The turmoil in the Middle East is not unique. Half a century ago, a similar series of revolutions shook the ground beneath the Arab rulers. The immediate catalyst was the Suez crisis. After Gamal Abdel Nasser, the charismatic young Egyptian ruler, nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, the British and French, in collusion with Israel, invaded Egypt to topple him. They failed; Nasser emerged triumphant.

Much like the ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia in January, the Suez crisis generated a revolutionary spark. Nasser’s victory over Britain and France signaled that the Arab political systems created by European imperialism were living on borrowed time. Regimes tottered and fell, countries fragmented, and armed conflicts erupted. Today’s turmoil represents the second Arab revolution.

In the 1950s, the dominant ideology, pan-Arabism, focused on external threats: gaining independence from imperialism and confronting Israel. In contrast, today’s revolutionary wave is driven by domestic demands: for jobs and political representation. Yet the underlying ethos of both revolutionary waves is very similar. Then, as now, the people in the street believed that the existing order was dominated by corrupt cliques that exploited the power of the state to serve their own interests. In addition, then, as now, the revolutions tended to topple leaders aligned with Washington.

Although there is no personality like Nasser towering over the revolutionary events, there is one state taking a leaf from Nasser’s book: Iran. Under Nasser, Egypt opposed British and French imperialism, which it worked to associate in the public mind with Israel. Iran is taking a similar stand today against Britain’s “imperial successor,” the United States. And like Nasser, Iran has created an anti-status-quo coalition — the resistance bloc which includes Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The bloc’s strategy seeks to turn the anarchy of the Middle East to the disadvantage of the United States. As the revolutionary wave expands political participation, the bloc will insinuate itself into the domestic politics of its neighbors. In countries divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, it will use terrorism and work closely with partners on the ground who are willing to make direct alliances, as we have already seen in Iraq and Lebanon. In more homogeneous countries, such as Egypt, the bloc will resort to more subtle and insidious means — for example, inciting violence against Israel through Hamas, in an effort to drive a wedge between Cairo and Washington

The resistance bloc opposes the United States on almost all of its core interests: ensuring the uninterrupted flow of oil at stable and reasonable prices; blocking the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; protecting key allies, especially Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia; countering terrorism, and promoting democratic reform in a way that bolsters the U.S.-led order in the region.

Therefore, one might expect Washington to adopt a comprehensive containment strategy. Such an approach would entail, among other things, renouncing engagement of Iran and Syria while seeking to strengthen the reform movements in both countries, especially in Syria, where the protesters’ strength is growing by the day.

Yet the Obama administration has rejected this strategy. Why? For one, the immediate danger does not appear to justify such an elevated effort. The resistance bloc hardly constitutes a serious conventional threat; the danger is asymmetric.

In addition, the White House has made the Arab-Israeli peace process the organizing principle of its Middle East policy. Now, as the Obama administration has failed to make any headway in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Syrian track has grown in importance. Still, Syria recognizes Washington’s fervent desire for negotiations and see in it an opportunity to bargain, even as it covertly supports Hamas attacks against Israel.

As the United States seeks to build a new order in the Middle East, it is worth remembering what happened in the course of the last Arab revolution. Like Obama, President Dwight Eisenhower came to power intent on solving the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to line up the Arab world with the United States. Together with Britain, Eisenhower focused on brokering an Egyptian-Israeli agreement. Nasser, like Damascus today, played along, while simultaneously turning up the heat on the Israelis, working to oust the British, and sparking a region-wide revolution. By 1958, America’s position had grown so tenuous that Eisenhower felt compelled to send U.S. troops to Lebanon, lest one of the last overtly pro-U.S. regimes in the region fall to Nasser-inspired forces.

Although the resistance bloc may not be as influential as Nasser was, it is nevertheless poised to turn the turmoil of the region to the detriment of American interests. If Washington is to minimize the pain of the transition to a new order, it must remain focused, amid all the turmoil, on the sophisticated asymmetric threat that the resistance bloc presents.

Michael Scott Doran is a visiting professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University and a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense. A longer version of this article appears in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs.