America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

by Andrew J. Bacevich

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - A searing reassessment of U.S. military policy in the Middle East over the past four decades from retired army colonel and New York Times bestselling author Andrew J. Bacevich

From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country's most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise--now more than thirty years old and with no end in sight.

During the 1980s, Bacevich argues, a great transition occurred. As the Cold War wound down, the United States initiated a new conflict--a War for the Greater Middle East--that continues to the present day. The long twilight struggle with the Soviet Union had involved only occasional and sporadic fighting. But as this new war unfolded, hostilities became persistent. From the Balkans and East Africa to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, U.S. forces embarked upon a seemingly endless series of campaigns across the Islamic world. Few achieved anything remotely like conclusive success. Instead, actions undertaken with expectations of promoting peace and stability produced just the opposite. As a consequence, phrases like "permanent war" and "open-ended war" have become part of everyday discourse.

Connecting the dots in a way no other historian has done before, Bacevich weaves a compelling narrative out of episodes as varied as the Beirut bombing of 1983, the Mogadishu firefight of 1993, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rise of ISIS in the present decade. Understanding what America's costly military exertions have wrought requires seeing these seemingly discrete events as parts of a single war. It also requires identifying the errors of judgment made by political leaders in both parties and by senior military officers who share responsibility for what has become a monumental march to folly. This Bacevich unflinchingly does.

A twenty-year army veteran who served in Vietnam, Andrew J. Bacevich brings the full weight of his expertise to this vitally important subject. America's War for the Greater Middle East is a bracing after-action report from the front lines of history. It will fundamentally change the way we view America's engagement in the world's most volatile region.

Praise for America's War for the Greater Middle East

"Bacevich is thought-provoking, profane and fearless. . . . [His] call for Americans to rethink their nation's militarized approach to the Middle East is incisive, urgent and essential."--The New York Times Book Review

"Bacevich's magnum opus . . . a deft and rhythmic polemic aimed at America's failures in the Middle East from the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency to the present."--Robert D. Kaplan, The Wall Street Journal

"A critical review of American policy and military involvement . . . Those familiar with Bacevich's work will recognize the clarity of expression, the devastating directness and the coruscating wit that characterize the writing of one of the most articulate and incisive living critics of American foreign policy."--The Washington Post

"[A] monumental new work."--The Huffington Post

"An unparalleled historical tour de force certain to affect the formation of future U.S. foreign policy."--Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)

Genres: History, Middle East, Politics, Nonfiction, War, Military Fiction, Military History

480 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. He is the author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism and The New American Militarism. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. He is the recipient of a Lannan Award and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Greater Middle East was to serve…as the chosen arena for honing military power into a utensil that would maintain America’s privileged position and, not so incidentally, provide a continuing rationale for the entire apparatus of national security. That region’s predominantly Muslim population thereby became the subjects of experiments ranging from the nominally benign – peacekeeping, peacemaking, and humanitarian intervention – to the nakedly coercive. Beginning in 1980, U.S. forces ventured into the Greater Middle East to reassure, warn, intimidate, suppress, pacify, rescue, liberate, eliminate, transform, and overawe. They bombed, raided, invaded, occupied, and worked through proxies of various stripes…In 1992, [Paul] Wolfowitz had expressed the earnest hope of American might addressing the ‘sources of regional instability in ways that promote international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic government and open economic systems.’ The results actually produced over the course of several decades of trying have never come even remotely close to satisfying such expectations…”
- Andrew Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

Power isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Everyone – especially nations – thinks they want it, because it provides options, which in turn create opportunities. But it also generates a likelihood of mistakes borne of overreach. Power breeds confidence, a first-cousin to arrogance, which is married to hubris. Every downfall begins with having power. The greater the power, the higher the fall.

This describes American foreign policy since 1945.

Leaving its isolationist cocoon for good after the Second World War, the United States embarked on a series of remarkably unfortunate misadventures around the world. In no corner of the globe – including Southeast Asia – has America made more errors than in the Middle East.

America’s War for the Greater Middle East is Andrew Bacevich's scathing account of the various debacles that have squandered America’s ethical standing, cost trillions of dollars, forged new enemies, and killed untold thousands of people, many of them innocent civilians.

***

Covering nearly forty years, America’s War for the Greater Middle East begins in 1980, and ends around the time of the book’s 2016 publication date.

According to Bacevich, the trouble started – with of all people – President Jimmy Carter, who bungled the Iranian Revolution, and began aiding the Afghan rebels in their war against the Soviet Union. To Bacevich, these first, hesitant steps from this least-warlike of men ultimately devolved into an ongoing, seemingly endless conflict among mostly-Muslim inhabitants. As he notes early on: “From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in [the] region…Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East.”

Bacevich’s initial premise is not wholly convincing, given America’s decades-long support for the Shah, its ties to Israel, and the Middle East’s strategic position in the Cold War, all of which predates Jimmy Carter. Nevertheless, Bacevich is probably right that this is when matters really started to intensify, and what had been sporadic intercession became a reflexive habit.

***

Though it is not super long – less than 400 pages of text – America’s War for the Greater Middle East covers a lot of ground, and a lot of violence. This includes the insertion of the U.S. Marines into Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq War, America’s two wars against Iraq, and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Beyond this, Bacevich ventures into the “greater” part of the Middle East to narrate the air wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as operations in Somalia and Sudan, among other places.

Perhaps the most valuable thing about this volume is that it includes so much in one place, allowing you to see the progression and escalation in context. This isn’t a book about revelations – I don’t think I learned anything new – but about looking at things holistically, seeing the patterns that emerge and repeat.

***

America’s War for the Greater Middle East is sold as a “military history.” In fact, it’s right there in the subtitle. While definitions can vary, I don’t think it’s quite accurate. To me, military histories focus on tactics and technologies and modes of fighting. Here, there’s barely any talk of battles whatsoever. Instead, this is a work of political history. More specifically, it is a work of political criticism, of civilian leaders using the same tool – force – to fix every problem. When you have a hammer – and a carrier task force, the M1A2 Abrams tank, and stealth bombers – everything starts to look like a nail.

***

Objectivity is often lauded as a virtue in history books, even though objectivity itself is almost entirely subjective.

Bacevich does not pretend to be objective, and it’s not likely possible, given that his only son and namesake was killed in Balad, Iraq, by an improvised explosive device. Rather than seeking balance, he is advancing an argument on every page.

Though I didn’t always agree with Bacevich, I was thoroughly engaged. He writes bracingly, with prose that hits hard. However, he balances scathing conclusions with a sly wit, and penetrative insight. At times, Bacevich can be savage in his denunciations, doling out a lot of snark. With the sheer volume of attack, it’s not surprising that some of his volleys feel unfocused, even personal. It can be a bit exhausting. Importantly, though, it is never dull.

***

While America’s War for the Greater Middle East is political, it is not ideological. That is to say, Bacevich isn’t adhering to a Republican or Democratic standard. To him, everyone is basically an idiot, or a fool, or operating under manifest delusions or unchallenged assumptions, from Carter to Obama. Unsurprisingly, he takes George W. Bush to task for starting wars without conceiving of how they might end. Yet he also excoriates Barack Obama for his drone campaign, which killed the innocent and guilty alike.

As Bacevich rightly notes, two recurrences have dogged America’s efforts in the Middle East. The first is the belief that if you kill the right guy, you’ll solve the problem, which has never proven true. The second is the reality that no matter how hard you try to avoid “collateral damage,” it’s going to happen, and every time it does, you’ve created dozens of implacable foes, undoing every bit of prior good.

Obviously, Bacevich’s overall critiques are hard to argue with, especially the two decades following September 11, 2001. That said, Bacevich’s criticisms are not necessarily constructive. He does not explore counterfactuals, or describe other solutions. If there is a theme, it is that intervening is bad, with Bacevich going so far as to disdain American-led efforts to stop the mass murder of Muslims among the ruins of former Yugoslavia.

The thing is, every decision – even the decision to not decide – has consequences. Those consequences are unexplored here. Great at pinpointing mistakes, Bacevich is less precise about what should have been done, even with the marvelous benefit of hindsight. For better and worse, the United States is a large nation with a huge economy and a massive military, and whatever it does – including a total retreat from the Middle East – is going to have major repercussions. I would have liked Bacevich to have directed some of his undoubted intellect in road-mapping a future course, not simply listing past failures.

