Donald Trump
If the leadership changes in the world's leading power are traditionally followed with great interest throughout the Middle East, the rise to power in the United States of a characterised by his at least outlandish ideas has caused many in the region to await his geo-strategic vision with ears pricked up. The Donald Trump's words Trump's remarks on 20 January during the inauguration ceremony at which he was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States have only added to this concern: "We will strengthen old alliances and form new ones - and unite the civilised world against radical Islamic terrorism that we will eradicate from the face of the earth". Like every American president since the Founding Fathers, Trump will have to develop a Middle East policy strategy, as well as lay the groundwork for relations with Muslim communities both abroad and at home. His promise to completely and utterly block Muslims from entering the US has subsequently been replaced by a vague 'extreme scrutiny', with no one yet knowing what that measure will consist of or what its repercussions will be. Other statements by the new president or his entourage regarding a possible relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem or a potential rejection of the Iran nuclear deal signed by the previous administration have also contributed to a climate of uncertainty and sombre expectation.
During what is known in the US as the 'First Gulf War' (1990-91), a Spanish cartoonist summed up the complexity of relations between the US and Arab and Muslim states in words similar to these: 'The problem for the international coalition - led by the United States - is to distinguish between an honourable Arab ally and a despicable desert jackal'... Although loaded with exaggerated derision, the cartoon effectively condensed the sinuosities of links as old as they are intricate. In this issue of 'Reflections' we offer some readings that can serve to contextualise the history of these relations from their origins, in a context in which the signs point to a possible re-evaluation of some of their foundations.
In 1777 Morocco was the first foreign country to recognise US independence, as well as a signatory to the second international treaty signed by the new country. Since then, "finding the right balance between friendly and antagonistic power relations with Middle Eastern actors has been a challenge for American leaders", according to the historian. Michael B. Orenwhose work Power, Faith and Fantasy. America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (W.W. Norton & Co., 2007) was conceived with the idea of filling a gap in the absence of an accessible and comprehensive study focused on analysing the context of these relationships.
Michael B. Oren
Power, Faith and Fantasy traces more than 230 years of US-Middle Eastern contact, drawing mainly on declassified diplomatic documents, private correspondence and the testimonies of traders, missionaries and travellers. Throughout an absorbing and detailed account, Oren attempts to identify the themes that have characterised these relations throughout history, which he identifies with three fundamental concepts. The most ubiquitous and tangible of these is power, understood as the pursuit of American interests in the Middle East through various means - military, diplomatic, financial - but also as the use of that power for other purposes such as the defence of minorities. The second major theme is faith and its role in shaping American attitudes and policies towards the region. Finally, fantasy or chimera - though perhaps "imaginary" would be a more appropriate translation in English - the idea of a Near East that has captivated generations of Americans with its depictions of exoticism and sensuality, amplified by travellers in the nineteenth century and, later, by Hollywood films. While these themes have been equally present in other countries' interaction with the Middle East, for Oren their persistence throughout history in the case of the US is unique.
With this structure as a framework, Oren divides his work into seven chapters. The first six chapters provide a detailed account of the contacts between the two sides from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century. In response to the widespread view among many Americans that US involvement in the region dates from around the time of World War II and especially since the creation of the State of Israel, Oren offers a battery of data documenting the origins and conditioning factors of these ties over the years, demonstrating their multidimensional nature. The informative task of this ambitious work is reinforced by the incorporation of countless anecdotes and relevant data that make up the scaffolding of these relations and contribute to the enjoyment of its reading. The chapter on the first meetings, for example, is one of the most fascinating in the book. The Confederate and post-revolutionary US first encounters the Middle East in the last quarter of the 18th century, a period when American coffers are forced to spend a fifth of their income on bribing Barbary pirates. The Barbary pirates, based in the semi-autonomous Ottoman regencies of Tripoli or Algeria, attacked merchant ships, seizing their cargo and crew as booty. The boarding of American ships became increasingly frequent as the independent US no longer had the protection of the world's largest navy. The Middle East thus represented the first international challenge for the new nation, which was heavily dependent on international trade. One such trade involved the exchange of New England rum for Turkish opium. For Oren, the "Barbary crisis" raised fundamental questions "about the nature, identity and viability of the United States", to the point of having a significant impact on the union of the Confederate states in the creation of a Constitution and the building of a US naval force. Examples of US influence in the area include the coining of the term 'Middle East' in 1902 by American officer Alfred Mahan to replace the commonly employed 'Orient'. Mahan was convinced that the power that controlled that region would control the world.
The phrase from the cartoon quoted at the beginning of this article also echoed some of the stereotypes that have characterised the Western, and therefore American, imagination of the 'Orient', many of which date from the time of the pirate confrontation and the accounts of early US travellers, diplomats and missionaries in the area. "The farrago of disinformation about the Middle East to which colonial Americans are exposed is reflected in the first short story written in the New World, a farce entitled Father Bombo's Pilgrimage to Meccawritten by Philip Freneau y Hugh Henry Brackenridgewhich portrayed a negative image of Islam. Other chronicles depicted a Near East that was both threatening and romantic. By the end of the 18th century more than a hundred works on the Near East had reached the USA, most of them characterised by an almost total absence of real knowledge about the region. The seventh and final chapter of Oren's work focuses on the last 60 years of history, from the Cold War to the second Iraq war. While the literature on this period is certainly much more extensive, information about it is still incomplete due to the fact that government documents are classified. This part of Oren's account is therefore more familiar, but undoubtedly informative for the uninitiated reader.
