The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “pivot” as “a movement in which the player holding the ball may move in any direction with one foot, while keeping the other (the pivot foot) in contact with the floor.”

In other words, even as you move in a new direction you don't abandon your existing position. This strategy makes good sense in the field of international diplomacy as well as on the basketball court. The term has been popularized by the Obama administration's intended reallocation of military and diplomatic resources to the Far East to address the rise of China, but it is also offers an instructive window into Washington's policy on Syria, where Washington is learning the hard way that it makes good sense to look before you leap.

Washington's policy toward Damascus was crafted in the heady days of the Arab Spring, when the breezy narrative of dramatic, decisive and relatively painless change captured the Western imagination. Toppling dictators — as in Tunisia and Egypt — appeared miraculously easy, almost painless, and was all for the good.  This assessment obscured more than it clarified about the nature of the changes in these places, and in Egypt in particular, where the power of existing security institutions was enhanced by removing President Hosni Mubarak from the apex of the pyramid of the deep state. 

In Egypt, even as it embraced change, Washington maintained ties with existing sources of power. Almost without knowing it, Washington was pivoting on the Arab spring. Where it did not, as in Libya and Syria, there was no relationship with the regime and its institutions to protect. In both cases, it has preferred to lead from behind.