***

Time and history move ever onward, meaning that America’s War for the Greater Middle East is a bit dated. It makes an impassioned argument about a situation that no longer exists in its same form. Of course, the United States is still enmeshed in the region. But it seems likely, in the years to come, that some disentangling will occur, especially as the location of oil reserves – one of the main reasons for U.S. interest in the first place – continue to shift to different spheres.

Still, even though it can’t speak directly to the present moment, America’s War for the Greater Middle East is still a bracing, energetic tour of the temptations, limits, and pitfalls of power, and a requiem to those crushed by good intentions.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bacevich shows how America trapped itself into endless conflict in the Middle East. He makes this book a compelling read by linking together events that may not have seemed connected. He analyzes the strategic reasoning or lack thereof as American intervention evolved from 1980 to 2016. This is military history at a high level that helps the reader see a bigger picture. My notes follow.

Bacevich notes that in the Greater Middle East “From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that region. Within a decade a great shift occurred. Since 1990 virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East.” The first to die were on a rescue mission in 1980 to free hostages being held in the U.S. embassy in Tehran. A series of mishaps and an accident between a transport aircraft and helicopter at the staging site in the Iranian outback ended the mission killing eight Americans. Neither would the many subsequent military interventions and wars to follow in in the Middle East achieve their strategic goals, because American policy was based on a lack of understanding of the region and hubris. In a way, America was simply replacing the British as the power broker in the Middle East and would similarly fail.

In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran shortly followed by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Prior to that, American defense policy had not focused on the Middle East. America’s defense establishment and pundits suddenly feared the Soviet Union was ready to seize the region. Iran, once an ally under the Shah and now in chaos, was directly in the Soviet’s path. Before President Carter left office, he began supplying arms to Afghans fighting the Soviets and he promulgated a new policy for the Middle East, the Carter Doctrine, which committed America to protect its supply of oil from the region. America now held itself responsible to maintain order and stability in the region. In 1980 Carter authorized the creation of the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) which in 1983 under President Reagan became CENTCOM. CENTCOM was headed by a four-star general with an Area of Responsibility (AOR) covering 19 countries in and near the Middle East. America’s face to the region was now military. When Nazi Germany was defeated, General Eisenhower cabled Washington “The mission of the allied force was fulfilled at 02:41 local time, May 7th 1945.” Since then neither CENTCOM nor any other U.S. regional command has been able to issue such a statement.

When General Schwarzkopf took over CENTCOM in 1988, with the Soviet’s leaving Afghanistan and withdrawing troops from the European front, he recognized the Soviet Union was no longer a threat to his AOR. In fact, it never had been, tied down fighting in Afghanistan, embroiled in Eastern Europe, and defending against NATO. But CENTCOM’s plans still called for racing to Iran to do battle with the Soviet’s. What to do now. Iraq made the perfect new enemy. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 in a brutal slugfest lasting eight years that left Iraq on its heels. But somehow CENTCOM still saw Iraq as powerful and Saddam Hussein was clearly seen as belligerent. So CENTCOM shifted its focus to intra-regional war in its AOR. For eight years the U.S. had armed the holy warriors in Afghanistan. It was U.S. Stinger missiles taking down Soviet helicopters that had turned the tide. The U.S. patted itself on the back, but it empowered the Islamists who did the fighting. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 the country broke out into civil war eventually leading to Taliban takeover in 1996. These religious fundamentalists replaced the traditional local elites. When the Soviets left the U.S. lost all interest in Afghanistan.

After Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982 to oust Arafat’s PLO and Syria President Reagan ordered U.S. Marines to Beirut for a peacekeeping mission. When the Marines left, local partisans began settling scores and Reagan ordered the Marines return. Soon the Marines were under attack by dissident factions. They were now part of the violence they had set out to stop. They brought in tanks, howitzers, gunships and even took the USS New Jersey out of mothballs to provide support with its 16 inch guns that shot 1,900 pound shells 20 miles. A new Islamist group, Hezbollah, had formed in response to the Israeli invasion. In October 1983, Hezbollah drove a massive truck bomb into the Marines’ barracks killing 241. A separate bomb killed 58 French Paratrooper “peacekeepers”. Finally realizing the Marines would not stabilize Lebanon, in January 1984 Reagan ordered the Marines to withdraw. Exactly what they were expected to have accomplished in a country in total chaos had never been made clear. Henceforth, terrorist attacks on U.S. interests increased. In 1986 in response to the bombing of a disco in Germany killing two Americans Reagan ordered the bombing of Moammar Gaddafi’s residence and other targets in Libya. Gaddafi escaped unhurt but the U.S. was now in the endless cycle of violence in the Middle East.

Bacevich calls the Iran-Iraq War the First Gulf War. U. S. military involvement was substantial and led to the subsequent gulf wars. When Iraq invaded in 1980, Carter maintained U. S. neutrality, lest the U. S. become endlessly involved in the Shia-Sunni power struggle for regional dominance. But by 1982 with Iran winning, Reagan began helping Iraq with satellite photos of Iranian positions and guaranteeing loans to purchase U.S. supplies and equipment. Israel began selling U.S. weapons to Iran. Iraq began targeting ships carrying Iranian oil. Iran responded targeting vessels from countries supporting Iraq. The Tanker War broke out. The U. S. sent Navy ships to patrol the area. In 1987 an Iraqi jet fired missiles at the USS Stark nearly sinking it and killing 37 U. S. sailors. The Reagan administration accepted Saddam Hussain’s explanation that the attack was a mistake and blamed Iran. By 1986 Saddam had become aware that the U. S. was selling missiles to Iran, playing both sides, in what would be known as the Iran Contra Affair. The U.S. agreed to reflag Kuwaiti vessels with the stars and stripes, which would now be protected by the U. S. Navy. Iran hit a Liberian flagged U. S. owned tanker with a missile. Reagan sent Navy SEALs to the Gulf and began taking out Iranian gunboats and facilities. In 1988 the USS Roberts struck an Iranian mine and nearly sank. Reagan ordered retaliation sending SEALs and ships to destroy Iranian oil and gas platforms. Then the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger airliner by mistake killing 290. Several weeks later Khomeini accepted a cease fire. The U. S. had established an ongoing active military presence in the Gulf.

Bacevich calls Operation Desert storm the Second Gulf War. Faced with Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait threatening Saudi Arabia, President George H. W. Bush built a coalition to go to war. Not lost on Bush was that the fall of the Soviet Union meant the U.S. Army was no longer pinned down in Europe. He would send over 500,000 Americans to the Middle East to fight Iraq. The American generals wanted overwhelming force to crush Saddam’s troops. The shadow of Viet Nam hung over every decision. The U. S. led coalition quickly dispatched Saddam’s forces and freed Kuwait, the stated objective, but Saddam remained in power. Bacevich says this was by design to keep Saddam as a counterpoint to Iran. But as with the war that would follow a decade later, there was no planning for the aftermath. Bush thought he had put Saddam in his place. Saddam thought otherwise. After a brief uprising, Saddam brutally repressed the Kurds driving them to the Turkish outback, leaving them to starve with nothing. Bush started airdropping supplies which led to providing air protection over Northern Iraq to allow the Kurds to return to their homes. The no-fly zone was then extended to the Shia in Southern Iraq who had also been brutalized. American enforcement of the no-fly zones would last until 2003 when President George W. Bush started the Third Gulf War. Over that interwar period there would be sporadic air battles and missile launches at Iraqi targets. America’s military presence in the Middle East was now permanent.

A similar situation evolved in Somalia. In 1992 clan warfare created chaos leaving many people starving. Bush had the U.S. step in airdropping supplies. Soon U. S. troops were deployed to guarantee the safety of relief workers. This led to trying to set up a stable government. U. N. peacekeepers followed. Some were attacked and killed. The U. S. sent more troops to take out the responsible warlord. One thing led to another and we have the Battle of Mogadishu better known as Black Hawk Down and America immersed in another messy Middle East fight. Also, in 1992 the Balkans were falling apart with the Serbs attacking Bosnian Muslims. Again the U. S. resorted to no-fly zones to protect the Muslims and again it would morph becoming a bombing campaign that ended the Bosnian war in 1995. Again the U. S. would deploy the army as peacekeepers and again another war would soon breakout. This time in Kosovo where the U.S. again inserted itself into an ethnic dispute. The U.S. started with threats which escalated into an intense bombing campaign of Serbia. Interestingly it was U.S. backing of Croatian forces that turned the tide in Bosnia. The U. S. funneled arms and aid to the Croatians through a private company led by former U. S. generals, beginning a pattern of using private contractors that would steadily increase.

