Obama and the Middle East
The End of America's Moment?
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A hard-hitting assessment of Obama's current foreign policy and a sweeping look at the future of the Middle East
The 2011 Arab Spring upended the status quo in the Middle East and poses new challenges for the United States. Here, Fawaz Gerges, one of the world's top Middle East scholars, delivers a full picture of US relations with the region. He reaches back to the post-World War II era to explain the issues that have challenged the Obama administration and examines the president's responses, from his negotiations with Israel and Palestine to his drawdown from Afghanistan and withdrawal from Iraq. Evaluating the president's engagement with the Arab Spring, his decision to order the death of Osama bin Laden, his intervention in Libya, his relations with Iran, and other key policy matters, Gerges highlights what must change in order to improve US outcomes in the region.
Gerges' conclusion is sobering: the United States is near the end of its moment in the Middle East. The cynically realist policy it has employed since World War II-continued by the Obama administration--is at the root of current bitterness and mistrust, and it is time to remake American foreign policy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The ever-shifting geopolitical, cultural, military, and religious dynamics of America's engagement with the Middle East is optimal ground for serious inquiry in this thoughtful examination of America's standing in the region. Gerges (The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda), chair of the Middle Eastern Center at the London School of Economics, deftly condenses many years from the Eisenhower Doctrine, to the origin of America's "special relationship" with Israel, to the Arab Spring into an easily digestible history rife with spot-on analysis. His historical investigation into America's mercurial relationships with the region's dictators e.g., in the case of Saddam Hussein, going from preventing a UN investigation into his use of chemical weapons to handing him over to the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which found him guilty of crimes against humanity is juxtaposed with an honest and thorough analysis of how President Obama "has shown no desire to alter the dominant foreign policy narrative on the Middle East." The book is a strong and informative primer on American involvement in the Middle East, but Gerges misses his chance to offer up concrete solutions, beyond positing that Obama must "take risks on people's aspirations for open and representative government" and "seize the moment and structurally reorient American foreign policy." Announced first printing: 50,000.
