The US has always struggled with balencing our policy in the middle or near east, with our self interest and our core principles of freedom and democracy. In the 19th century this balence was between economic interests with the Porte, and the large effort at education by the protestant missionaries. This divergence of goals was sharpened during and following the civil war. As the US became a power in the 20th century, Pres. Wilson's 14 points epitomized the US policy to spread freedom which lost to our desire to avoid foreign entanglements. And later in the century with the struggle with the USSR during the cold war, and how that forced relationships with those less desireable actors and states.

 

Today, we see the US leaning more strongly towards freedom and democracy as the goal, and that comes into conflict with Arab nationalism, grown out of the American schools founded in the middle east in the 19th century, that has diverged from a "freedom" movement to a movement content to establish local oppressors as opposed to distant oppressors. A key issue in the upcoming presidential race is this goal of freedom and an active policy to achieve freedom, as opposed to a policy of accomodation and a "government that they deserve" acceptance.