In 1996 Al Qaida orchestrated a series of attacks against U.S. facilities: The bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing nineteen Americans and injuring hundreds; the bombing of the U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 killing twelve Americans, hundreds of others and injuring thousands; and the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 killing seventeen U. S. sailors and injuring dozens. After the embassy attacks the U. S. fired missiles at an Osama bin Laden training camp in Afghanistan with no significant result. After the Cole Attack the U. S. made a plan to take out Al Qaeda and Taliban infrastructure in Afghanistan, but bin Laden struck first on 9-11. President Bush responded the next month bombing the Taliban and sending in Special Ops to work with the Taliban’s enemies. The Taliban was soon driven from major cities and it dispersed to take up guerilla warfare. Bush immediately took credit for winning the Afghan war just as he would declare mission accomplished in his next war in Iraq.

After Afghanistan Bush quickly turned to Iraq. Bacevich asserts that Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 not to find WMD or liberate the Iraqi people but to demonstrate America’s power to go to war to eliminate an adversarial regime. Bush had a grand plan in mind to use Iraq as a springboard to transform the whole region to Western values and norms. A quick victory would pave the way for America to take out Gaddafi, Assad and then would come Iran. No plans were made to address the occupation of Iraq. After taking Bagdad, Iraqi resistance formed and rapidly grew. The administration attributed it to Baathist’s and criminals. U. S. army tactics of invading people’s homes, destroying their property, arresting and dehumanizing fighting age males ensured the resistance quickly gained strength. The revelation of American practices at Abu Ghraib made everything clear. The Bush administration replaced generals and shifted policy touting counterinsurgency tactics to win over the Iraqi people. This was more a rebranding of the war to hide failure than an effective policy. Areas pacified remained so only temporarily. The bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in 2006 led to near civil war between Shia and Sunni. But the excesses of al-Qaida fighters soon created a common enemy for Shia, Sunni and the U. S. This led to more cooperation with U. S. troops and casualties declined. The administration attributed this decline to its new tactics.

Meanwhile the Afghanistan war and Bush’s nation building exercise were going nowhere. The American public had written Afghanistan off. Obama became president in 2008 and tried a “surge” adding troops replacing the commanding general with General McCrystal who had gained notoriety in Iraq. He launched a counterinsurgency campaign to win over the Afghan people which was a failure, a fact he readily admitted now saying the tactic wouldn’t work in Afghanistan. He was replaced with General Petraeus, who had touted counterinsurgency as commander in Iraq, but now eschewed it and just sought to buy time to find a way to leave on a positive note.

Bacevich notes that prior to 9-11 America’s policy failures were due to ignorance, after 9-11 under Bush they were due to hubris and under Obama they were characterized by diffusion, a scattering of resources incapable of being effective. The American public would no longer support large troop deployments. By 2015 regular U.S army ranks had dropped over 100,000 since the Gulf war. But now there was SOCOM, the Special Operations Command with 72,00 soldiers and growing. The new paradigm was special ops and drones. They were deployed throughout the Middle East and Africa. SOCOM had operations in over 150 countries in 2015. Obama took out Gaddafi in Libya with air strikes, cruise missiles and special ops sending the country into civil war and chaos. Obama then attacked Syria with strong words and little else as that nation disintegrated. However, in Pakistan and Yemen he regularly deployed drones to attack militants killing thousands. How many were civilians is unknown. He set up AFRICOM to focus military resources on Africa to train local forces, some of which in turn conducted coups. Bacevich calls the attack by ISIS of Iraq in 2013 the Fourth Gulf War. Despite the U.S. training and supplying Iraq’s army, it fell apart immediately. The U.S. went to war again, this time to defend Iraq.

As I write this President Biden has set a date for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan and only 2,500 American soldiers are still in Iraq. The American public seems to have lost its taste for interventionism and policy is reflecting that. Bacevich’s account ends in 2016 when his book was published. His analysis illustrates clearly why America’s leaders should think long and hard before sending America’s military to intervene in any conflict. Very highly recommended.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Lord's anger burned against Israel
and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years."
-- Numbers 32: 13



"To be sure, Bush's Second Inaugural qualifies as a thoroughly American text, the president reiterating sentiments voiced by more than a few of his predecessors. Yet the speech also bears the unmistakable imprint of self-indulgent fantasy, of sobriety overtaken by fanaticism. Bush's expectations of ending tyranny by spreading American ideals mirrored Osama Bin Laden's dream of establishing a new caliphate based on Islamic principals. When put to the test, the president's vision of peace gained by waging preventative war had proven to be just as fanciful as bin Laden's and harry less pernicious. As adversaries, truly they were made for each other."
-- Andrew J. Bacevich, America's War for the Greater Middle East.

Ouch!

Dr. Andrew "Skip" Bacevich is a national treasure. He is fairly unassuming in person. He would pass for a conservative banker, a thoughtful pastor, or reserved high school principal if you just happened to see him sitting across from you on the Amtrak from North Station to DuPont. But step out of line, and just his gaze alone would stop you in your tracks. He could stare down a bear, perhaps stop a shark in Hawaii with just his gaze. Obviously, I exaggerate. I'm not sure how wildlife would react to retired Colonel Bacevich, but the couple times I met him when he was commanding the 11th ACR in Fulda, Germany ... well, let's be honest ... he scared the shit out of me. And I don't intimidate easily. Even the 17-year-old version of me.

Anyway, I've read many of Bacevich's previous books like: (The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country). I still have two other Bacevich books: (The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy) sitting stoically on the shelf right behind me (between a Gary Wills and a Steve Coll) waiting patiently to be read. I would consider myself to be a hyper-Bacevich-acolyte. I will read them soon.

Anyway, enough wind-up. This book isn't flashy. It isn't full of new revelations. It is just solid military and historical scholarship and probably one of the key historical pieces on the military adventurism of the United States in the Middle East since the Carter Administration. Bacevich isn't a lawyer, but this book seemed to me basically an airtight legal brief exploring: 1) what motivated the United States to act as it has in the Middle East? 2) what both the civilians an the military tried to accomplish there? 3) Regardless of what US policy makers and military planners wanted to do, what actually happened there? 4) What are the consequences of US policy towards the Middle East? What have our wars wrought?

This is a book everyone needs to read. If our military adventurism has continued to roll on, not just in the Middle East but Africa and to a smaller degree in South America and Asia, we need to understand why we constantly seem to screw it up. How are we as citizens going to hold our leaders (both in the Military and in political office) to account if we don't seem to really give a shit. Less than one percent of our citizens have been involved directly in these wars, but the wars have affected all of us. We all pay the monetary debt and burden of the Billions and even Trillions wasted in stupid wars, we pay the moral debt for the blood left on the battlefield, the wounds brought home, and the citizens killed to further American interests when we have no sense any longer exactly what that interest is.

We are trapped in generational, perpetual wars in the Middle East and to what end? Most of the Neo-Con arguments should have been put to bed with the absolute failure of America's longest two wars. We seem to have left both Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and Libya less stable than we found them. We keep sending our damn military bulls into foreign Pottery Barns and we don't seem to grasp WHY exactly we are doing it or HOW the hell we can get out.

Anyway, this is a must read from a philosopher/historian of the highest order. It is his masterpiece. Read it, and weep.

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a student of history over the years I have studied and taught the 100 Years War between England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries, the 30 Years War in western and central Europe in the 17th century, and now Andrew Bacevitch suggests the 40 Years War in the Middle East that began in the 20th century and continues to this day. Bacevitch, a former career soldier and professor of history at Boston University, has written a number of important books on American foreign and military policy including BREACH OF TRUST, WASHINGTON RULES, AND THE LIMITS OF POWER explains in his new book, AMERICA’S WAR FOR THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST: A MILITARY HISTORY that the United States has been engaged in a war in the region that dates back to 1979 and is still ongoing. He has labeled this continuous struggle, the 40 Years War in which the United States has been involved in conflict in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. After reading his latest work two questions come to mind. First, over the period discussed in the book, did the United States ever have an actual strategy? Second, did American military supremacy obviate the need for a strategy? After exploring Bacevich’s narrative the answer is a resounding no to the first question, and yes to the second as successive administrations relied on the latest military technology to achieve its goals as it careened from one crisis in the region to the next. For example, Bacevich describes President Clinton’s policy in the Balkans in the 1990s as “intervention by inadvertence,” and the NATO air campaign in the same region as “military masturbation.” Further, after discussing President George H.W. Bush’s approach to dealing with Saddam Hussein after forcing the Iraqi dictator out of Kuwait in 1991, Bacevitch describes United States policy as “occupation by air,” setting up “no-fly zones” rather than instituting a realistic approach to dealing with the situation on the ground.

