The challenges facing the United States in the Middle East require a return to a strategy of offshore balancing. Historical interests in the region—anticommunism and energy security—have been rendered largely irrelevant by geopolitical and technological changes. The regional strategic environment has shifted, and the current US approach to the region carries increasing risks: it enables dangerous behaviors by US allies, engenders moral hazard in local nondemocratic states, and ignores the regional interests of other great powers. American attempts to reshape the region have too rarely achieved stated goals. A more restrained approach has the potential to bring American commitments and interests in the region back into balance.