★Telling about the relationship between the United States and the Middle East over more than 200 years;
★Analyze why the Middle East has such a huge and far-reaching impact on US strategy and foreign policy.
[About the author] Michael B. Oren, both civil and military, Ph. D. + Paratrooper of the National Defense Forces. PhD, historian, born in the United States, educated at Princeton University and Columbia University, has served as a visiting professor at Harvard University, Yale University and Georgetown University, and is also a distinguished researcher at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
In Israel, Dr. Oren served as an IDF officer, serving as a paratrooper in the Lebanon War, serving as liaison with the U. S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War, IDF spokesperson during the Second Lebanon War and the January 2009 Gaza operation, and advisor to the Israeli delegation to the United Nations. From 2009 to 2013, he served as Israel's ambassador to the United States.
[Introduction] Why and how is the United States so entangled in the Middle East issue?
Why does the Middle East, which is geographically far away from the United States, have such a huge and far-reaching impact on U. S. Strategy and foreign policy?
Historian and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael B. Oren used three words: "power," "belief" and "fantasy" to explain this costly obsession and also recounted the relationship between the United States and the Middle East since its independence in 1776.
Almost from the moment of American independence, American merchant ships lost the protection of the British navy and were repeatedly attacked by Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. Starting from the establishment of the Navy, the U. S. Government uses military, diplomatic, and financial resources to protect U. S. Commercial interests and American citizens overseas, and then supports the United States' grand global strategy to reshape the Middle East in a more favorable way for the United States.
Protestant missionaries were among the first to travel to the Middle East, and although few Muslims converted, the missionaries established numerous American educational institutions in the Middle East to support America's great ambitions of enlightenment and democratization in the region.
In turn, the exotic customs and romantic legends of the Middle East have entered American literature and public perception through American politicians, businessmen, soldiers, missionaries, explorers, and travel writers, and have endured in American popular culture, shaping ordinary Americans' impressions of the Middle East.
The author draws on a large number of government documents, private letters, and the memoirs of businessmen, missionaries, and travelers, supplemented by dozens of rare historical images, to vividly detail the United States's interaction with this dynamic and turbulent region for more than 200 years.
