The United States has an opportunity to set new terms for its alliances in the Middle East. The bargain struck with Egypt and Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War seemed successful for a decade, but now the United States is facing the consequences: Washington backed Cairo's and Riyadh's authoritarian regimes, and they begat al Qaeda. The Bush administration should heed the lesson.

This is one of several good articles in a special section entitled "Long War in the Making" in the Jan/Feb 2002 issue of _Foreign Affairs_ magazine. The author, Martin Indyk, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Senior Director on the National Security Council.