Writing in these pages in 2002, MICHAEL DORAN, then a
professor at Princeton, was among the
rst to argue that the
primary motive behind the 9/11 attacks was to fuel conict
within the Muslim world. Doran went on to serve in the
George W. Bush administration, working in the White
House, the State Department, and the Pentagon. In “The
Dream Palace o
the Americans” (page 21), Doran, now a
senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, argues that only the
Trump administration’s return to blunt power politics
will yield any progress in the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire.MAHA YAHYA holds the rare distinction o having completed
two doctoral dissertations, both on the connections among
politics, memory, and urban change. From 2012 to 2018,
Yahya led UN eorts to promote development and democ-
ratization in 17 Arab countries. She also advised the World
Bank and the UN Development Program on social and
urban policy across the region. In “The Middle East’s
Lost Decades” (page 48), Yahya, now director o
the
Carnegie Middle East Center, discusses why so many Arab
states have stalled politically and economically.The son o
Chinese civil servants, WEIJIAN SHAN grew up at
the height o
the Cultural Revolution and as a teenager
spent six years as a forced laborer in the Gobi Desert. After
obtaining several degrees in the United States, he taught
at the Wharton School. Shan quickly rose to become one
o
the country’s most successful
nanciers, serving as
managing director o
J.P. Morgan. Today, Shan is chair and
CEO o
the Hong Kong–based private equity
rm PAG.
In “The Unwinnable Trade War” (page 99), he argues that
U.S. taris against China will miss their intended target—
and inict the most damage on the United States itself.PETER BEINART was editor o
The New Republic from 1999
to 2006 and has written three books on American foreign
policy, including The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American
Hubris. Today, he is a professor o
journalism at CUNY’s
Craig Newmark Graduate School o
Journalism and a
professor o
political science at the CUNY Graduate Center.
He also is a contributing editor at The Atlantic. In “Obama’s
Idealists” (page 162), Beinart reviews the memoirs o
three foreign policy hands in the Obama administration:
Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Ben Rhodes.CONTRIBUTORS
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