Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present

Reading

This was read from about 04/25/07 to 05/15/07. This book was from the library.

Review

This is a history book, which is quite long, and includes the history of the contact between the United States and the Middle East. The first contact was the Barbary Pirates, beginning from 1776. This book points to the pirates as part of the reason the United States decided to abandon the Articles of Confederation and create a Constitution. That is, the worry was that the Barbary Pirates could eventually (soon) land in the United States, and then just pick the States off one at a time.

When the United States was new it was very small and weak. The Barbary Pirates, which demanded tribute from all the European nations. Before 1776, the United States was covered under the tribute paid by Great Britain, but after 1776 the United States was expected to pay its tribute as well. At first they did, but the tribute was so high that the United States couldn't afford it. There were several ships that were captured, with the passengers held for ransom.

The United States, therefore, couldn't pay, so the Tripoli declared war on the United States. This was the first war after the Revolution. In fact, the war did not go well since the United States had no Navy, therefore they had to build a few ships just to get to the Barbary Pirates. The pirates captured several of these, including the biggest ship the United States had, the Philadelphia. The pirates were going to use this ship to attack the United States, but the United States send a smaller ship in, and sank it in the Tripoli harbor.

Finally, one guy, I think he was a diplomat, really, got a force together of Bedouins, Egyptians, and mercenaries, marched them 500 miles across the Sahara desert, then attacked a small town outside Tripoli (after offering friendship first). The town was taken, and held when Tripoli attacked. Therefore, Tripoli offered a much lower ransom, so the United States paid, and it was over.

Then came the war of 1812. This time, the United States faced Great Britain alone, and the pirates thought this would weaken the United States, therefore, they began attacking U.S. shipping. However, the United States gained a lot of respect because they withstood alone against Britain. In fact, the United States was stronger in some respects after the war than before. For one thing, the United States captured a British ship of the line, the biggest war ship of its day. Then when the pirates demanded ransom, the United States sailed the ship of the line into Tripoli harbor, with something like 150 guns. Then they negotiated ransom. In the end, the hostages were released, and Tripoli paid the United States money, maybe $10,000. (This ended the Barbary Pirates. When it came time for Britain to pay, the citizens were upset because the United States didn't have to pay, so the Britain repeated the approach used by the United States. Similarly with France, except France actually occupied the territory, which was held until the WW II.

Actually, the United States was popular with the Ottoman Empire because, unlike the European powers, the United States did not have territorial ambitions.

Then began an era missionary outreach. The Christians of the day thought Islam a religion of the devil, and therefore they formed sent missionaries to the area, who died of diseases, etc. but they did establish missionary schools, etc. The initial thought was that they would convert the people to Christianity. In fact, that may be a bit strong because they also rejected the Eastern Christians, and were trying to convert them as well.

There was also a belief that the time had come for the restoration of Israel. Most believed that the restoration of Israel was needed before the Jews would all "convert to Christianity" and then Jesus would come again. (It did have an account of Orson Hyde's trip to the Jerusalem, although it did not mention that he had no interest in converting the Jews.)

Then came the Civil War, which was the most brutal war to that time, and it scared the Europeans, and gained respect for the United States in the Middle East.

After the Civil War, the United States sent military advisors to Egypt, or, much rather, Egypt hired ex-soldiers, both Northern and Southern. The idea was that the soldiers could create an Egyptian army that could expel the Ottoman Empire. It didn't work because the Arabs put too much into transporting the aristocracy. That is, they spent 90? of the resources transporting an aristocrat. When they came to a pass, and the soldiers warned that the pass was too dangerous, the aristocrats decided to go through anyway. As a result, they were wiped out. In addition, when the soldiers were attacked, and did manage to prevail, the Arabs spent time and energy torturing the enemy wounded, even when they were told not to. Because of this type of action, the experiment was a failure.

Eventually, Britain attacked and overran Egypt because the Egyptians owed them money. They, then, occupied Egypt until the WW II.

Meanwhile, the United States missions grew. The United States created several modern Colleges, and hospitals, some of which still exist.

Also, many tourists started to visit the area, although most were disappointed because of the reality. That is, they read the book One Thousand and One Arabian Nights which depicted the Middle East as an idyllic place, and it was much more realistically dirty and dry, and the Arabs tended to be thieves. But still they came.

Then came WW I. First, the Ottoman Empire was actually collapsing during the entire time that the United States existed. Before WW I, there were problems. For example, Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire, and the United States was torn between supporting Greece in its independence movements, and the Ottoman Empire, with the protection for the many United States citizens under its protection. Later, the Ottoman's started to kill Armenians, who were Christian. Turkey still denies it, but the evidence is they they killed 1.5 million Armenians, and it was very hard to hide the evidence because of the extent of the killing.

Then in WW I, the Ottomans sided with the Germans. Therefore, France and England attacked, and ultimately defeated the Ottoman Empire. (At the battle of Armageddon, but the book doesn't mention that.) The United States, on the other hand, eventually declared war on Germany, but not on the Ottomans. Therefore, when the Ottomans were defeated, France and England divided up the lands. Wilson convinced them to at least call them "Mandates" with the understanding that they would remain only long enough to set up a stable independent country. This was not the case, but that is what Wilson wanted.

Between the World Wars, the United States had no real influence in the area due to it not having troops in the area. Also, during this time the creation of Israel began to be more than just a theoretical possibility, and the United States found itself on both sides of the issue. That is, there were many citizens in the area, missionaries and such, so the United States had an interest in placating the Arabs. Also, the United States was on record as favoring Arab independence, probably a unified Arab country. On the other hand, many religious leaders, as well as a few Jews (in the United States) favored the creation of a state of Israel.

Then came WW II. The Germans and Italians occupied norther Africa. Therefore, when the United States finally attacked the Germans it was in Northern Africa. There the United States eventually defeated the Germans. The United State always thought of the creation of independent states in Arab lands, but they couldn't do anything about it until Hitler was defeated.

This time, when the war was over, the United States had some say in the matter, and the United States championed independence. Some of the Arab lands reverted to the English and French "mandates," but the United States supported the independence movements, and eventually the British and French were forced out.

There were some mistakes, mostly because of the unrealistic (in my opinion) fear of the Soviet Union. Therefore, when king in Iran was overthrown in a democratic revolution, the United States supported the re-establishment of the Shah because the leader wanted to align itself with the "non-aligned" group.

When Saudi Arabia was set up, the United States refused to recognize the government because it was a kingdom and not a democracy. However, oil was found in Saudi Arabia, and the United States eventually were forced to recognized the government because of the oil. Such was the case after WW II.

Then, there was the case of Israel. Britain had the mandate, but abandoned it in 1948. The day the British soldiers left, the Jews in Israel declared their independence. Then Truman recognized it almost at once, much to the surprise of everyone.

Then the United States got involved in the Middle East, primarily because of oil. There was some support of Israel, but after the 1967 war, in which Israel proved it could fight the Arabs, the United States didn't feel it needed to help Israel. It did ask Israel to mediate some problems in the area, which they did. Also, in the 1973 war, the United States helped to mediate a ceasefire. The rest is recent history, and continues up to the second Iraq war, which is still going on.

Reading this, I can see that the United States involvement in the Middle East was, for the most part, helpful to the area, but that recent involvement is more questionable. There were the problems mentioned above. But several more mistakes were made because of the Cold War. Also, reading this it is obvious that Reagen was a total failure (even more so than Carter). Clinton just contained the problem, but Bush Jr. tried to ignore the problem, which resulted in 9-11. Then he tried to get involved in Iraq, ignoring the realities which were evident from previous involvement of the area, etc.