The U.S. wins no popularity contests in the Middle East, where it has fought on and off for nearly three decades. A Pew Research survey a little less than two years ago found that only 27 percent of respondents in Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Israel, and Turkey saw our country as a force for good. America probably has more enemies in the region today than it did at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

Brian Steed, a military historian at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and a Middle East foreign area officer, concludes a four-part series on the region with an examination of that sentiment and the extremist ideology, objectives, and actions arising from it. How does America’s presence in the region feed the thinking of extremists? What are they hoping to achieve?