A Path Out of the Desert
A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“A persuasive but painful solution for dealing with the mess in the Middle East.” –Kirkus
The greatest danger to America’s peace and prosperity, notes leading Middle East policy analyst Kenneth M. Pollack, lies in the political repression, economic stagnation, and cultural conflict running rampant in Arab and Muslim nations. By inflaming political unrest and empowering terrorists, these forces pose a direct threat to America’s economy and national security. The impulse for America might be to turn its back on the Middle East in frustration over the George W. Bush administration’s mishandling of the Iraq War and other engagements with Arab and Muslim countries. But such a move, Pollack asserts, will only exacerbate problems. He counters with the idea that we must continue to make the Middle East a priority in our policy, but in a humbler, more humane, more realistic, and more cohesive way.
Pollack argues that Washington’s greatest sin in its relations with the Middle East has been its persistent unwillingness to make the sustained and patient effort needed to help the people of the Middle East overcome the crippling societal problems facing their governments and societies. As a result, the United States has never had a workable comprehensive policy in the region, just a skein of half-measures intended either to avoid entanglement or to contain the influence of the Soviet Union.
Beyond identifying the stagnation of civic life in Arab and Muslim states and the cumulative effect of our misguided policies, Pollack offers a long-term strategy to ameliorate the political, economic, and social problems that underlie the region’s many crises. Through his suggested policies, America can engage directly with the governments of the Middle East and indirectly with its people by means of cultural exchange, commerce, and other “soft” approaches. He carefully examines each of the region’s most contested areas, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and explains how the United States can address each through mutually reinforcing policies.
At a time when the nation will be facing critical decisions about our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, A Path Out of the Desert is guaranteed to stimulate debate about America’s humanitarian, diplomatic, and military involvement in the Middle East.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former CIA analyst Pollack (The Threatening Storm) has devised an eloquent argument in favor of long-term American involvement in Middle East politics, arguing that American security and prosperity is contingent upon an orderly and democratic Middle East. A self-professed "liberal internationalist," the author advocates sustained engagement rather than a foreign policy that has been characterized by "reluctance" and is consistently "episodic, tried on the cheap, and shortsighted." Pollack keeps his sweeping survey lucid and readable and is refreshingly frank with the reader ("let's not kid ourselves: America's first and most important interest in the Middle East is the region's oil exports"). This book provides a thorough if disheartening diagnosis of the region's ailments the burgeoning unemployment, poverty and population growth and analyzes how repressive governments, a hidebound education system and a self-serving bureaucracy have destroyed the region's potential for foreign investment. Pollack's "grand strategy" a decades-long commitment similar to the Marshall Plan to transform despotisms into democracies that promote economic expansion should stimulate animated and necessary debate and a recasting of America's role in the Middle East.