Bacevitch’s work is provocative and reflects the ability to synthesize a great deal of information in developing sound conclusions. The author constructs a narrative that encompasses the period 1979 to the present as he explains the origins of American involvement in the region and how it fostered the “Greater War in the Middle East.” As he does so he develops his arguments like a prosecutor at an evidentiary hearing as he dissects the approach taken by five presidential administrations. He carefully crafts his thesis in a step by step approach as each event builds on the next and how they are linked to produce the idiocy of American policy. As each building block is presented, Bacevitch digresses to compare policy decisions for the Middle East with other somewhat comparative situations in American history from the American Revolution, the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I and II, and the Vietnam War creating interesting parallels. What is clear from Bacevitch’s narrative is that in many cases American decision makers repeatedly reached conclusions in a vacuum that reminds one of Kurt Vonnegut’s “cloud cuckoo land.”

As the author traces America’s “War for the Greater Middle East” what becomes clear is the lack of a coherent strategy. Administration after administration succumbed to fallacies of their own making. Jimmy Carter hoped to develop a new foreign policy agenda of alleviating Third World poverty, resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, and eliminating nuclear weapons. This agenda would be shattered by the Iranian revolution and a president who “lacked guile, a vulnerability that, once discovered, his adversaries at home and abroad did not hesitate to exploit.” Bacevitch provides an astute analysis of Carter’s overall foreign policy, focusing mostly on Iran and Afghanistan. Carter concerned for his own reelection would auger in the “Greater War in the Middle East” by announcing the Carter Doctrine which stated that “an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Wonderful in theory, but American fecklessness was on full display in the Iranian Desert in April 1980 as it seemed that American planes and helicopters were playing bumper cars.

The problem with the Carter Doctrine and subsequent American policy under Ronald Reagan is that it was based on the false premise that the Soviet Union coveted the Persian Gulf and possessed the will and capacity to seize it. The American response was the creation of a new command for the region called CENTCOM. Though created to deal with the Soviet threat, CENTCOM would provide the United States with a platform to launch and continue its wars in the region. What was also very troubling is that CENTCOM paid little attention to the Shi’ite-Sunni divide, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the climate of the region in its planning. As the Cold War drew to a close, the Reagan administration shifted its focus from the Soviet Union to Iraq as public enemy number one, and did not take into account that state actors were not the only enemies that confronted the United States. For Reagan, Afghanistan seemed like a major victory as we contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union. Another victory was supposedly achieved as we backed both sides in the First Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a policy we would pay heavily for in the future. But in endorsing the Carter Doctrine in stepping up American military activity in the region we achieved little of lasting benefit and over time we created an incubator for terrorism that drew the United States into a quagmire later on. As Bacevitch points out, by supporting the Mujahidin we helped foster Islamic radicalism and with our support Pakistan became a nuclear power. Further, by meting out punishment to Libyan dictator Moamar Gaddafi it led to bombings in Berlin killing American soldiers and German civilians and the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland and the death of hundreds of Americans. The Reagan administration was not just content with an erroneous approach in Afghanistan and Libya, its policy toward Lebanon was hard to fathom resulting in two separate incursions into the Beirut area resulting in further radicalizing Hezbollah and causing the death of 241 Marines. When the United States withdrew from Lebanon and engaged in the Iran-Contra scandal it reflected American ignorance, ineptitude, and a lack of staying power that Islamists would take note of for the future.

Bacevitch is correct in arguing that the end of the Cold War provided the United States with a freedom of action that it had not enjoyed since the mid-1940s allowing George H.W. Bush to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. The second Persian Gulf War, was a proxy war against a past to eradicate feelings of inadequacy induced by Vietnam. This was reflected in the rhetoric surrounding the conflict and commentary evaluating America’s technological and military superiority as we crushed Saddam’s forces. As much as the war seemed a success American intervention would produce conditions that were conducive to further violence and disorder. Once Saddam was expelled the United States had no real plan for the post-war situation. Substantial elements of the Republican Guard remained intact, and Shi’ites and Kurds rose up against Saddam. Bacevitch points out that a myth developed concerning the 1990s as a relatively peaceful decade for the United States in the region. This myth was fostered by the supposed success of “Operation Desert Storm.” However, almost immediately the plight of the Kurds led to a “no-fly zone” in the north, and Saddam’s revenge against Shi’ites led to a “no-fly zone in the south.” In effect the United States occupied Iraq in the air and flew thousands upon thousands of sorties in the 1990s to control Saddam’s forces. Once Bush left office Bill Clinton continued the Bush approach of the gap between raw military power and political acuity. In confronting events in the Balkans and Somalia, the United States widened the “Greater War for the Middle East.” The United States sought to protect Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo from the Serbs, as well as the Somali people from murdering warlords, but as in most instances the “commitment of raw military power might get things off to a good start, a faulty grasp of underlying political dynamics leaves the United States susceptible to ambush, both literal and figurative.”

Bacevitch digs deep in his analysis integrating American military strategy, the theoretical arguments between military men and their civilian overseers, as well as the application of strategies developed for the battlefield. Bacevitch explains military concepts in a very understandable manner and the conclusion one reaches is that conceptually American military planners were repeatedly off base in their approach. Bacevitch’s description of the cast of characters involved is very important and insightful. Whether discussing Generals Norman Schwarzkopf, Tommy Franks, Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus, or others, the reader is exposed to personalities and egos that dominated military policy planning and implementation in an overly honest and blunt fashion.

Bacevitch leaves his most scathing analysis of American policy for the George W. Bush and Barrack Obama administrations. As the 1990s evolved with terrorist spectaculars at the World Trade Center in 1993, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, attacks in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the outgoing Clinton administration explained that these events resulted from American leadership responsibilities in the world, and because we acted to advance peace and democracy. This explanation as most offered by the government during the period under discussion were “designed not to inform but to reassure and thereby to conceal.” The “Greater War for the Middle East” now widened to include Osama Bin-Laden and al Qaeda. As the United States exaggerated the threat it posed, it ignored the underlying circumstances that created it. What developed was a pattern, if we could decapitate al Qaeda and kill Bin-Laden all problems would be solved. We tried that with Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Moamar Gaddafi in Libya and look what resulted. For the United States “policy formulation was becoming indistinguishable from targeting.”

After 9/11 the United States immediately shifted from crushing al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq. Bacevitch argues that the Bush administration was fixated on Saddam Hussein, and did not accept or ignored the fact that the battle in Afghanistan was far from over. Afghanistan reverted to the back burner, another “phony war” that the United States ignited, but failed to carry to fruition and let simmer. Many have pondered why the United States invaded Iraq - was it about oil, weapons of mass destruction, or humanitarianism? Bacevitch correctly places these reasons aside and concentrates on the American intent on establishing the efficacy of preventive war. Washington was going to assert the prerogative that no other country had – overthrowing any government the United States found wanting or as it is better known as, the Bush Doctrine. This premise was based on the fallacious conclusion that the Islamic world could easily adapt to democracy, limited government, a market economy, and respect for human and woman’s rights no matter what their opponents argued. For the Bush administration Saddam and Iraq fit this paradigm perfectly. The United States invaded Iraq not because of the danger it posed, but because of the opportunity it presented. Bacevitch explores in detail all the key aspects of the war from its outset, to the capture of Saddam, the Shi’ite-Sunni civil war, to the “surge,” and again what is clear is American incompetence be it the fault of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bremmer, Franks, or others.

Bacevitch’s overall evaluation of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy is harsh, but extremely accurate as the President seemed to continue Bush policies. First, Obama was committed to the withdrawal of American troops by the end of the 2011 deadline that Bush had negotiated with the Iraqi government. However, as troops returned home from Iraq, many made a “U-turn” and were sent to Afghanistan, or for many who were redeployed once again to Afghanistan! During the Obama years the “Greater War for the Middle East” was confronted by three important changes that had major implications. First, after almost 40 years of war, an “Iraqi Syndrome” developed with the reluctance to put American troops in harm’s way. Second, the turmoil from the Arab Spring. Lastly, the chasm that developed in American-Israeli relations. Obama has had a great deal of difficulty navigating these changes. A surge was tried that accomplished little but increasing American casualties. Support for aspects of the Arab Spring resulted in little improvement in Egypt and other Arab autocracies. Problems with Israel became a partisan political football in both countries and an inability of leaders to work with each other. Further, the Obama administration resorted to decapitation in Libya that has been disastrous. Finally, the administration dithered over the civil war in Syria and looked foolish when it did little to enforce its own “red line.” It seems that Obama’s strategy is wrapped up in special operations and drone attacks, not really conducive to improving America’s reputation in the region and the overall Islamic world.

