كاتب امريكى مرموق إلا ان صهيونته قضت على حياديته، فمن اول فصل و هو يتمعن في التركيز على نقائض العرب و بربريتهم و يجعل منها صفات اصيلة في شخصيتهم نتيجة لدينهم المتعصب.
فعرب شمال إفريقيا همج و بربر و يتاخذون من البيض عبيد و قراصنة، العثمانيون همج ماديون و يضطهدون الأقليات مع التركيز على ما يدعى مذابح الأرمن دون الأخذ في الاعتبار خيانة الأقليات للاتراك في الحرب العالمية الاولى، فهو يدافع عن الأرمن طول الخط.
تخرج من الكتاب بعدة نقاط :
1- عكس الإنجليز و الفرنسيس الأمريكان يؤمنون بالتبشير بدينهم أما عن طريق إنشاء مدارس او علاقات تجارية.
2- التبشير لن ينجح في بلاد العرب فحتى مسيحى الشرق بقوا على مارونيتهم او ارذوزكيتهم.
3- غالبية مبعوثى الشرق الأوسط يهود لأن الأمريكان مقتنعون بحياديتهم بما أنهم ليسوا مسيحيون او مسلمون.
4- النفط النفط هو أساس العلاقات العربية الأمريكية.
5- الصهيونية و المال اليهودى محرك اساسى و عامل ضغط يظهر واضحا في اى قرار ضد اسرائيل.
6- عرب امريكا كغثاء السيل لا قيمة اقتصادية او حتى اجتماعية.
7- العرب خانوا الدولة العثمانية و لورانس العرب قائد التقسيم و توزيع البلاد.
8- لا يغير الله قوم حتى يغيروا ما بانفسهم.
9- العرب أهل شقاق و نفاق و بلاد صراعات.
10- الاقتصادية معيار للقوة.
و اخيرا كتاب حرب الأيام الست يوم كيبور يعتبر جزء ثان للكتاب

This was a great read. It's interesting, well-written, and engaging. Although I'm not one for such loose frameworks, his "faith, power, fantasy" approach does help elucidate some of the contradictions of American involvement in the Middle East. That said, I would (of course) love to see it made more rigorous. Aside from a few minor errors (the ones I noticed were in the single paragraph where Mormons entered the story. Towards the end, as he's dealing with Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, it feels a little slapdash. It might have been better if he had just let it end with the 80s or something. I also know just enough about Middle Eastern history to know that some of his claims, such as the argument that the CIA played an active role in Nasser's 1952, is debatable, although I am eager to look at the evidence he presents.

A beautifully written book on America's role in the middle-east. From 1776 to Iraq war - the days of the missionaries spreading Christianity in the region, Barbry wars with Algeria to some unscrupulous things in Iran.

This was a fascinating book! Here are just a few thoughts I had about this incredible book:

1. I was appalled by the Armenian massacres. It was disturbing that the Turks were focused on genocide and their killing methods seemed to be a chilling precursor to the Jewish Holocaust. (such as Armenians packed into railroad boxcars and deported to execution sites). As an ally of Turkey during the First World War, Germany would have known of these things. They also would have witnessed the rest of the western world, while horrified by the brutality of the massacres, refusing to get involved in stopping the killings.

2. I was surprised at the huge amount of interest that Christian missionary thought had over American policies in the Middle East, especially in the State Department. It was also surprising to see how many important people were influenced more by One Thousand and One Arabian Nights than with reality when dealing with the Middle East. It's no wonder our government had so many difficulties in that region!

Listened to this book on CD

When I saw the title of this book “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present” by Michael Oren, I felt this book would help me understand the current issues in the Middle East and the United States role. Even with all of the news and problems with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and the conflict between Israel and Palestinian people, I felt that I knew very little about the region, their culture, and their beliefs. Therefore, I thought this book would help me know the Middle East better and its relationship with the United States.

This large, comprehensive history book documents the relationship between the United States and the Middle East for over 200 years. It documents not only the government relationship but also the relationship of individual Americans and Middle Eastern people. The book sequentially goes through time and describes the significant Power, military and government relations and conflicts; Faith, religious relations and conflicts; and Fantasy, relations and conflicts that arose from misconceptions about the Middle East and its people.

This book is so comprehensive and detailed that it is impossible to give an account of all of the facts I learned from reading it, but I will list just a few that I learned:
•The United States and the Middle East have been in some kind of conflict for most of the last two centuries from dealing with the Barbary Coast pirates, who were disrupting US trade with the area, to Civil War veterans who helped in establishing Egypt’s military force, to the modern wars with Iraq and Afghanistan.
•Christian missionaries have had very little success in converting Middle East Muslims to Christianity which led the missionaries to move away from direct proselyting activities and towards more humanitarian efforts such as building schools to teach the children and slowly convert them to western philosophy and religion.
•During the United States Civil War, Egypt became the leading producer of cotton and expanded its production capabilities drastically. When the Civil War was concluded and the South was able to start abundantly producing cotton again it was able to produce cheaper cotton which completely devastated the Egyptian economy.
•It was of interest to me that for the first century or more that many of the American beliefs toward the Middle East were based upon the fiction story, “1001 Arabian Nights”.
•New York City has an obelisk that was transported from Egypt to the city so that it could match London with its Egyptian obelisk. The obelisk in New York City is called “Cleopatra’s Needle”.

