This week on Babel, Jon speaks with Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow for the Middle East at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). They discuss changing Middle Eastern views of the United States, the United States' focus on "defense diplomacy" with regional partners, and the implications of his conversations with regional actors for policymakers in Washington Then, Jon, Natasha Hall, and Danny Sharp, continue the conversation about competing visions of the United States in the Middle East and how they might influence each other. Emile Hokayem, “Reassuring Gulf Partners While Recalibrating U.S. Security Policy,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 18, 2021.  Jon Alterman "Focus on Influence, Not Power, in the Middle East," Defense One, March 25, 2021. Emile Hokayem and John Raine, “The Strategic Implications of COVID-19 for the Middle East,” IISS, December 2020. Transcript, "Competing Views of the United States," CSIS, October 5, 2021.