Allawi is not exaggerating. The disastrous American invasion of Iraq that has led to the destruction of the Iraqi state and the subsequent defeat of U.S. military power has finally destabilized the entire Middle East---a region that has been tightly controlled by European and American powers and that has changed little, politically, in forty years. But, in losing the war in Iraq, the United States has lost the will to maintain the status quo in the Middle East, and the forces unleashed by the destruction of Iraq will go on to shape the future of the region in a way that no one can predict.