War And Peace in the Middle East: A Critique of American Policy - Hardcover

Shlaim, Avi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670853305 ISBN 13: 9780670853304

Publisher: Whittle Books, 1994

Synopsis

Published in 1994 in hardback by Whittle Books (in association with Viking Penguin), this 147 page hardback volume is entitled 'War and Peace in the Middle East: A Critique of American Policy', written by Avi Shlaim. Chapters: Introduction; 1. The Post-Ottoman Syndrome; 2. Succeeding John Bull; 3. America Between Arabs and Israelis; 4. Realpolitik in the Gulf; 5. Tilting Toward Iraq; 6. Desert Shield and Desert Storm; 7. Madrid and After; 8. Pax Americana; Notes on Sources. About this book [from introduction]: Today, although the Cold War is over and although the Israel-PLO accord of September 13, 1993, marks the beginning of a new era in the century-old conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, the Middle East remains one of the most volatile subsystems of the international political system. To the Western observer, it frequently appears not merely unstable but irrational and unaccountably hostile, seething with political extremism and religious fanatacism. External involvement in Middle East affairs can be divided into four phases: the Ottoman, the European, the superpower, and the American. When European power was eclipsed post-Suez, the local states in the Middle East rose to independence influenced by the two new superpowers: the USSR and the USA, a phase which lasted from the 1950s to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, leaving the US dominant in world politics. Interestingly, Saddam Hussein was first to realise the implications and alerted his fellow Arabs to the dangers inherent in the new situation - that Russia's collapse would mean America becoming an unrivalled superpower in the Middle East; that if Arabs were not vigilant, everything including oil prices would be ruled by the United States. And so it was, post Iraq war, America emerged as the principal guardian of Gulf security. Having struggled against Western domination for most of the 20th Century, the Arab world was thrust back into a position of weakness, dependence and subservience

About this title

Product Description:

Shrewd, witty, and highly readable, this concise, accessible analysis by a professor of International Relations at Oxford surveys the volatile politics of the Middle East--and the role the United States and other great powers are playing in the region.

About the Author:

Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad in 1945, grew up in Israel, and studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. He is an emeritus fellow of St. Anthony's College and a former professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2006. His books include Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (winner of the Political Studies Association's 1988 WJM Mackenzie Book Prize); The Politics of Partition; War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History; and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.

About this edition

• Publisher: Whittle Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0670853305
• ISBN 13: 9780670853304
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160