I thought this book would be terrible going in to it, a Fox News version of the Middle East. It wasn't quite as bad as all that, but not something I would ever recommend to anyone. The book starts on the first page with Strawman fallacies about traditional right wing bogeymen "the left", "political correctness", and goes on to the media, academics, Michael Moore and so on.
This is clearly not an academic work. There are no footnotes, endnotes or a bibliography. The author never bothers to define what he means by PC, nor does he provide any examples. Basically, anything he disagrees with is "Politically Correct" or "liberal". Obnoxiously labelled side bars tell us about "Books You Aren't Supposed to Read", who is telling us not to read them again? What exactly did the media do that is so dastardly? The whole thing is laced with strawmen about all the same tired targets of right wing attacks. Bleargh.
The main argument of the book is that the Middle East was better off under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which kept the people ignorant and standards of living low. But at least there was stability. The main watchword here seems to be stability. But again, he never bothers to tell us what he means by stability. The author also dismisses those who would blame the West for the problems of the Middle East, but then goes on to detail all the blunders made by Churchill dividing up the Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Conference. If he wanted to claim that the West is partially responsible that might make sense. But he tells us that A. The West is not responsible at all and B. Here's all the ways that England screwed up the Middle East.
There are other contradictions, he decries Middle Eastern countries turning to socialist style governments, but never mentions how socialistic Israel is (Israel has something like 10% private land ownership). Egypt's army during the Yom Kippur war is described as being "poorly trained" in one section, but described as well trained in another. Despite admonishing Arab regimes for following western trends, the author chides the Shah for not following more free-market policies. He blames Carter for "losing Iran". Losing it? To who? The Iranians? For shame they should take over their own country! And yes, the Ayatollah hated us, maybe because we destroyed their last government?
He freely describes Saddam's atrocities, but then forgives Reagan for supporting him, by comparing American support for Saddam to the Allied support for Stalin during WW2 against Nazi Germany. Key differences for that analogy include the fact that the Allies, including Russia, had all been militarily attacked by the Axis powers. Nazi Germany had in fact declared war on America and was actively trying to take over Europe and Africa. And their partner had attacked Pearl Harbor. Iran, on the other hand, attacked no one. There were hostages taken, yes. And for that we should sponsor Saddam to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians?
A better analogy would be if Japan had never attacked the US, and after Operation Barbarossa we threw our support 100% behind Hitler. Like the USSR, Iran was our ideological enemy we had interfered with decades before, but that currently posed no real threat. Hitler, like Saddam, liked filling mass graves full of innocent people. But Saddam was ok for that period, because he supported stability.
This mysterious stability never really gets defined. We learn that Assad under Syria is acceptable because he promoted stability, despite his massacres against his own people, with up to 50,000 or more innocents dead. Apparently stability does not include peace, otherwise tens of thousands of dead innocents would seem to discount it. Stability seems to be code word for "Supporting American Interests", or at the very least, not opposing them actively.
There is a chapter on the occupation of Iraq, where we learn that George Bush is an idealistic liberal do-gooder. The author dismisses out of hand any concept of Bush invading Iraq for anything other than an intense love of human freedom. The fact that his first adventure into spreading beloved, sweet, delicious freedom happened to be in the most strategically important area of the world seems to be a wacky coincidence. Bush Jr's main fault then, is that he just loves freedom too much! Much better books have been written about the invasion of Iraq, including Fiasco, No End in Sight and Imperial Life in the Emerald City.
The author repeatedly disparages the idea of Middle Eastern democracy outside of Israel, but does note that Iran under a moderate, Khatami, wanted to make peace with America. America spurned him, and a hardliner took over. If democracy is so untenable, how did such a nice guy end up in charge of Iran? If the US had taken a stance other than "Always act like an asshole to Iran, no matter what" Khatami may have gotten some of his reforms done. Or at the very least, Ahmadinejad might not be in power now.
Israel is presented as an unabashed force for good. The history provided is largely dealing with their Wars, the actual plight of Palestinians or Arabs inside Israel is given almost no mention. Any massacres or atrocities carried out be Israel or their proxies goes unmentioned. The invasions of Lebanon are almost completely skipped over, except for one mention which he blames on Jimmy Carter. If Carter had not forced Israel and Egypt to come to a peace agreement, the two countries would still have their armies staring at each other over the Sinai, and thus Israel would not have been able to invade Southern Lebanon. Thus, the Israeli-Lebanon war was Jimmy Carter's fault.
Saudi Arabia is held up as the ideal agent to introduce peace and stability, and although there are certainly worse countries, there are certainly a lot better. Saudi Arabia has problems with poverty, slavery, women's rights and actively promotes extremism around the world.But democracy is always worse, we're assured.
The author seems to know his history for the most part, but is way too caught up in dissing on right wing targets in strawman attacks, and goes by the annoying habit of calling anyone who does anything he disagrees with "liberal." Oh yeah, Henry Kissinger, renown war criminal, is hailed as a genius.
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