Post-Cold-War superpowers neither could nor would keep imperial rule in the Middle East

Evidence

Many contestants have come and gone in the struggle for the domination of the Middle East. In recent years, only two remained—the Soviet Union and the United States. The crisis, the war, and their aftermath have made it clear that of these two superpower rivals, the one is unable, the other unwilling, to play any kind of imperial role. For the first time in centuries, the governments and perhaps even the peoples of the Middle East will be able to make their own decisions, and devise and apply their own policies. They will also have to accept responsibility for those decisions—a salutary change. It is to be hoped that the governments, or if not the governments, the peoples of the region will rise to the challenge. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1729

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader Said-adjacent debate on whether Middle East agency was ever real or always overshadowed by external powers; Lewis here insists agency is newly possible — a position directly questionable in that debate.
• QUESTION: Lewis wrote this at the moment of apparent US disengagement, before the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan reversed the claim that America was ‘unwilling’ to play an imperial role.