american orientalism (2)

8/13/2019 American Orientalism (2)

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Hasan Karayam

U.S & Middle East

10-3-2011

Review book

Douglas Little,American Orientalism: the United States and the Middle East since 1945,

University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill: North Carolina, 2002. 407p.

The book is divided into acknowledgments, abbreviations, introduction, eight chapters,

conclusion, notes, Bibliography and Index. The structure of the book is thematically. The book

argues the impact of that dynamic on five decades of U.S policy toward the Middle East. The

books audience is to be interest to specialists in diplomatic history and area studies and it is also

designed to provide the general reader with abroad understanding of the political, cultural, and

economic considerations that have influenced U.S policy since 1945. Little uses different

primary sources, oral histories and interviews, and movement documents.

The first chapter is entitled Orientalism, American Style: the Middle East in the Mind of

America. Little talks about a quick look at eighteenth and nineteenth century popular culture

shows that Muslims, Jews, and most other peoples of the Middle East were organized and

depicted as backward, decadent, and untruth worthy. By 1900 anti- Semitic and anti- Islamic

sentiments were as American as apple pie. During the early twentieth century, businessmen,

missionaries, and archaeologist reinforced this orientalist outlook, with help from popular

magazines like National Geographic. With the coming of the Second World War, the Holocaust,

and the founding of Israel, however, anti-Semitism abated somewhat and Jews were

westernized while Arab and Muslims were demonized as anti-Western terrorists. By the late


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1990s these more complicated orientalist messages were being projected not only onto

Americas movie screens through Hollywood blockbusters such as Schindlers List and True

Lies but also into Americas living rooms nightly news footage that contrasted telegenic Israeli

moderates with ruthless, rich, or radical Arabs.

The second chapter is entitled Opening the Door: Business, Diplomacy, and Americas

Stake in Middle East Oil. Little talks about the emergence of the international oil industry and

multinational corporations. He explains how policymakers and oil executives developed a

symbiotic relationship that allowed the United States to provide aid and exert influence in the

Arab world, while keeping shareholders and friends of Israel relatively happy. He also explains

the role and impact of the emergence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

(OPEC) after 1970.

The third chapter is entitled The Making of a Special Relationship: America and Israel.

Little talks about the special relationship between the United States and Israel and its influences

that created problems with the Arab oil states. Little argues the contradiction of their interests

against each other. Once the United States became convinced that the Israelis possessed both the

will and the way to build an atomic bomb. Conventional arms sales became part of a concerted.

Although the Israelis never really accepted the notion that what was good for the United States

was necessarily good for the Jewish state.

The fourth chapter is A Tale of Four Doctrines: U.S National Security, the Soviet

Threat, and the Middle East. Little traces U.S efforts to contain the Soviet Union by utilizing

the newly created cold war national security state to enforce what amounted to Monroe

Doctrine for the Middle East. The Truman Doctrine envisaged the United Kingdom providing

the military muscle and the United States bankrolling a regional security system that stretched


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from turkey to Pakistan. The Suez crisis, however, showed that U.S and U.K interests were not

identical, and America moved to convert Britain into its junior partner under the Eisenhower

Doctrine during the late 1950s. Little explains the U.S efforts to face the Soviet Union

involvement in region, like twin pillars. [p5]

The fifth chapter is entitled Sympathy For the Devil?: America, Nasser, and Arab

Revolutionary Nationalism. Little talks about the American ambivalent reaction to Gamal

Abdel Nassers nationalism revolution. Little examines the American position after Nasser

seized power in July 1952, especially the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Kennedy,

and Johnson who considered Nasser as at best the Egyptian equivalent.

The sixth chapter is Modernizing the Middle East: From Reform to Revolution in Iraq,

Libya, and Iran. Little argues that the United States hoped to avoid a replay of revolution in

Egypt by modernizing and reforming traditional Muslim societies from North Africa to Persian

Gulf. U.S policymakers deluded themselves into thinking that by initiating evolutionary change

in Iraq, Libya, and Iran. Little explains the American efforts in Iraq to reform the Hashemite

monarchy, in Libya to encourage king Idris to modernize his regime and in Iran invested heavily

in the shahs White Revolution to be repaid with an Islamic backlash led by Ayatollah

Khomeini.

