Halabi (Queen's U., Ontario and West Galilee College) adheres to the theory that policy is an outcome of politics wherein a group of policymakers contemplate a set of ideas in order to achieve certain goals, but when these ideas lose credibility as a result of external events, a new order emerged. Within this framework, he analyzes US policy at selected moments since the end of World War II: consolidation and learning on the job from 1945 to 1973, the oil embargo crisis 1973-74, the Iranian revolution 1979-2001, the Global War of Terror, and the second Iraq war and the US democratization policy. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)