The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East

Sieff, Martin

ISBN 10: 1433208253 ISBN 13: 9781433208256

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, 2008

Synopsis

Think all the trouble in the Middle East started with the birth of Israel? Guess again. In this informative, iconoclastic book, veteran foreign correspondent Martin Sieff offers a jaw-dropping survey of the history and politics of a region that people know surprisingly little about, even though it's never off the front pages of the newspapers. The mainstream media and Ivy League academics only confuse matters by casting everything in the usual politically correct mold: Arab terrorists are just desperate freedom fighters, and the region's one free democracy--Israel--is the oppressor, not least because of its alliance with America. And if Islamic extremism is a problem, the establishment tells us, it's only because it's rooted in that source of all evils: religion. A different strain of political correctness has seeped into some minds on the right--most notably the Bush administration, which, so ready to buy into the egalitarian myths we are all taught, believed that Western-style democracy could flourish anywhere. In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East, Sieff puts the lie to all these myths and cliches, giving you everything you need to know about the region to understand its past, its present, and its possible future. He explains, for example, how the British committed themselves to a Jewish homeland in Palestine because of an exaggerated belief in Zionism, why Arab-Israeli peace is impossible, why democracy and a Marshall Plan for the Middle East would only make things worse, and why Islamic fundamentalism isn't ancient, making it all the more dangerous.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Why most of what you think you know about the Middle East is wrong

The Middle East: a region that's almost never off the front pages, yet one most Americans know little about. The mainstream media and Ivy League academics only make matters worse by casting everything in the usual politically correct mold: Arab terrorists are just desperate freedom fighters, and the region's one free democracy--Israel--is the oppressor, not least because of its alliance with America. And if Islamic extremism is a problem, the establishment tells us, it's only because it's rooted in that source of all evils: religion. A different strain of political correctness has seeped into some minds on the right--most notably the Bush administration, which, so ready to buy into the egalitarian myths we are all taught, believed that Western-style democracy could flourish anywhere. Now, in The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Middle East, veteran Middle East correspondent Martin Sieff puts the lie to all these myths and clichés, giving you everything you need to know about the region to understand its past, its present, and its possible future. In The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Middle East, you'll learn:

* How, for three decades, the British supported parliamentary democracy throughout the Middle East, but it didn't work
* Why Britain's post-World War I Middle East policy was a comedy of errors and incompetence that soon escalated into tragedy
* Where America went wrong in Iraq: how U.S. policymakers vastly underestimated the intransigent, unsophisticated, and anti-Western nature of its competing communities
* How Saudi Arabia's security forces defeated al Qaeda--and why you never heard about it
* Why we'll miss the Arab dictators when they're gone
* How the Muslim nations of the Middle East took an irrevocable turn toward radical Islam not in the tenth century or after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in the thirteenth century--but in 1979
* How the Arab states openly declared their determination to prevent a Jewish state from being born in 1947--twenty years before the West Bank and Gaza were first occupied

The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Middle East is a bold first step toward facing the hard truths necessary for peace.

From the Back Cover

The Harsh Truth about the World's Roughest Neighborhood

Combine religion, race, the Cold War, America's enemies, and a history of colonialism, and you've got a breeding ground for the most virulent strains of politically correct mythology, distortions, and cover-ups. Welcome to the Middle East. In the Middle East, the cost of PC distortions can be measured in the lives of American soldiers, Iraqi civilians, Iranian dissidents, and Israeli Jews. Faith in the magic of democracy, a blind eye to the truth about Islam, and a fruitless search for terrorism's "root causes"--all of these PC delusions weaken America and draw out the violence there. The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Middle East is not an academic exercise; it is crucial reading for understanding the most important conflicts of our time.

The Middle East is always in the news, but have you heard:

* The Middle East was peaceful for centuries, thanks to the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
* There has never been separation of mosque and state: Islamic governments control religious leaders or are controlled by them.
* Ariel Sharon's security fence in Israel--a monument to political incorrectness--has saved hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli lives.
* Jimmy Carter's do-gooder meddling in the Middle East is to blame for Iran's Islamic Revolution.
* Oppressive Arab regimes like Saddam Hussein's took their guidance from leftist ideologues.
* Israel achieved peace with Egypt and Jordan through military might and a willingness to use it.
* Israel's greatest generals based their battle plans on the Old Testament.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1433208253
• ISBN 13: 9781433208256
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 7