U.S. Involvement in the Middle East PDF Download

Author: Debra A. Miller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781590184943
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
Describes United States involvement in the Middle East during the 20th century and first years of the 21st century.

Author: Joel S. Migdal
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231536348
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
Joel S. Migdal revisits the approach U.S. officials have adopted toward the Middle East since World War II, which paid scant attention to tectonic shifts in the region. After the war, the United States did not restrict its strategic model to the Middle East. Beginning with Harry S. Truman, American presidents applied a uniform strategy rooted in the country's Cold War experience in Europe to regions across the globe, designed to project America into nearly every corner of the world while limiting costs and overreach. The approach was simple: find a local power that could play Great Britain's role in Europe after the war, sharing the burden of exercising power, and establish a security alliance along the lines of NATO. Yet regional changes following the creation of Israel, the Free Officers Coup in Egypt, the rise of Arab nationalism from 1948 to 1952, and, later, the Iranian Revolution and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty in 1979 complicated this project. Migdal shows how insufficient attention to these key transformations led to a series of missteps and misconceptions in the twentieth century. With the Arab uprisings of 2009 through 2011 prompting another major shift, Migdal sees an opportunity for the United States to deploy a new, more workable strategy, and he concludes with a plan for gaining a stable foothold in the region.

Author: Michael Shally-Jensen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781642653991
Category : Arab-Israeli conflict
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
"Defining Documents in American History: U.S. Involvement in the Middle East offers in-depth analysis of 64 primary source documents at the foundation of the study of United States involvement in conflicts in the Middle East. The Middle East and the United States have had a complex relationship since the early 1800s, especially as it relates to the conflicts and wars that the region has experienced in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The United States has engaged in military and covert operations throughout the Middle East in an effort to protect its own strategic interests, maintain access to oil resources, settle rivalries, and prevent the spread of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The documents in this volume of the Defining Documents series provide an overview of the turbulent history and current state of U.S. relations with the Middle East. The primary source documents include book excerpts, speeches, political debates, testimony, court rulings, legal texts, legislative acts, essays, newspaper articles, and interviews. These selections trace the role and complex history of U.S. involvement in the conflicts in the Middle East in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The material is organized into five sections, and each section begins with a brief introduction that examines the politics and policies of the United States and the Middle East through a variety of historical documents. Colonialism and the Transition to U.S. Influence includes documents from the years 1896-1957 that track the history of conflicts in the Middle East as a time when most of the area had been under direct or indirect foreign rule, nationalist forces arose, including Theodor Herzl's call for a Jewish state; Truman's Statement on Immigration into Palestine; and Gamal Abder Nasser on the Nationalization of the Suez Canal. Arab Voices in Oppression includes documents that trace the evolution of Islam in the region (1744-1977) such as The Saud Family and Wahhabi Islam, Sayyid Qutb on Jihad, and the Palestinian National Charter. Late Twentieth-Century Wars and Peace Accords begins with UN Security Council Resolution 242 on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and includes Camp David Accords, a report and analysis of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, and Muhammad Qutb on the Origins of Islam. 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq is the most extensive section, covering a period of time from 1996-2013 and includes such pivotal documents in the relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East such as Osama bin-Laden's' Declaration of Jihad against the Americans, Colin Powel on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, "Mission to Niger" and the Valerie Plame Affair, The Zelikow Memo, and President Obama's Remarks on the Killing of Osama bin Laden. Arab Spring, ISIS, and After, which takes us from 2011 to the present, with documents such as Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi; Donald Trump's "Muslim Ban" Speech; and "U.S. Gov't Misled Public About Afghan War." Each Historical Document is supported by a critical essay, written by historians and teachers, that includes a Summary Overview, Defining Moment, About the Author, Document Analysis, and Essential Themes. An important feature of each essay is a close reading of the primary source that develops broader themes, such as the author's rhetorical purpose, social or class position, point of view, and other relevant issues. Each essay also includes a Bibliography Further Reading section for additional readings and research. Appendixes in this book include: Chronological List which arranges all documents by year ; Web Resources, an annotated list of websites that offer valuable supplemental resources ; Bibliography lists of helpful articles and books for further study." --

Author: Peter L. Hahn
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597973475
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Although it seems almost incredible today, the United States had relatively little interest in the Middle East before 1945. But the dynamics and outcome of World War II elevated the importance of the Middle East in the American mind, and the United States has viewed the region with vital interest to its security and economy ever since. The projection of American power into the region has had consequences that have forever changed the United States and the Middle East, with the rise of al Qaeda and the turbulent occupation of Iraq being the latest examples. Crisis and Crossfire surveys and analyzes the broad contours of U.S. involvement in the region. It probes the reasons why the United States implemented various policies and assesses the wisdom of American leaders as they accepted greater responsibilities for preserving stability and security in the Middle East. Major themes include U.S.-Middle East policy in the context of the Cold War, the rise of Arab and Iranian nationalism, decolonization, the U.S. approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the politics of Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and America's military interventions, particularly its two wars against Iraq. This book's concise narrative and selection of primary-source documents make it an ideal introduction to U.S.-Middle East relations for students and for anyone with an interest in understanding the history behind today's events.

Author: Andrew J. Bacevich
Publisher:
ISBN: 0553393936
Category : Middle East
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
A critical assessment of America's foreign policy in the Middle East throughout the past four decades evaluates and connects regional engagements since 1990 while revealing their massive costs.

