Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II - Hardcover

Gardner, Lloyd C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1595584749 ISBN 13: 9781595584748

Publisher: The New Press, 2009

Synopsis

As American policy makers ponder a strategy for withdrawal from Iraq, one of our preeminent diplomatic historians uncovers the largely hidden story of how the United States got into the Middle East in the first place.

A breathtaking recovery of decisions taken, brazen motives, and backroom dealings,Three Kings is the first history of America’s efforts to supplant the British empire in the Middle East, during and following World War II. From F.D.R. to L.B.J.,this is the story of America’s scramble for political influence, oil concessions, and a new military presence based on airpower and generous American aid to shaky regimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq.

Marshaling new and revelatory evidence from the archives, Gardner deftly weaves together three decades of U.S. moves in the region, chronicling the early efforts to support and influence the Saudi regime (including the creation of Dhahran air base, the target of Osama bin Laden’s first terrorist attack in 1996), the CIA-engineered coup in Iran, Nasser’s Egypt, and, finally, the rise of Iraq as a major petroleum power.

Here, the tangled threads of oil, U.S. military might, Western commercial interests, and especially the Israel-Palestine question are visible from the very beginning of “The American Century”—a history with frightening relevance for the distant prospect of peace and stability in the region today.

About this title

About the Author

Lloyd C. Gardner is the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam. He lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

Reviews

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.)
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Since the withdrawal of British military forces after World War II, the U.S. has been the dominant outside power in the area. It is, however, debatable how and why that ascendancy evolved, and it also is unclear how much power the U.S. actually exerts to control events. In this absorbing and often provocative study, Professor Gardner asserts that this American “empire” was the result of a calculated, even cynical plan to dominate the region and its resources as British imperial power waned. Many scholars will, of course, dispute both his assumptions and conclusions. Still, this account is filled with informative and fascinating details, as American policymakers strive to deal with monarchs, Arab nationalists, and, always, Israeli-Arab hostility. Gardner’s views are hardly the final word on the topic, but they are a valuable contribution to our understanding of our still-deepening involvement in this region. --Jay Freeman

Edition details

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1595584749
• ISBN 13: 9781595584748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304