I recommend this book to those who would like to better understand the role the United States has played in the Middle East for over two centuries. Also, this book is valuable to help one understand the people, culture, and religion of that area.

the wild Amazone

Publishers Weekly

In this engaging if unbalanced survey, the author of the acclaimed Six Days of War finds continuity in U.S. relations with the Middle East from the early 19th-century war against the Barbary pirates to today's Iraq war.

As America's power grew, he contends, strategic considerations became complicated by the region's religious significance, especially to the Protestant missionaries whose interests drove U.S. policy in the 19th century and who championed a Jewish state in Palestine long before the Zionist movement took up that cause.

Meanwhile, Oren notes, Americans' romantic fantasies about the Muslim world (as expressed in Mideast-themed movies) have repeatedly run aground on stubborn, squalid realities, most recently in the Iraq fiasco. Oren dwells on the pre-WWII era, when U.S.-Mideast relations were of little significance.

The postwar period, when these relations were central to world affairs, gets shoehorned into 127 hasty pages, and the emphasis on continuity gives short shrift to the new and crucial role of oil in U.S. policy making.

Oren's treatment views this history almost entirely through American eyes; the U.S. comes off as usually well intentioned and idealistic, if often confused and confounded by regional complexities.

Oren's is a fluent, comprehensive narrative of two centuries of entanglement, but it's analytically disappointing.

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Booklist

This engrossing, informative, and frequently surprising survey of U.S. involvement in the Middle East over the past 230 years is particularly timely. Oren, a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and New Republic, illustrates that American interests have frequently combined elements of romanticism, religious fervency, and hardheaded power politics.

In the early nineteenth century, President Jefferson, perhaps acting against his own instincts to remain aloof from the affairs of the Old World, sent the infant American navy to confront the Barbary pirates off the coast of North Africa. Like many of our future endeavors in the region, the results were a mixture of success, failure, and farce.

Other episodes covered here that are particularly interesting include previously obscure American efforts to locate the source of the Nile and the efforts by American missionaries to convert vast numbers of Ottoman subjects.

But Oren is at his best when describing American involvement in the twentieth century as the U.S. replaced Britain as the dominant "imperial" power in the area.

Appealing to both scholars and general readers.

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So far, incredibly enlightening... to say the least. America's involvement with the Islamic world didn't begin with modern experiences of Terrorism. Our first military actions after establishing independence were largely against the "barbary pirates"... and that involvement was a major factor in convincing the newly independent colonies to establish a unified, federal power structure that could produce, maintain, and deploy an effective military force to deal with forces that were antagonistic to America's interests.

Of course, that is but only one part of Oren's theme.. Faith and Fantasy are the others. Faith, in that, a large part of America's involvement in the middle east was missionary in nature.... to bring enlightenment to the unwashed masses (not just religious, but also civic and political)... and Fantasy. Apparently, after the Bible, the Arabian Nights was the second most read book by Americans throughout much of the 18th and 19th centuries. The myth, however, and the reality of the middle east to the missionary, the tourist, the soldier, or the ambassador were so often at odds.

This is a great book so far. I just finished the section on antebellum through reconstruction America.... and look forward to the next half of the book.

I often find historical and/or archeological books to be written either in a condescending style or in such a dry, scholarly tome that I am disinclined to finish them. Michael Oren’s book, however, is written with a comfortable authority, in style that kept me engaged from beginning to end. The history is fascinating. The content puts into context much what we currently see happening in and to Iran. I feel I came away from the book with some idea of Iran’s perspective as well as a deeper understanding of the West’s perspective.

I had no idea how much entanglements in the Middle East have affected the U.S. since the very beginning. I also had no idea that the U.S. hasn't been an unqualified menace to the region, as seems to be the perception in popular culture.

Thoroughly researched book that takes a deep dive into US involvement in the Middle East and how some of our actions are often repeated. I had a general sense of Middle East history post-WWI but next to nothing before then, so this was a very useful read in having a better understanding of our actions in the region for hundreds of years. I enjoyed learning about the older history of some of the places I have visited in the region and learning that the melody of the Star Spangled banner was inspired by conflicts in the North African region in the late 1700s or that the idea of the Statue of Liberty was initially conceptualized as an Egyptian woman to be erected at the entrance of the Suez Canal. The author speeds through the last 40 years or so, which I would have enjoyed more of. However, I thought his subtle predictions to future conflicts in the region beyond the publication date of this book that have somewhat come to pass paralleled with several U S policies he described throughout the 600 pages.