On the occasion of the election of Barack H. Obama as President of the United States in 2009, the Three Cultures Foundation dedicated a monographic issue of its magazine cultures a The United States and the Middle East. This publication is one of the few works in Spanish that attempts to offer an accessible and comprehensive approach to this subject. The monograph - which includes a basic chronology of the most relevant events that have marked these contacts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries - contains articles by specialists from all over the world analysing different aspects of these relations. Among others, Henry Laurens, Professor of Contemporary History of the Arab World at the Collėge de France offers a detailed 'Historical Perspective'; Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, analyses 'The George W. Bush Administration, Iraq and Palestine'; Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, analyses 'The George W. Bush Administration, Iraq and Palestine'; Carmen López Alonso of the Complutense University of Madrid focuses on the crucial relations between the US and Israel, while Senior Research Fellow for the Mediterranean and Arab World at the Real Instituto Elcano Haizam Amirah Fernández covers the historical contacts between the transatlantic country and the Maghreb and Aurėlia Mañé Estrada, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Barcelona, looks at the issue of 'Energy Relations'. With the current change of presidency at the head of the US government, two articles are particularly relevant. On the one hand, 'Mutual Perceptions. Corsairs, missionaries and jihadists', by Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio, Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Alicante, studies the construction of the reciprocal imaginary since the time of the pirates and the importance in this context of the appearance in the mid-19th century of translations into English of works like The Thousand and One Nights by the British explorer Richard Burton or travelogues such as the caustic and prejudiced The Innocents Abroad from Mark Twain which became a publishing success at the time. Finally, in 'Arab America. A Troubled Road to Political Integration', investigative journalist Habib Battah analyses the composition, concerns and challenges of Arab communities living in the US and the impact of Middle East policies on them. (The full text of this monographic issue of the journal cultures is available at the following link: http://revistaculturas.org/archivo/estados-unidos-y-oriente-proximo/).
A commendable effort in terms of its informative character is represented by the graphic novel signed by Jean-Pierre Filiu and David. B., The Best Enemies. A History of U.S.-Middle East Relations. (Norma Editorial, 2012 and 2015) of which two volumes have been published so far, summarising the trajectory of these contacts from 1783 to 1984. In this case, the artistic talent of David. B. -one of the founders of the influential L'Association and creator of the award-winning comic book Epileptic (Ediciones Sinsentido, 2009) - is joined by the erudition of the prestigious Arabist and historian Jean-Pierre Filiu, university professor and long-time diplomat in the region. In addition to the prolific trajectory of the graphic novel as a tool for explaining the Middle East - a phenomenon we reviewed in this space a few months ago (http://www.tresculturas.org/noticia/reflexiones-comic-zeina-abirached/)- joins this innovative initiative that uses the comic format to present an eminently historical work. Through superbly drawn vignettes and a clear and succinct text, this graphic essay succeeds in summarising some of the most important episodes in Oren's work and constitutes a wonderful approach to the subject for all types of readers.
The first part of the book - which extends to 1953 - begins by linking the Gilgamesh epic with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, transmuting statements made by then US President George W. Bush and his Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, to the protagonists of the Sumerian legend. Despite the brevity of the volume, the authors take care to highlight the many facets of relations between the two sides, recounting for example the activities of missionaries whose networks controlled 400 schools, 9 colleges, 9 hospitals, etc. in 1895. The chapter entitled 'Oil' explains the origin of the Saudi dynasty, the founding of the only country in the world named after the reigning dynasty and the establishment of Wahhabism as its official ideology. Coup d'état' focuses on Iran's relations with the US, masterfully describing the myriad international, geostrategic and domestic factors that led to Iran's orchestration of the coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. The second volume of the book takes up the baton from that date until 1984 with the withdrawal of US troops from Lebanon, covering key events in the region such as the Six-Day War, the Camp David Accords and the role of the Middle East as a Cold War theatre. Chapters such as 'The Invasion of Afghanistan', which details US involvement in that conflict and analyses the gestation of the mujahideen as the seed of the later al-Qaida, make this book a must for any scholar of contemporary international relations.
In a context in which the new US president calls countries in the region such as Iran 'strategic enemies', while the Islamic Republic recaptures the spectre of the 'Great Satan' in its rhetoric, it is only to be hoped that such initiatives, which are, perhaps more than ever, truly necessary, will continue to come to light.
Published on 27/01/17
Featured photo by Donald Trump under Creative Commons license. More information at the following link. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/16652895246
Photograph by Michael B. Oren under Creative Commons licence. More information at the following link.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Oren_official_portrait.jpg
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