America’s Repeated Foreign Policy Mistakes in the Middle East

The collapse of Obama’s vision — and his replication of the Cold War–times and the United States’s abrasive policies toward human rights in the Middle East—is a stark example of the dynamics that Fawaz A. Gerges outlines in his new book, What went wrong?The title is a clever allusion to a work by the late historian Bernard Lewis, What went wrong? Lewis’s slim book became an unexpected international bestseller after the 9/11 attacks, not only in the United States but also in places like Denmark and Italy. Lewis argues that radical Muslims attack the United States because they mistakenly blame us for the failure of Islamic civilization to adapt to the modern world. The book’s author forever tarnished his reputation by suggesting to the Bush administration that there would be benefits if the United States invaded Iraq.

Gelges, a professor at the London School of Economics, tells a very different story. In his account, the anger of Muslim-majority countries at the United States and the dire plight of Arab states stem from postwar U.S. foreign policy—particularly the policies of the Dwight Eisenhower administration from 1953 to 1961. In the tense early days of the Cold War, Eisenhower made the fateful decision to reject the governments of Iran and Egypt and marginalize their leaders, against the wishes of large parts of their populations. At a time when much of the region was asserting its independence from colonial rule, the United States intervened decisively in these two key countries in the name of anti-communist paranoia, undermining their long-term economic and democratic development. “America’s postwar foreign policy…has undermined our ability to make real progress.”–The imperial ambitions of World War II and its aggressive behavior in the early years of the global Cold War gave rise to something like a geostrategic curse in the Middle East,” Görges wrote.

The challenges facing the United States in the Middle East in 2024 are the same as they were in 1954: our allies are repressive and unpopular with their people, while hostile leaders benefit by irritating the United States. As a guide to some of the worst policymaking during the Cold War, Goerges’s book is illuminating but far from groundbreaking. As a starting point for better U.S. policy in the future, however, it is sometimes confusing, often ignores the range of factors that influence policy, and proposes unsound solutions. To consider resetting U.S. policy in the region, we need to have a clear understanding of the dangers of allying with dictators—even those who are anti-colonial and popular.