American Middle East Policy: Pragmatism or Fata Morgana?

Students of Middle East history know that instability in the Middle East did not originate with the Cold War, but this worldwide conflict contributed to the perpetuation of earlier tensions in the region, at the same time as it fueled new rivalries and conflicts. The early Cold War was characterized by tension between Arabs and Israelis, revolutionary governments and conservative monarchies, nationalists and extra-regional powers, and efforts by the two superpowers to increase their influence in the region. The later period of the Cold War brought the superpowers closer to a direct confrontation, as a result of intensifying Arab-Israeli tension, Israel's acquisition of nuclear capability, and superpower machinations. Two new works aim at shedding light on the role of the United States in the Middle East during the superpower conflict. The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East by Roy Takeyh and Steven Simon examines U.S. policies toward the Middle East from the perspective of high politics, with the title containing the book's main argument in a nutshell. The second book is America's Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State by Osama. F. Khalil. In this work the author focuses on a little studied subject—the interrelationship between American knowledge production about the Middle East, academia, and U.S. policies toward the region. As in the case of the first work, the title provides a clear indication of the book's main argument—the close relationship between formulation of U.S. foreign policy and academic scholarship and other expertise on the Middle East. Both studies complement one another since they examine two different aspects of the Cold War and draw different conclusions regarding U.S. policies toward the region.

The authors of The Pragmatic Superpower are well qualified to take on the complex and difficult task of assessing American foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East during the Cold War. Both authors have an academic background and have served in the Department of State. Takeyh and Simon examine ten crises which had the potential to grow into serious regional conflicts or even confrontations between superpowers. The chapters are evenly split between the early- and late-Cold War, with the Six-Day War of 1967 serving as the chronological dividing line. Unlike early scholarship on the Cold War, which was frequently preoccupied with assigning blame for the conflict to the Soviet Union, later succeeded by a trend to reexamine superpower tension and advance the argument that the United States played a much more prominent role in causing friction between the two superpowers, Takeyh and Simon have adopted an innovative approach to the Cold War. They treat it as a learning process illustrated by the ability of American administrations to change or rectify policies which did not produce the desired result. This ability to adapt and adjust—styled "pragmatism" by the authors—has led them to conclude that American administrations achieved their stated objective of denying Soviet leaders control of Middle Eastern natural resources and minds. Furthermore, this conclusion yields the concomitant argument that U.S. policy in the region during the Cold War was successful and amounted to making the right decisions, which, according to Takeyh and Simon, includes the recognition of the state of Israel in 1948 (p. 49). Both conclusions without doubt deserve further examination.

Many scholars in the field are more critical of U.S. Cold War policies than Takeyh and Simon. One example is Ervand Abrahamian, who notes in his The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian relations (2013), that it was the efforts of American and British oil companies to secure oil concessions in northern...