An unprecedented analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war "One of the best informed and non-partisan accounts of the Syrian tragedy yet published."--Patrick Cockburn, Independent Syria's brutal, long-lasting civil war is widely viewed as a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the fray. But in this book Christopher Phillips shows the crucial roles that were played by the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar in Syria's war right from the start. Phillips untangles the international influences on the tragic conflict and illuminates the West's strategy against ISIS, the decline of U.S. power in the region, and much more. Originally published in 2016, the book has been updated with two new chapters.

This book explores three themes. The Eisenhower Administration's overriding Cold War goal in the oil-rich Middle East was minimizing Soviet influence. Second, Soviet support for Arab opposition to British colonialism and Israeli Zionism prompted Arab nationalists to embrace neutralism in the Cold War. Third, Eisenhower and Dulles perceived neutral Arab nationalism as virtually tantamount to pro-communism. Syria, the most xenophobic Arab state, was deemed most susceptible to Soviet enticements. This book concludes that U.S. policies in Syria went awry, provoking Syria to collaborate even more closely with the Soviet Union.

The current state of affairs between the United States and the Middle East is probably the most volatile and absorbing relationship the U.S. is involved in today. Prior to 1941, however, the U.S. preferred to limit its involvement with the Middle East to launching ministries of evangelism and social welfare across the region and investing in the pumping, refining, and transportation of oil to Western markets. It was not until World War II and the Cold War, when the threat of losing control of the region and therefore losing its natural resources, military bases, and lines of communication arose, that U.S. officials were motivated to take a greater interest. Since then, the increasing level of violence in the area has led to an increase in U.S. involvement, which_in most cases_has been far from positive: the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1981, the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, and the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. The Historical Dictionary of United States-Middle East Relations is an essential tool to understanding how diplomatic relations deteriorated to this point. This volume concentrates on the history of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Middle East from the onset of the Cold War up to the present. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, an appendix, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the countries involved, significant events, major crises, important figures, controversial issues, and doctrines and policies. For scholars, historians, and students interested in the diplomacy of these two regions, this is an essential reference.

The Syrian "uprising" is a cynical US-engineered plot using provocateurs, mercenaries, Wahhabi fanatics, corrupt NGO's and the global media. The US, NATO and the feudal emirates are out to smash this independent Arab state that spends on human welfare and refuses to surrender to Israel. The US and Saudi-financed plot turns on the tactic of "Countergangs". Terrorists -- mercenaries and irregulars, the "CIA foreign legion" -- shoot both demonstrators and police, blow up buildings, massacre innocent villagers - and then blame the carnage on the targeted government. NGO's like NED, the "National Endowment for Democracy" (funded by US State Dept, Geo. Soros, Ford Foundation etc) promote "activists", whose leaders are ambitious sociopaths, eagerly carving out a piece of the carcass for the moment the state is brought down. The corporate lapdog media, cogs in the military-industrial complex, lap up and magnify the Big Lie, creating a fake "reality" that the average person has little chance of seeing through. Subverting Syria reveals how the crusade to destroy Syria follows tactics explicitly set out in the Pentagon's Unconventional Warfare Manual fund NGO's to create a climate of protest in the target country -- provocateurs organise demonstrations, then fire on protesters and security forces alike to stoke violence -- staged and mislabelled video footage creates the illusion of repression -- mass media endlessly repeat the Big Lie that the nation's leader is a brutal dictator killing his own people. "Give a dog a bad name and hang him". Invade border towns with special forces death squads, the CIA Foreign Legion of Al Qaeda psychopaths, fanatics and guns for hire -- fabricate pretexts for military intervention by the UN, or NATO -- bomb the country into the stone age, to be conquered by NATO's Islamic terrorist puppets -- eradicate Arab socialism and government for the people, replacing it with a corrupt clique beholden to Wall Street and London bankers -- isolate Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Iran, giving free rein for Greater Israel to dominate the Middle East - US corporations write multi-billion-dollar contracts for "reconstruction" and "security" Subverting Syria shows how wars are engineered by manipulation of the kinder instincts of mankind, hoodwinking and harnessing pacifist and leftist forces -- entrapping them in the service of mass murder and the global dictatorship of the money power.

This book discusses the relations between the United States and Egypt from Roosevelt to Eisenhower. To protect the free flow of oil, American policymakers looked to Egypt to provide the progressive, pro-Western leadership they believed would insure stability to the region. America's attempts to balance the needs of its British allies with those of Egypt coupled with Egypt's quest for regional hegemony proved to be a recipe for trouble. In the end, America failed in grooming Egypt as the pro-Western leader, could not bring peace to the region, and could not prevent the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold. Yet, the oil continued to flow.