Author: Bruce Riedel
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815737351
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Find out about the 1958 U.S. intervention that succeeded and apply those lessons to today's conflicts in the Middle East In July 1958, U.S. Marines stormed the beach in Beirut, Lebanon, ready for combat. They were greeted by vendors and sunbathers. Fortunately, the rest of their mission—helping to end Lebanon's first civil war—went nearly as smoothly and successfully, thanks in large part to the skillful work of American diplomats who helped arrange a compromise solution. Future American interventions in the region would not work out quite as well. Bruce Riedel's new book tells the now-forgotten story (forgotten, that is, in the United States) of the first U.S. combat operation in the Middle East. President Eisenhower sent the Marines in the wake of a bloody coup in Iraq, a seismic event that altered politics not only of that country but eventually of the entire region. Eisenhower feared that the coup, along with other conspiracies and events that seemed mysterious back in Washington, threatened American interests in the Middle East. His action, and those of others, were driven in large part by a cast of fascinating characters whose espionage and covert actions could be grist for a movie. Although Eisenhower's intervention in Lebanon was unique, certainly in its relatively benign outcome, it does hold important lessons for today's policymakers as they seek to deal with the always unexpected challenges in the Middle East. Veteran analyst Bruce Reidel describes the scene as it emerged six decades ago, and he suggests that some of the lessons learned then are still valid today. A key lesson? Not to rush to judgment when surprised by the unexpected. And don't assume the worst.

Author: Ray Takeyh
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285561
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
A bold reexamination of U.S. influence in the Middle East during the Cold War. The Arab Spring, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Iraq war, and the Syrian civil war—these contemporary conflicts have deep roots in the Middle East’s postwar emergence from colonialism. In The Pragmatic Superpower, foreign policy experts Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon reframe the legacy of U.S. involvement in the Arab world from 1945 to 1991 and shed new light on the makings of the contemporary Middle East. Cutting against conventional wisdom, the authors argue that, when an inexperienced Washington entered the turbulent world of Middle Eastern politics, it succeeded through hardheaded pragmatism—and secured its place as a global superpower. Eyes ever on its global conflict with the Soviet Union, America shrewdly navigated the rise of Arab nationalism, the founding of Israel, and seminal conflicts including the Suez War and the Iranian revolution. Takeyh and Simon reveal that America’s objectives in the region were often uncomplicated but hardly modest. Washington deployed adroit diplomacy to prevent Soviet infiltration of the region, preserve access to its considerable petroleum resources, and resolve the conflict between a Jewish homeland and the Arab states that opposed it. The Pragmatic Superpower provides fascinating insight into Washington’s maneuvers in a contest for global power and offers a unique reassessment of America’s cold war policies in a critical region of the world. Amid the chaotic conditions of the twenty-first century, Takeyh and Simon argue that there is an urgent need to look back to a period when the United States got it right. Only then will we better understand the challenges we face today.

Author: Martin Indyk
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101947543
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 689

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Book Description
A perceptive and provocative history of Henry Kissinger's diplomatic negotiations in the Middle East that illuminates the unique challenges and barriers Kissinger and his successors have faced in their attempts to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. “A wealth of lessons for today, not only about the challenges in that region but also about the art of diplomacy . . . the drama, dazzling maneuvers, and grand strategic vision.”—Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk—a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013—has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand. Now, in an attempt to understand the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East, he returns to the origins of American-led peace efforts and to the man who created the Middle East peace process—Henry Kissinger. Based on newly available documents from American and Israeli archives, extensive interviews with Kissinger, and Indyk's own interactions with some of the main players, the author takes readers inside the negotiations. Here is a roster of larger-than-life characters—Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Hafez al-Assad, and Kissinger himself. Indyk's account is both that of a historian poring over the records of these events, as well as an inside player seeking to glean lessons for Middle East peacemaking. He makes clear that understanding Kissinger's design for Middle East peacemaking is key to comprehending how to—and how not to—make peace.

Author: Michael B. Oren
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393341526
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1178

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Book Description
“Will shape our thinking about America and the Middle East for years.”—Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Power, Faith, and Fantasytells the remarkable story of America's 230-year relationship with the Middle East. Drawing on a vast range of government documents, personal correspondence, and the memoirs of merchants, missionaries, and travelers, Michael B. Oren narrates the unknown story of how the United States has interacted with this vibrant and turbulent region.

Author: Lawrence Freedman
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458768317
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 630

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Book Description
It is in the Middle East that the U.S. has been made to confront its attitudes on the use of force, the role of allies, and international law. The history of the U.S. in the Middle East, then, becomes an especially revealing mirror on America's view of its role in the wider world. In this wise, objective, and illuminating history, Lawrence Freedman shows how three key events in 1978-1979 helped establish the foundations for U.S. involvement in the Middle East that would last for thirty years, without offering any straightforward or bloodless exit options: the Camp David summit leading to the Israel-Egypt Treaty; the Iranian Islamic revolution leading to the Shah's departure followed by the hostage crisis; and the socialist revolution in Afghanistan, resulting in the doomed Soviet intervention. Drawing on his considerable expertise, Freedman makes clear how America's strategic choices in those and subsequent crises led us to where we are today.