possible elements in the Middle East, and supporters from without, to defeat the enemies of order in the region—and why we must weave an actively engaged, omnidirectional US involvement to support and interact with whatever faction, regime, sect, leader, or state that seeks to gain legitimacy as a good citizen in the established international system. American leaders, he concludes, need to be ever ready to take, at the most dangerous and consequential moments, “severe decisions.”