In closing, Bacevitch has written an extremely important book that policy makers should consult very carefully. Granted, the author has had the benefit of historical hindsight in preparing his arguments. But one cannot negate the intelligent conclusions he puts forth. If you would like to gain insight and understanding of the 40 Year War, consult Bacevitch’s narrative because as events in Libya, Syria, and Yemen continue, it does not seem as if this war is going to end in the foreseeable future. As Bacevitch states in his conclusion; the perpetuation of the “War for the Greater Middle East” is not enhancing American freedom or security. It is accomplishing the opposite, but hopefully one day the American people will wake up from their slumber regarding its prosecution. Until that time the wars end will not come about.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Page 109 (my book)

Reinhold Niebuhr had chided Americans about entertaining “dreams of managing history”, a temptation to which he deemed his countrymen peculiarly susceptible. “The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama,” he warned, “have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.”

Page 61 in the 1990’s

For the moment, Washington fancied that it had finished its work in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Afghanistan was not yet finished with the United States.


This book provides a powerful analysis of the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East (including Afghanistan) in the last forty years. It was Jimmy Carter who decided that the Persian Gulf was essential to American interests (i.e. oil, the American way of life…). This eventually led to escalation and several military “solutions”.

Initially it was to protect the Middle East from the Soviet Union. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1980 was seen erroneously as a preliminary step by the Soviets to move into the Persian Gulf. To counter this the United States, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan supported the Afghan “freedom fighters”.

There are several recurring themes in this book. One is the ignorance of the U.S. government (the Pentagon, the military) in what they were supporting or doing in the Middle East; supporting Afghanistan in the 1980’s being a prime example.

Page 49

For Generals Kingston, Crist, or Schwarzkopf to incorporate history or religion into their thinking alongside geography or the perspective enemy’s order of battle would have required an enormous leap of creative imagination. At CENTCOM headquarters, such imagination was – and would remain – in short supply.

Other themes are announcements on multiple occasions of purported “end of mission”, “victory” - when in fact the mission was hardly over and was soon to enter a more violent, deadly, and anarchistic phase that would last for several more years.

Also was the idea of setting up a “liberal democracy” in Iraq and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan. This love for democracy, supposedly, was to spread to neighboring countries in the Middle East. Instead of democracy we have had the metastasis of Al Qaeda to ISIS. This shows no signs of abating.

Page 366

Removing the likes of Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, … Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi held the key to putting things right.

This terrorist hit-list many fear simply leads to more and more.

History has repeated itself, the U.S., like in Vietnam has become bogged down in an endless spreading war. And worse, it keeps being drawn back in to subdue the chaos resulting from the initial military invasion. And the Middle East is far more complex than Vietnam with multiple religious and tribal conflicts.

So another theme is the inability to face facts – the reality that military intervention is not providing a solution, that Saudi Arabia is neither an ally nor a “friend’.

In contrast to World War II and Vietnam when there was a draft, the American people have not been asked to make a sacrifice after 9/11. President Bush told them to go on with their current lifestyle – much of which took a nosedive after the recession in 2008.

American leaders, after ousting Saddam Hussein, repeatedly told the world that Iraq was becoming democratic.

I also learnt that after the first Gulf War of 1991 U.S. Air forces were constantly active over Iraq in order to enforce the no-fly zone. One could say that from 1991 until the U.S. invasion in 2003 there was a continual war being fought in Iraq. In fact it goes on to this day.

Perhaps this book is short on solutions. I also feel that the comparisons the author makes with Bosnia and Kosovo to events in the Middle East are not that valid.

In a historical sense, by examining the history of the interventions and invasions all in one context, we see many patterns repeating themselves over the last 40 years. We come out of this book with a strong sense of the historical fallacies perpetuated by the U.S. government since the 1980’s.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid book as long as we are clear on its intention. It's not breaking a lot of ground in academic scholarship, other than the broad conception of America's post 1980 foreign policy in the Middle East as a single conflict (I have my doubts here). Rather, the purpose seems to be to challenge Americans to think about how we arrived at the present, with our feet stuck in the mud of this region with a clean break seemingly impossible even as our dependence on the resources of the region lessens. In keeping with his earlier works, he also wants Americans to think about their own complicity in these policies, especially their tendency to ignore US actions and errors because they have no skin in the game.

The best point in Bacevich's book is that the last 35 years of US foreign policy in the ME have witnessed a giant version of mission creep derived from establishing certain principles at the end of the 70's. As soon as Carter said that the US would use force to prevent an outside power from seizing territory or resources in the Gulf the US became committed to broad involvement in the region. This involvement was originally predicated on the need to assure access to energy resources for us and other centers of economic power (Why Ike's promise to do basically the same thing in the late 50's doesn't feature more prominently in Bacevich's story, I'm not sure). This led to a progressive dipping of toes, feet, legs, and finally our whole body in the region as the main guarantor of security and stability. 9/11 shifted our emphasis from stabilization to transformation and the destruction of the terrorist threat, leading to the disastrous Iraq and Afghanistan wars (whether the purpose of these wars was really transformation depends on who you ask. I doubt that Rumsfeld and Cheney really cared about democratizing Iraq or the region given their utter lack of planning and obsession with getting out of IQ and AF as fast as possible. In fact, the warlord strategy in Afghanistan all but guaranteed that the country would not change). We now find ourselves with at least one foot still in the region and no clear idea of how to extricate ourselves.

The big problem I have with this book is how the shadow of the Iraq War casts a shadow forward and backwards in time. Was America's foreign policy in the Middle East really a disaster on September 10, 2001? Sure, Iraq policy drifted, the Arab-Israeli conflict simmered, and we had lots of people who hated us. If you see this period as setting up the Iraq War, then it looks much worse than it was. But if you take it by itself, without 9/11 we probably would have just muddled through as we had always done. Although the presidents from Carter to Clinton treated the Middle East as a region of vital strategic interest (it was, and mostly still is) and set up certain principles that steadily increased the US role in the region, there was no reason that this slow increase of military and diplomatic involvement had to lead to the occupation of Iraq. These presidents all exercised restraint in the exercise of US power in the region, studiously avoiding excessive commitment and costly intervention in most cases(Daddy Bush is the best example of this). Barring Saddam doing something rash, the Iraq War required both 9/11 and the particular constellation of leaders in power at the time to delude themselves into thinking that SH was an existential threat and that the invasion would bring good to Iraq and the region. The problem with this book is that Bacevich allows the shadow of Iraq to cast a pall of failure and incompetence across a much more complex 21 years of US involvement in the Middle East.

My second main problem with Bacevich is that he's just too harsh. We need to be harsh about these episodes in our history, especially Iraq. But do we have to be cynical? Bacevich seems to think that every general and president is really only out for his or herself. I'm sure there's plenty of egotism at those levels, but there's also a lot of smart people making good faith efforts to solve extremely difficult problems. This is maybe my biggest pet peeve among academics: the insinuation, via excessive criticism, that they would have known better, chosen a better path, been smarter, or are smarter. Bacevich strongly emphasizes the downsides in situations where the US chose among bad options and still brought about outcomes better than the alternatives (Bosnia, GWI, Kosovo, possibly Somalia). If you are going to criticize for failures, you should recognize successes, even very partial ones (it's worth noting that these partial successes saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives and entire countries from eradication). As one of my professors, Navin Bapat, once said: Never assume you are smarter or know more than the people you study. Bacevich is a brilliant scholar with a genuine desire to guide his country onto a more ethical, responsible path, but he's fallen into this trap with this book (see how granting the assumption of good faith is done?). This is why I'd avoid assigning it as an undergraduate text: it would only encourage students' already powerful proclivity towards cynicism and thinking they know everything.

Bacevich has a lot of good points that I didn't cover above: US ignorance of Islamic history and practices, the erroneous belief that we can "fix" the Middle East, a tendency to militarize solutions, a tendency to abandon certain situations once our broad geopolitical aims had been achieved, the dictation of policy aims by domestic politics. I particularly liked his argument that the US sees the GWOT as a continuation of the struggles against fascism and communism (see Norman Podhoretz and the 2002 NSS) when really this is a separate part of the world with its own history that calls for a different framework.

