Gardner (Pay Any Price
) finds the roots of a fractured and turbulent Middle East in American machinations in the decades following WWII. He begins with the Truman Doctrine, whose goal of Soviet containment focused American power designs in the Middle East and whose parsing of strategic interests as a “global ideological struggle” enabled an “imperial presidency” and the vast allocation of military spending—hallmarks of 21st-century American foreign policy. Rather than plodding through successive American presidencies and their attendant policies, Gardner homes in on two key events in U.S.–Middle East relations—the 1952 Egyptian revolution and the 1979 Iranian oil crisis—and keeps his readers rapt and focused on the current relevance of these episodes. He weaves together anecdotes, congressional hearings and historical accounts to illustrate how the U.S.'s carefully pursued aim of creating a “sphere of influence” in the Middle East has fomented the unrest in Iran, a fraught Saudi reign and the Israel-Palestine crisis. An erudite, persuasively argued and lucid primer for both the layperson and the expert. (Nov.)
