The Pragmatic Superpower ─ Winning the Cold War in the Middle East

The Arab Spring, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Iraq war— the contemporary conflicts in the Middle East have deep roots in the region’s postwar emergence from colonialism.Foreign policy experts Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon reframe the legacy of midcentury U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Cutting against conventional wisdom, the authors argue that when an inexperienced Washington entered turbulent Middle Eastern politics, it succeeded. Eyes ever on its global conflict with the Soviet Union, America shrewdly navigated the rise of Arab nationalism, the founding of Israel, and seminal conflicts including the Suez War and the Iranian revolution. By the early 1990s, America had emerged as a stabilizing influence while successfully promoting its own strategic interests.A vital reexamination of a time when the United States got it right, The Pragmatic Superpower sheds new light on the makings of the contemporary Middle East and provides an indispensable guide to its challenges today.