Nevertheless, this book tells me that Bacevich is actually a better critic of culture and politics at home than foreign policy. In Breach of Trust and New American Militarism, he shows how certain aspects of American culture since Vietnam have given birth to a cheap patriotism that exacts no price on the average American for wars abroad and gives presidents far more leeway to conduct foreign adventures without suffering politically at home. By identifying this rot in our collective notions of service (or lack thereof), Bacevich is really on to something. But with foreign policy, he is far too caustic. He doesn't seem to know what he wants in many cases. For a follower of Niebuhr, he's oddly unsatisfied with incomplete successes like those in GWI, Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere where the alternatives could have been much worse. For example, this whole book criticizes America's tendency to dip its toes into conflicts and then fall in completely, but he also seems to dislike Obama's mostly hands-off approach to Syria and his lack of a military response to Assad's use of chemical weapons. I therefore have to leave off with the question: What do you want?

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a valuable book, as Bacevich is an important writer. The first two parts are a general survey of familiar material (1976 - 2000). But Part III contains an insightful and novel look at the Bush/Obama years, and paint a grim picture of the utter catastrophe we have wrought in our Mideast policy -- the result entirely, in Bacevich's view, of American hybris and delusion -- The last chapter is especially interesting.

My one complaint is that I believe that he underestimates the degree to which we are dependant on Middle Eastern (esp. Saudi) oil, and on the entire region as a source for natural gas. He suggests at one point that we would do better to focus on Canada and Venezuala -- which suggests that he thinks that oil sands are the solution, which is absurd. They are very expensive, and very dirty, and nowhere near scalable in the way that cheap Saudi oil is scalable. If so, this vitiates his argument to a significant degree. For it means that we are more stuck there than he would like to think, and that it is not simply the adoption of false assumptions that is the source of our woes. The Middle East is intractable and contains the seeds of a holocaust. The only way to render it irrelevant is to wean ourselves off cheap oil.

(I listened to this on audible; the narration was mediocre -- but not too awful).

[Murtaza · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does a profound service by knitting together and making coherent several decades of American policy in the Middle East. First initiated in 1980 under Carter, Bacevich posits (convincingly) that U.S. policies in the region have formed one broad campaign. While initially this campaign started out being about securing oil supplies from the Persian Gulf - something its proponents at the time were frank about - it shortly thereafter became an aimless and vague enterprise. Without any coherent or consistent agenda The War for the Greater Middle East continues on of its own volition, at great cost to the people of the region as well as the people of the United States, who are largely checked out of it.

Aside from the indispensable task of creating a grand narrative of America involvement in the region, Bacevich also draws on a vast history of U.S. policy documents that chart what foreign policy has historically been about. The book is bracketed by two of these. A strategy plan by Paul Wolfowitz that identified the USSR and then-ascendant Baathist Iraq as the two threats to American hegemony in the region gives insight into why American troops first came to the region and much of why they've stayed since. An older document, by George Kennan in the 1940s, that identifies maintaining the global disparity of wealth in America's favor, closes the book and gives insight into what historically the aim of U.S. foreign policy has been.

Somewhere along the line the United States developed an obsession with "shaping" the Middle East by force into a vision that suited its interests and ideology. Whether and why this needed to be accomplished was not much examined. U.S. troops first arrived in the Middle East to protect it from the threat of Soviet encroachment. After the fall of the Soviets, they found a new task, one that (not coincidentally) justified the continuance of the massive set of domestic interests that Eisenhower termed as the military-industrial complex. To this end America has attempted to impose its will on the region, often in ways that made little sense, and, as the track record laid out here shows, almost invariably with disastrous consequences for its people.

The Middle East is by any account less stable, free and hopeful than it was when America first began its involvement in 1980. It has used its people as fodder for a variety of policies. While sometimes malevolent and sometimes beneficent in intent, the end results have almost uniformly been malign.

Bacevich's book is invaluable, as it places history in its full context. We often take events in the Middle East as discrete (indeed we are encouraged to do so by a sclerotic media environment), and thus end up seeing many trees but never a forest. This book is full of memory. Its also full of philosophical insight, including into what is meant by the "American way of life" as remembered by him, a career army officer who lost his own son in a messianic government adventure to "change the way they live" in Iraq. This work is also a clarion call for Americans to wake up and pay attention to their government's disastrous policies in the Greater Middle East, if not for the benefit of the peoples of the region then at least for their own benefit, as a new set of real, material challenges emerge to America's privileged position in the world.

[David M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Bacevich may not be a Marxist, or even a leftist really, but then as a comrade of mine one remarked, You don't need to read the German Ideology to see what a fucking stupid idea the Iraq War was.

The second - or third, depending on how you count it - Gulf war was a watershed at least in that it showed definitively that the most powerful military in the history of the world was powerless to do anything but sow chaos and more random violence. No victory could be won, no enemy defeated because there never was anything resembling a coherent enemy.

And yet, while he wouldn't make any single decision as disastrous as the invasion of Iraq, Bush's successor would continue to expand America's endless wars. The ascent of Donald Trump to the presidency must surely be seen as god's judgment.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great multi-point overview of America's longest military conflict, this book does not disappoint. The author makes the case succinctly that America as the world's police force may continue into the indefinite future without a major policy review by those that hold the reins of power. Along the way, the author relates several tried-and-failed military campaigns in the Levant dating back to the Carter presidency. This book forms the bedrock of anyone's reading if they wish to understand armed conflict in the Middle East in modern times. An excellent effort.

[Matt Papes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an immensely readable, indescribably profound, devastating critique of our foreign policy in the Middle East that dates back to the Carter administration. After reading this book, you will not view anything you hear or read about the war and our policies in the Middle East the same way again. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that anyone - and that includes every American - who cares about our place in the world and is even minimally curious about how we got so seemingly inextricably involved in the greater Middle East, should read. The new administration's populist "America First" policy will be sorely tested by establishment forces pushing us into an ongoing war that many of us continue to view as irrelevant to our daily lives. Bacevich provides both important historic context linking seemingly disparate military actions and a realistic if pessimistic view that multiple forces - lack of a viable anti-war party, politicians who wrap themselves in patriotism, the still-viable military-industrial complex, and the remoteness of war to most Americans - will keep us locked in a costly and destructive pattern of fighting without success.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I realized I knew very little about America's involvement in the Middle East. My memory and knowledge of the Middle East starts with 9/11 and gets increasingly fuzzy from there. I was only 7 when Operation Desert Storm happened and so I have no memory of that. On 9/11 I was a junior in high school. In the ensuing weeks and years I sometimes wondered about our objectives in Afganistan and Iraq, but I assumed our leaders knew what they were doing.

But as our involvement in the Middle East continued without any clear or lasting results I started to wonder what it was all about. Hence I decided to read this book.

This book looks at every military action in the Middle East since 1980 as part of one large war.
Things that happened during the presidencies of Obama and Bush had their seeds sewn during the Carter and Reagan Administrations.

This book illustrated that time and again the US's best (and sometimes worst) intentions in the Middle East yielded disastrous and unintended results. And time and again those results were ignored, misinterpreted or, flat out covered up by a string of Presidents, High Ranking Military Officials, members of the Cabinet, and congregational leaders.

If you want to understand what we are trying (and failing) to do in the Middle East you should read this book.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from NetGalley.

In America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, Andrew Bacevich lays an argument that America has a chronic obsession with the Middle East, which spans all ideological divides, and which ultimately ends in failure with each foray. Bacevich has something of a reputation for being anti-partisan and taking the long view of history, and America's War largely builds upon previous arguments in The Limits of Power, The Long War, and The New American Militarism: that America is too reliant on military force to achieve foreign policy goals, and this is a cultural rather than a partisan problem which goes back a very long way.

In the context of America's War, it begins in 1979. The Iranian Revolution, more specifically the following hostage crisis, upset the balance in the larger Middle East. Calculations moved from considering Iran as the ally to provide stability to the region to assuming the US had to do it themselves. This allowed formerly obscure thinkers, who had been quietly campaigning for the US to take an active role in the world's oil supply, to move to the forefront of the professional intelligence and diplomatic corps and thereby dominate the foreign policy of every President from Carter to Obama.

It is the continuity between Presidential administrations which is most supportive of Bacevich's narrative. As Carter rolled over into Reagan, the point of view stayed the same. Reagan to Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama, military force is the number one tool. And the Middle East is the number one region.

The subtitle of the volume "A Military History" is largely misleading. While Bacevich speaks about military campaigns, it is far more a history of foreign policy and thought. There is not much military analysis, save for continual castigation of the RMA thesis: that is, briefly, that technology made the American military unbeatable in the field. To echo the North Vietnamese Colonel Tu: That may be so, but it is also irrelevant. War is not won in battles, but in the Clausewitzian wrestling match of collective will.

