Book Review: the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East

          Have you ever thoroughly studied a subject, spent months or even years forming your conclusions about it, boiled it down to its essence thinking you've separated the wheat from the chaff, and patted yourself on the back for your efforts? Have you ever done all this and then found a more thorough, more concise, better organized account of the subject with important concepts you missed, clearer conclusions and better analysis? That's what happened to me when I read
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East by Martin Sieff.
          It looks like a "________ for Dummies" book, and for the seasoned scholar, it will offer nothing new in the way of fact. But that in no way diminishes its value, as the conclusions are what make this book. In a mere 216 pages, it lays out the events that immediately shaped the modern Middle East, focusing on the post World War I colonial period through the present day. For the uninitiated, that facts presented here can be astonishing:

-Iraq was a democracy for 26 years
-Radical Islam is only 30 years old
-We couldn’t have beaten Communism without the Saudis

          Better than the clear non-partisan view this book brings to Middle Eastern history is the clear non-partisan view it brings to the present and the future. Here’s a book that actually offers courses of action that are both realistic and achievable while acknowledging that -- things being complicated -- they are not without their caveats.
          The most interesting thing about this book, in my opinion, is the author’s choice of heroes and villains. He unsparingly criticizes the obvious idiots (Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush), but is equally unrelenting on some failures that are often overlooked (Winston Churchill and Bill Clinton). His heros are the Ottoman Empire (for making life so miserable for its subjects that they couldn’t possibly rise up and threaten the stability of the empire), and the Saudi royal family.
          It’s the author’s take on the Saudis that was the real eye-opener for me in this book. Sieff claims that by selling the USA oil at well-below market prices during the 80s, the Saudis made it impossible for the USSR to develop its own oil and gas industry and thus brought about the bankrupting of the evil empire. I’m going to have to research this before I accept it wholesale as the truth, but looking at the massive influx of oil wealth pouring into Russia now, it seems believable. He points out that the often-stated fact that the Saudis encourage the spread of radical Wahhabism (or at least do nothing to stop it) is an outright lie. He also warns that Osama Bin Laden intentionally used Saudis as the 9/11 hijackers to damage the relationship between the U.S. and the Saudi government and that we’ve all unwittingly fallen into his trap (Osama, believe it or not, is one smart cookie, but I’ll save that for another post). His solution for Middle Eastern peace: arm the Saudis to the teeth and let them use their wealth and weapons to force the other Arab states and sub-state actors into not fighting each other. I love this approach. It’s not democratic or fair, but if it works, who cares.
          As for the other major Middle Eastern dilemma – Israel – one thing really stood out to me in this book: Sieff loves the Israeli security barrier. I was surprised by this because it’s something I really hear any reasonable person say, but his logic is solid. As for the thornier issues of the role Israel should play and whether its shoot-first-then-ask-questions policy is a good thing… well… you’ll just have to read the book yourselves, but I will say his approach accepts that things are really complicated and that every course of action has both positive and negative outcomes. It’s this approach that make this, in my opinion, a stellar book.