Professor Khalil specializes in U.S. foreign relations, modern Middle Eastern history, the Cold War, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in Middle Eastern history and international relations.

Khalil is the author of America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State (Harvard University Press, 2016), which examines the influence of U.S. foreign policy on the origins and expansion of Middle East studies and expertise from World War I to the Global War on Terror. It was reviewed widely, including in the London Review of Books,ÌýAl Ahram,ÌýPublishers Weekly, the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence,ÌýCommonweal, and was named by Foreign Affairs as a Best Book of 2017. He has also been a frequent media commentator and contributor, including for the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, Al Akhbar,Ìý²¹²Ô»åÌýAl Jazeera.