Bacevich constructs a very impressive argument, but fails one important logical test. He argues that there is this geographic entity called a "Greater Middle East". This is composed of the so-called "Arab World", which includes the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, with the addition of Anatolia, Iran, Central Asia, certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria, and even the Balkans in Southeast Europe. This vast area is outlined on included maps which point to American military actions in those countries since 1979. And this region is regularly mentioned in the context of government policy and decisions being made as if it were a cohesive defined entity for those people in the past, for which they were specifically making policy. Except Bacevich does not establish that those planners and decision-makers understood that this defined region existed, or that they made those decisions knowing this defined region existed. While it does not invalidate the discussion of individual events, it does weaken the argument for a "war" for a "greater middle east".

Nevertheless, this book puts forwards many questions and attacks many edifices of faith in American public culture. Bacevich was an armor officer, retiring as a colonel, and so has some direct knowledge of the early phases and a firm understanding of military affairs. He may be charged with too close to his subject, his son was killed in Iraq in 2007, and his emotion is palpable--but his arguments are consistent with his prior works. It's a good book, highly recommended.

[Brook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for those interested in US policy in the Middle East. This book will, intentionally or not, make you angry at U.S. foreign policy, specifically at the Executive branch since Truman (Presidents of both parties being implicated in folly, lies, and/or uninformed idiocy), with an even harsher light shed on the General Officers who have led the efforts there, with some exceptions. Reagan and H.W. Bush actually made the fewest errors. However, in the case of Reagan, there is a lot here to knock him down as a Great President, at least internationally. Beirut and Iran-Contra are the biggies. Rumsfeld comes out as both the biggest liar and the biggest idiot in the book (neither of which are uncommon at the Federal government level when it comes to foreign policy, but in this issue area he is the biggie).

What I think readers and voters don't understand is that, while the U.S. President does have significant power domestically, it's really Congress (and state, county, and local governments) that drives U.S. policy. Where the President wields the most power, relatively, is internationally. Presidents may issue Executive Orders that can be rescinded day 1 of a subsequent administration. However, U.S. Presidents may also commit U.S. forces to war (and the book does a great job of saying that we truly have been at a constant state of directly-involved war since 1991, and indirectly since the start of the Iran/Iraq war) that goes well beyond their term. H.W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq and liberate Kuwait is directly, no-questions, the cause of Obama inheriting a war in Iraq in 2008. There are no guesses or jumps. It is shown to be a direct causation.

For this reason, for this reader, the measure of a good President is as much - or perhaps more - dependent on what they do for U.S. interests abroad. This is not even taking into account what they do humanitarily for the people of other nations, but *simply* what is done for the interests of the American people and economy abroad.

You're going to walk away from this frustrated/angry at (if you trust in the reporting, which is taken directly from speeches and memos from these people):
Reagan
Carter
Chaney
George W. Bush
Obama
Rumsfeld
Robert Gates
Leon Panetta
Schwarzkopf (a man I admired as a kid)
Tommy Franks
Dempsey
Petraeus

Note that I have listed most American Presidents, most American SecDefs, and most American CENTCOM commanders, the latter two especially since 2001.

You are going to be frustrated by the mission in Beirut, by the bay in Lybia, by Iran-Contra, by the mission in Somalia, by the obvious missions in AF and IQ, by the missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, pretty much every incursion except for the evacuation of Beirut. There will be more.

You will see how open-ended policies and "goals" lead to intractable, never-ending wars. The evacuation of Beirut is shown as an example of a success, as it had a clearly defined goal and finish line. It will be the only clear "win" in the entire book.

This is not a short read, but you will walk away with a greater understanding of the Middle East conflict, and the impression that Muslims have of the U.S., as well as a likely mild depression at where we are today.

This single book has made this reader much more of an isolationist, or at least a non-interventionist in the Middle East.

[Abhi Gupte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bad America! Stupid America! Bad! Stupid! Boooooo!
There, you just finished reading the book. That's all there is to it.

I have read multiple books about and studied the tumultuous history of the Middle East. I have no doubt that first the Ottomans, then the British and lastly the Americans simply ruined the land. However, I pathologically disliked Bacevich's account of US involvement in the Middle East.

It is one thing to shine a light on the mistakes made by the US. It is quite another to paint every single achievement with the broad brush of narcissistic opprobrium. Every single action is criticized. Some undoubtedly deserve criticism from a scholar like Bacevich. None deserve his judgement. That's not the job of an historian. That's up to the reader.

To give an example, it is widely recognized that US support for the Afghan Mujahideen in the 80s paved the way for the consequent demise of the Soviet Union. In light of the billions spent elsewhere battling the Soviets, and especially given how close we came to nuclear war in the 80s, most historians would call the US clandestine support operation an unparalleled and critical success. Not Bacevich. Because later American apathy paved the way for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Bacevich judges the entire effort a failure. He is incapable of drawing the distinction between US actions prior to Soviet withdrawal and those afterwards. Pro hoc ergo propter hoc.

Every single event description in the book is followed by a sneering hindsight grounded in the current state of affairs. Of course there were colossal and criminal mistakes. But one must view them as mistakes in the light of contemporaneous events and predictions - not based on current conditions. That's just useless analysis. You can judge leaders for not predicting outcomes of their actions. But that is different from judging them for actual outcomes.

I tried very hard to keep reading but I could not go on- I would simply fume with every page. Finally, I gave up. The concept is good - it's the first time I read a book that tried to stitch together all the different pieces of the past 40 years. The execution however, is just terrible.

[Frank Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Bacevich is a brilliant scholar who had a distinguished military career. He has also become a leading voice in the US for limited foreign engagement - indeed, many would say he is the spokesman for the isolationist wing in the US (a label that may not be entirely fair). Bacevich is also an advocate as the president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statescraft, based in Washington.

With this in mind, reading his superbly written and researched "America's War for the Greater Middle East" is a sharp reminder of the challenges, successes, and numerous failures in the region for the last 60 plus years. Taking each major event - The fall of the Shah of Iran and resulting hostage situation, the tragic Lebanonese engagement which led to hundreds of US Marines being killed by a suicide bomber, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, etc., etc. - is a painful yet important review of what worked and what did not.

The only thing that mars this otherwise fine work is the tone as there is a tinge of sarcasm and anger in his words. Bacevich has a point of view and he makes sure you know it. Nevertheless, this is an important work to read - especially now as we watch the daily nightmare of the Biden Administration's colossal failure in withdrawing from Afghanistan - something which scholars like Bacevich will shed light on in years to come.

[Susan Paxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bacevich, a retired colonel in the Army and a self-described "Catholic conservative" has written a detailed, dispassionate account of America's long and evidently endless bipartisan catastrophe in the Middle East and its environs. Although subtitled "A Military History" it is closer to being a military and political history. As someone who has lived through this period, the book proved a very useful refresher; anyone younger than, say, 35 desperately needs to read this book to understand how the current situation came about and to start looking for a solution. Bacevich himself is not hopeful; as he points out, politicians on both sides of the aisle lack not only the courage but the historical perspective and wisdom to find a way to end our involvement in wars we have no business being in. Somewhat dry at times, but detached - very much so considering the life of Colonel Bacevich's son was thrown away in this stupid, interminable conflict.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent history of American military involvement in the seemingly never ending wars of the Middle East, beginning in the late 1970s. The author's son died in Iraq, but you wouldn't know that from the dispassionate tone the book is written in. The well known wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are main focus. But there are also detailed accounts of the Iraq-Iran War, along with US actions in Lebanon and Somalia. Many of the decisions made by the various US administrations don't look logical to an outsider, such as the absurdity of not avenging the Lockerbie bombing. Bacevich does an admirable job of explaining the rationale behind the irrational. However, I wish there had been more on the coalition building. While the coalitions are mentioned, we don't learn how the US was able to get other countries to join in the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. The contributions of the British to those wars are left out. It is important to remember that these were not solely American wars.

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A critique of US foreign policy in the Middle East as grandiose, contradictory, disjointed, ahistorical, and arrogant, that is itself grandiose, contradictory, disjointed, ahistorical, and arrogant.

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive history of America in the Middle East beginning in about 1980 and running up until 2016.

