Who could have foreseen that Libya, within just one year of Muammar Gaddafi’s death, would join the community of democratic nations? Virtually everyone predicted that the Islamist tide would sweep through Tripoli as it had done through Tunis and Cairo. But it was not to be. Instead, the Libyan people made fools of us all.

The U.S. will become the world's largest producer of oil before 2020, a net oil exporter by 2030, and will achieve energy self-sufficiency by 2035. In light of pending energy self-sufficiency, a change in U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East should not come as a surprise