The seventh chapter is entitled Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome: Waging Limited War

From the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Little shows that the 1990-91 Gulf War must be

understood not merely as a response to Saddam Husseins smash- and- grab tactics but also as a

reaction to the Vietnam Syndrome that had curtailed armed U.S intervention in regional

conflicts for nearly two decades. Little explains U.S involvement during Eisenhower through

George Bush.


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The eighth chapter is entitled Opportunities Lost and Found: the United States and the

Arab- Israeli Peace Process. Little argues that for more than fifty years the U.S prescription for

an Arab- Israeli settlement has been based on simple truth: If there is to be an end to bloodshed,

both Arab and Jew must accept the principle of peace for land. Little explains the Arab

position toward principle of peace throughout 1947-1967, and the position of U.S foreign policy

against the issue.

Stylistically, Little's writing is very difficult to navigate. His rampant use of passive voice

and colloquial language is quite distracting. On numerous occasions Little refers to the President

as "the man in the Oval Office, or the State Department as "Foggy Bottom." This might not

bother some, but it comes across as unprofessional and informal. It's hard to imagine the final

version of this book making it past an editor's desk because in the end, these flaws detract from

the effectiveness of the book in a major way. When passive voice or other indices of poor writing

show up almost every other paragraph, the book's 328 pages seem particularly long and

burdensome.

The use of primary sources, oral histories and interviews, and government documents

inform his careful analyses of the contradictions of U.S. policy. However is one-sided, for the

author doesn't bring any sources from the Middle East and confines himself mainly to sources

from American politics.

Instead of providing a straight forward chronological narrative, Little divided his book

into several thematic chapters, each exploring a different facet of postwar U.S involvement in the

Middle East, whether cultural perceptions, oil diplomacy, modernization efforts, responses to

radical Arab nationalism, military interventionism, or Arab-Israeli peacemaking. While this


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approach entails a certain amount of repetition, its great advantage is the opportunity it provides

for elucidating broad patterns in postwar American foreign policy.1

American Orientalismis, however, a strange work. The title has little to do with most of

the books content, at least in terms of supplying an analysis based on the paradigm of

Orientalism. Although the books introductionprovides a survey of the mostly Bible-based

assumptions, biases, and racial stereotypes that have shaped American behavior toward the

Middle East, starting with chapter 1, the author drops the Orientalist model and proceeds to give

the reader little more than an overview of diplomatic history from Presidents Harry Truman to

George W. Bush. Thus, most of the text is a standard tour of cold war imperatives, the Baghdad

Pact and tactical differences with the British, the approach-avoidance feelings toward Arab

nationalism, the growing affinity for the shah of Iran and its anti- American consequences, the

tail-wags-dog alliance with the Israelis and corresponding vilification of the Palestinians, the

minor disasters of President Reagans administration, the 1979and 2000 Camp David summit

meetings, and finally, the two Gulf wars through which American leaders sought, among other

things, to kick the Vietnam Syndrome.

Little seems that is not dispassionate historian in their words used in the book. Where in

this comprehensive survey do we find the Orientalist mindset? It is not part of any critical

analyses, but rather is found in the seemingly unconscious asides and characterizations given by

the author himself. That is, Littles own words too often become examples of the Western

assumptions so aptly described in his introduction. For instance, there is pan-Arab

skullduggery(p. 129); Egyptian and Syrian governments are radical regimes (p. 133); those

who, in 1958, take over Iraq in order to eliminate British and American influence while seeking

1Yaqub, Salim, American Orientalism: the United States and Middle East Since 1945, Reviews in American

History, Vol.31, No 4 (Dec-2003):619-25.


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aid from the Soviets are anti-Western(p. 134) (since when are the Russians not Western

relative to the Arab East?);the House of Saud is corrupt and unpredictable(p. 138); Iran and

Iraq are two rogue states (p. 155); and Arabs who attack American interests are devilish

terrorists(p. 155). Moreover, Little describes Arabs who developed an ideology of national

liberation during the 1920s as Arab radicals (p. 160) and Gamal Abd al-Nassers Arab

nationalisms radical (p. 167) and left-wing adventurism (p. 187).2

2Davidson, Lawrence, American Orientalism: the United States and Middle East Since 1945, Journal of Palestinian

studies, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Spring 2004):120-21

american orientalism (2)

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