Excellent read. Gave me a great understanding of how Modern Israel became a state.

Innocence Abroad

A superb overview of American involvement in the Middle East from the start of the Republic up to the year of publication (2007). In severing its ties with Great Britain, revolutionary America lost British protection in the Mediterranean from Barbary pirate states situated on the North African coast who preyed on ships, confiscated their cargo and enslaved and ransomed their crews. Failing to obtain the protection of France and other European partners, America acquiesced to the European mode of paying tribute, which rankled Thomas Jefferson sufficiently to create a US Navy strong enough to counter the threat, albeit the trade being protected consisted largely of opium, rum and slaves.

By the 1830s the French had occupied Algeria and the threat of piracy had largely subsided. While Philo Hellenic Americans recalling an ancient golden age supported Greek secession from the Ottoman union, the US itself focused on expanding trade, selling 12 battleships to the Porte in exchange for diplomatic standing (pp116). While odd by today's outlook, quite a number of America's diplomatic envoys to the Muslim world were Jews, the perception that Jews, being from the middle east originally, made a natural bridge between the Christian and Muslim world, even though Jews in Middle Eastern societies, as multiple sources cited relate, were poorly treated . Nevertheless they were seen as Americans, and were generally successful in defending and promoting America's interests abroad.

Pertaining to Oren's theme of "Faith", the book describes early American fervor for Zionism based on Restorationist interpretations of the Bible, even before it was popular amongst Jews. Drawing on Jefferson's belief that all nations required an agrarian base (pp145) several ill prepared Christian Restorationist groups tried to establish farming communes in Palestine with the hope of attracting Jews to the land, foreshadowing the principles of the kibbutz movement. A more prevalent pattern in the Levant was that of American missionaries to proselytize locals to accept conversion to Protestantism. Governing officials made it clear that Muslims were off limits, and the success rate amongst Christians and Jews was exceedingly low. As the Coptic Patriarch remarked (pp214) "We had the Gospel before America was born. We don't need you to teach us." Instead American missionaries in competition with similar outreach from French Jesuits and the Russian Orthodox Church, tried building schools to teach literacy and westernized culture. While not successful in exporting their religion they were able to instill in their students many of the "secular notions of patriotism, republicanism and the preservation of individual liberties" (pp217), setting a latter tone for the rise of modern nationalism throughout the region.

A surprising subject was the effect of the US Civil War on the Middle East, particularly Egypt. Prior to 1860 Egyptian cotton production could not compete in Europe against the higher yields and lower costs of slave labour employed by American farmers. However the Northern blockade of Confederate shipping proved to be a boom for Egypt which saw sales and prices skyrocket. The major benefactor was Egypt's Khedive Isma'il who had become the largest private landowner in Egypt. Much of the income was targeted at building long term public projects such as irrigation systems, palace, a westernized parliamentary assembly, thoroughfares and equipping the army. One such project was the commissioning of a large statue of an Egyptian peasant woman holding aloft a torch symbolizing freedom. However when US production came online again in 1865 the prices for cotton crashed and with it the economic basis for modernization. (The French designer and architect of the statue repurposed it as the New York Statue of Liberty - pp269). A second side effect of the war ending was that the international market was flooded with surplus war materiel, which not only found eager buyers throughout the Middle East but complemented American reputation for technical innovation. The middle east also found use for another surplus of the war, former soldiers.

Two highpoints of the latter part of the book were the American response to the Armenian Genocide (Ch17-18) and the advice offered to Woodrow Wilson (Ch 19) and Harry S Truman leading up to the decision to recognize the Jewish State of Israel in 1948 (Ch 21). With respect to the emerging Oren manages to show that the US was largely seen anti-colonial power and a counterbalance to European imperialism. Washington was rarely of one mind as to how this could be accomplished, and while rejecting both French and English imperial designs, in the post WW I era she needed their alliance to oppose first Nazi and then Soviet expansion. One example of this was 1942's Operation Torch in Algeria where the Americans, after taking the country, made a deal keeping the Vichy leadership in charge, their Nuremberg style intact. Another was how to respond to Arab threats as a reaction to Israel. In truth there was little to fear as the Arabs were more in need of America's superior technical skills and financial markets than the reverse and US assistance had arguably far fewer strings attached than the alternatives.

The book's narrative succeeds marvelously in bringing history to life with many nice touches such as relevant references to popular American culture in each era, and heartwarming biographical sketches. There's also a comprehensive set of notes and full bibliography at the back. It's a delightful read that successfully unfolds America's emergence onto the international arena.

Recommended!