[Andrewh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a highly critical overview of US actions in the 'Greater Middle East' since the 70s, which is more of a series of unsuccessful military interventions than a unified strategic campaign. This endless war's provenance lies, according to the author (who is a military professional and academic), originally in the 70s oil crisis (which led to some US security analysts positing an occupation of Saudi Arabia to secure cheap oil), and then the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which led to the promulgation of the Carter Doctrine, which essentially set out that the US would defend its 'interests' in the region. The Iranian revolution then led to concerted US support for Iraq in the first gulf war, and over the 80s US governments gradually increased their level of intervention in the region (notably against Libya).

This ratcheting up of military activity in the region, often without defined strategic goals, was then turbo-driven by the second Gulf war, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. This was in the post-cold war era and the heyday of US military technological hubris, when the smart weapon advantages of US military technology were first shown off to a awestruck TV audience. The easy military victory did not have a strategic payoff and this is perhaps one of the first clear instances where US power failed to achieve broader policy goals - Saddam stayed in power and the US policy shifted to 'containment' on two fronts (Iraq and Iran).
Throughout the 90s, US presidents exploited US technology to fight 'post-heroic' wars, such as in Bosnia and Kosovo, without losing troops and without achieving concrete results. This is a pattern that the author sees being repeated in most of the US interventions in the region ever since, from Gulf War 3.0., Afghanistan and up to the current war on ISIS. In essence, the US has overwhelming air power (and sea power) but is reluctant to commit the number of troops on the ground to complete its strategic goals (especially in the Iraq and Afghan conflicts, and the subsequent counterinsurgencies). Even if it had done, it is unlikely that their goals (such as transforming Iraq into a 'democracy' or building a state in Afghanistan) would have succeeded, since these things are not achievable by military force. Essentially, military power is a blunt instrument without political goals and matching the means to the ends is quite difficult in alien environments, to say the least.

The book's prose is informed by the author's own experience and accessible to those without specialist knowledge, as well as quite acerbic, which makes for an enjoyable read as well an informative one, even if this is all quite well known stuff. The case for strategic restraint is making a comeback in US policy think tanks (so I hear), and it will be interesting to see how the new administration deals with the ongoing issues created by 40 years of reckless intervention.

[James Banzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here on the pages of a book that's larger than usual are results of a laborious effort to document and condemn actions of the United States in the Middle East. This work chronicles actions during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and finally Barack Obama. These men all played significant roles. Writer Andrew J. Bracevich believes the United States is not enhancing freedom by perpetuating war in the Middle East. His work is entitled America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History.

Books dealing with specific conflicts in the Middle East have proliferated. What transpired during the effort to go after Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is topical. The mess that happened when the U.S. tried to rescue American hostages in Iran gets plenty of scrutiny. A long effort to track down Osama bin Laden has captured the attention of many authors. U.S. involvements in the region take on added meaning when viewed comprehensively. While some will assail Bracevich's views that we should not have meddled, surely everyone can admire his success in bringing it all together in one 374 page work.

After reviewing the timeline of what has happened in the Middle East since 1980, one wonders about the penchant for war by the world's greatest superpower. Questions arise as to whether the conflicts were necessary and whether they gained anything. The Middle East is arguably more dangerous today than it was during the Carter presidency. Thousands of lives of American service personnel have been lost over the years. It's easy to see why the United States is war weary. Yet as particiapation in Middle East conflicts goes on, this story is not over.

[Tony Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

The US & other countries involvement in the war against terrorism.

History & PS were my a few of undergrad degrees.

I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. Only an honest one.

A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. A fabulous very well written Middle East war book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great Middle East war movie, a college PP presentation, or even a documentary (A & E, History channel), or better yet a mini TV series. There is no doubt in my mind this is a very easy rating of 5 stars.

Thank you for the free Goodreads; MakingConnections; Random House LLC.); paperback book
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)

[Larry Bassett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Occasionally I come across a book that I fervently wish everyone would read. This is one such book by an author whose thoughts I have come to value. Andrew Bacevich served 26 years in the military. This should give him a certain amount of credibility from an audience that might generally disregard us peaceniks and pacifiers.

This 2016 book covers the last 50 years of US military involvement in the middle east. It goes year-by-year and battle by battle and policy by policy and administration by administration and failure by failure. In some ways it will wear you out. I listen to it in Audible and it is very well done. The one problem with Audible is that you cannot underline the paragraphs that you wish to remember and to share with others. There is many a brilliant paragraph in this book. The author does not pull any punches or favor any political parties. There are very few heroes among those who have fought the policy battles about the Middle East in recent decades.

The book is filled with inside and if you do not remember any of the history of the Middle East in the past 50 years, this book will remind you of it. I lived through the entire period. I have a fairly vivid recollections of the. Beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq but had forgotten the details of the 1970s 80s and 90s. It was distressing to be reminded of those continuous missteps.

This is a book you should read or listen to! If you need a reason to think we might need a strong third political party, this book may provide you with that reason. The Obama era began with him receiving the Nobel peace prize but it was all downhill from there!

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written survey of the US involvement in the Middle East from the late 1970s up to the modern day. Bacevich is very critical of U.S. decision-making throughout the entire process, and expresses his criticism with an eloquence which is refreshing in its clarity, and very frustrating in its implications.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Although the War for the Greater Middle East continued, U.S. military policy in the Islamic world from this point forward possessed no more coherence than when Ronald Reagan had supported one side in the Iran-Iraq War while providing arms to the other. President Bush was counting on General Petraeus to prevent anyone from noticing."

"Prior to 9/11, the abiding defect of U.S. military policy had been ignorance. In the years directly after 9/11, it became hubris. During the Obama presidency, by contrast, the problem was one of diffusion."

"Washington suffered from the inverse of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Short-term memory going back a week or ten days was perfectly intact; everything else was gone."

"In the War for the Greater Middle East, the United States chose neither to contain nor to crush, instead charting a course midway in between. In effect, it chose aggravation."

"Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect. One day the American people may awaken to this reality. Then and only then will the war end."

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

My ratings are purely based on my enjoyment of what I read - I am not a professional critic. This book is one of the rare ones that has great reviews on Goodreads that I did not enjoy at all. It is essentially a history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East from Carter through Obama.

The main reason I struggled through this book was because it was utterly and relentlessly negative and critical. Every President, Cabinet member, and leading general was completely wrong and had no idea what they were doing. They all either lied or stretched the truth. Not one of them made a decision that was correct. In fairness, the author is not necessarily wrong with all of his arguments, but the tone of the book to me was condescending and gave the impression that the author believes he simply knows better than everyone else - including the entirety of the American public who is "asleep" on these issues. I will give the author credit that at least to my reading, he equally disliked Republicans and Democrats - no one was spared from his criticisms.

Another issue was the repeated use of very random analogies. I did not write them down, but to paraphrase a few from memory he compared battles or decisions to things like Michael Jordan retiring from basketball, a Broadway play, or having unprotected sex. I mean very random and an awkward way to make serious points.

Anyway, I did learn some things and it was a good primer for U.S. involvement in that part of the world in the past 40 years.

[Maxine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The United State has been at war in or for the Middle East for sixteen years. Yet, according to Andrew J. Bacevich, military historian and retired army colonel, you must go back four decades to the Carter Doctrine to clearly see how the US became so completely enmeshed in this quagmire and why it has been unable to extricate itself.

In his book, America’s War for the Greater Middle East, Bacevich gives a well-documented, concise, and highly readable account of the background, the motives, and the mistakes of successive commanders, presidents, and pundits and why, despite vastly superior weaponry, victory has remained illusory. This is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how war in the Middle East has become a seemingly permanent fixture of American foreign policy regardless of which political party is in power as well as the costs both in economic and human terms of perpetual war and what is needed to finally bring this conflict to an end.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

[Hana]

From the Washington Post: The original motivating forces behind U.S. policy have disappeared, yet the American military footprint in the region persists, seemingly as an end in itself. “Like the war on drugs or the war on poverty, the War for the Greater Middle East has become a permanent fixture in American life and is accepted as such,” he writes. Despite President Obama’s advertised view that his administration has taken a substantially different approach to the region, the ineffective Afghanistan surge of 2009, the ill-fated Libya operation in 2011, the thousands of drone strikes, the steady increase in the number of U.S. trainers in Iraq and the expanded airstrikes against the Islamic State tell a different story. Washington Post Review

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this searing indictment of US military involvement in the Middle East, Bacevich accuses every administration since Jimmy Carter of completely misunderstanding the region and blindly resorting to military intervention for lack of better ideas. In his account, America has failed to consider the ripple effects of our endeavors and lacks an actual strategy. What started as a policy of guarding our access to oil has morphed into a nebulous goal of "reshaping" the region. It is a disturbing but important read. I do wish, though, that he had spent a little more time on suggestions for breaking the cycle.