Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The time has come for a serious debate on the future involvement of the United States in the Middle East and this original and provocative analysis challenges the prevailing wisdom of the Washington foreign policy establishment. Hadar provides a sweeping reexamination of the conceptual bases of American policy and proposes a strategy of "constructive disengagement" from the region, a policy of benign neglect as a way of promoting the interests of the United States as well as those of the people of the Middle East. In Sandstorm, Hadar calls for regional states and the European Union to take increased responsibility for security, economic growth, and political stability. This bold and innovative critique will inject new energy into the policy debate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his 1992 work, Quagmire: America in the Middle East, Cato Institute researcher and journalist Hadar predicted that there would be a radical Arab and Islamic fundamentalist backlash against U.S. policies. Thus vindicated, this "political Cassandra" doesn't relent in this penetrating update. Supporting Israel and stationing military forces in Saudi Arabia helped "set the stage for the events of 9/11," he declares, while pushing for democracy in Iraq is the just the latest example of America's misguided adherence to a flawed "Middle East Paradigm." Hadar believes the Iraq War will prove to be a "disaster." Although George Bush, Sr., and Bill Clinton don't escape criticism, he castigates George W. Bush's neoconservative, empire-building "fantasy" as the progeny of a bizarre Queen Victoria-meets-Woodrow Wilson union whose costs exceed its benefits. The way forward for Hadar is "constructive disengagement," exiting the Middle East and, instead, relying on Latin American oil imports, and establishing a European Union-led regional balance of power system. True to form, he also shares more alarming prognostications if the U.S. forges onward in Iraq, including the specter of a crippling blow to the world's only superpower if Arab oil producers decide to trade in their greenbacks for euros, thereby shattering the dollar-driven international economy. Above all, the author displays keen insights into the political and economic imperatives that motivate people who "don't think like us." By melding analytic rigor with journalistic punch, Hadar has produced a significant work, accessible to both area specialists and lay readers.
