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Sydney Taylor is interning during summer 2024 at the Middle East Institute, where she serves as a Research Assistant on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East, in addition to conducting research on Russian and Chinese military influence in Oman with the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office. She is a second-year student in the Master in Public Affairs program at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Sydney’s academic and professional interests include national security, defense technology and policy, diplomacy, and the Middle East, with a particular interest in the Arabian Gulf. Prior to Princeton, Sydney spent three years as a high school English teacher with Teach for America in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was the Founding English Teacher at Garrett Morgan School of Leadership & Innovation. In 2022, she moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of the country’s first Fulbright English Teaching Assistant cohort, and taught English and Communications at Prince Sultan University. Sydney holds a Master of Science in Education from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Arts in Security & Intelligence and Middle East Studies from The Ohio State University. Upon graduation, Sydney hopes to return to the Gulf.
The Limits of Biden’s Middle East Diplomacy: An Assessment of US Policy, April-July 2024
In reaction to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Gaza war, the Biden administration articulated six main objectives. After nine months of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has repeatedly threatened to spill out into neighboring theaters, the Biden administration’s success toward achieving these goals has mostly declined, not for a lack of effort but rather a reflection of considerable challenges in the environment and major shortcomings in policy conceptualization and implementation.
