The Middle East in Crisis

A comprehensive look at the history and future of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. A comprehensive overview of the events leading to today's situation in the Middle East, this reader brings together the respected and often combative opinions of today's experts and policy makers. Divided into two sections, "From Peace to War" and "The United States and the Middle East," The Middle East in Crisis is a wonderful tool for stimulating classroom discussions about this critical and historically unstable region. In the late 1990s, things seemed to be going fairly well for the United States in the Middle East. The peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors was inching forward, Iraq remained under international quarantine, reformers were gaining ground in Iran, and Osama bin Laden was holed up in a remote Afghan hideaway. American policymakers surveying the scene had legitimate grounds for satisfaction and even hope. Then the roof fell in. The Syrian track of the peace process was derailed and the Palestinian track soon followed. In Iraq Saddam Hussein began to extricate himself from the "box" in which the United States had tried to keep him confined, and in Iran it became clear that an old guard determined to resist liberalization stymied the reformers. And then came September 11, 2001. The various Middle East crises are now the dominant items on the American foreign policy agenda, and this collection offers a searching look at all of them. Originally published in Foreign Affairs, the essays bring the reader up to speed on the dizzying events of the last few years in the region and offer a unique basis for informed discussion of where to go from here. Contributors include Hussein Agha & Robert Malley, Fouad Ajami, Aluf Benn, Graham E. Fuller, Martin Indyk, Gal Luft, David Makovsky, James Piscatori, Kenneth M. Pollack, Eric Rouleau, Khalil Shikaki, Ray Takeyh, Puneet Talwar