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Ike's Gamble: America's Rise to Dominance in the Middle East, by Michael Doran. New York: Free Press, 2016. 292 pages. $28.
Reviewed by Brent E. Sasley
Michael Doran tells a very interesting story, one with valuable lessons for contemporary American foreign policy. Ike's Gamble is therefore timely, because it serves as both a critique of the Middle East policy of the recent administration of Barack Obama and as a warning for the new administration of Donald Trump as it considers its options regarding the region.
Doran's main argument is that under President Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower, the United States misread regional politics so completely as to undermine American interests there. Washington ended up abandoning America's closest allies, Great Britain and France, as well as Israel. This, in turn, helped strengthen both the cause of radical nationalism in the Arab world and cemented Egyptian president Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser's power and prestige in the region and in the world. While the Cold War pushed Washington to expect full support from its allies and clients, Nasser and the radical nationalists wanted, at best, to maintain an arms-length relationship with Washington, at worst to leave the United States out of regional politics.
The story unfolds over 13 chapters, while the conclusion summarizes the argument and discusses specific lessons for American presidents. The story is also about British leaders such as Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, Nasser, American diplomats, and Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion, while others enter the stage at specific moments.
But dominating the stage is Ike. We learn at the beginning of the book that the problem was Ike's approach to the Middle East....