Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East

New Cold War History

by Salim Yaqub

Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, the United States pledged to give increased economic and military aid to receptive Middle Eastern countries and to protect - with U.S. armed forces if necessary - the territorial integrity and political independence of these nations from the threat of international Communism.

Salim Yaqub demonstrates that although the United States officially aimed to protect the Middle East from Soviet encroachment, the Eisenhower Doctrine had the unspoken mission of containing the radical Arab nationalism of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom Eisenhower regarded as an unwitting agent of Soviet expansionism. By offering aid and protection, the Eisenhower administration hoped to convince a majority of Arab governments to side openly with the West in the Cold War, thus isolating Nasser and decreasing the likelihood that the Middle East would fall under Soviet domination.

Employing a wide range of recently declassified Egyptian, British, and American archival sources, Yaqub offers a dynamic and comprehensive account of Eisenhower's efforts to counter Nasserism's appeal throughout the Arab Middle East. Challenging interpretations of U.S. - Arab relations that emphasize cultural antipathies and clashing values, Yaqub instead argues that the political dispute between the United States and the Nasserist movement occurred within a shared moral framework - a pattern that continues to characterize U.S. - Arab controversies today.

Genres: History, Middle East, American History, Nonfiction, Politics, Egypt, American

392 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2004

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't be fooled by the title: this is more of an exercise in describing the birth of the Eisey Doctrine and lameassness in dealing with the major events of 1958 in the Middle East. Why not containing Arab naughty-ionalism? Because Ike and Dulles, who comes across as quite the fuckstick here, were trying to bolster slackass conservative alternatives to Nasser to lead the Arab world forward. Whatever. This book is, rather, a very concise and excellent look at the US administration's tentative approach to Nasser which wavered between suspicion and the desire to have better relations, really the better parts of the book focus on the latter. No one in the US administration (except "Doodly" Dulles) took seriously the notion that filthy Communist atheists were about to take over the Middle East. This was all power politics at its best. Good shit, but omits the often intoxicating headiness permeating the rumored Nasser-Eisenhower love tryst in 1960.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very zoomed in (only 3 years are covered) look at the Ike Doctrine rapid rise and fall in the ME. The basic idea of the book is that after Suez the US needed to step into the role of regional balancer previously played by Britain. The US wanted to keep Soviet influence out, and to them it seemed that the most likely entryway for the Soviets would be left-leaning Arab nationalist states like Nasser's Egypt and Syria. In other words, the idea was that containing the Soviet Union in the Middle East required as a corollary containing Arab nationalism. From the start this was probably a misreading of these leaders, who assiduously tried to avoid clear commitments to one side or the other in the Cold War and usually crushed communists in their own countries. The US tried to bolster countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq as bulwarks against Arab nationalism, but they were all too weak, noncommittal, or unstable to form viable rivals to Nasser. A huge problem for the US was that Nasser was so popular in the late 1950's that the US had to be careful to not come out too much against him or too much in favor of his foes, especially Israel. The coup in Iraq in 1958 was a major blow to this strategy even though the new rulers of IQ didn't clearly align with Nasser.

Under the ED the US worked to bolster regimes like Lebanon and Jordan that were destabilized by feuds and fighting between more Arab nationalism. In this sense the ED worked. However, by 1959 the US was already seeing 2 key factors that led to a change in the ED: 1. Nasser was too popular to be countered directly, but the US could co-opt him and even cooperate with him in certain circumstances given that he wasn't a military threat to the region and didn't want clear alignment with the USSR. 2. Not all gains for Arab nationalists in the region were gains for Nasser as this movement was far more fractured and anti-communist than it originally seemed to the US. The US therefore showed some flexibility in reducing its opposition to Nasser and trying to work with him in some limited ways.

Yaqub tells this story with an incredible eye for detail and a surprising amount of humor. However, it is confusing in one large regard. He treats the Ike Doctrine as something that rose and fell within a 3 year period, but this is inaccurate. The Ike Doctrine's commitment to containing Arab nationalism rose and declined within 3 years, but the basic US commitment to counter Soviet influence and communist infiltration of the Middle East remained central to USFP for the remainder of the Cold War, setting the scene for the Carter Doctrine and later interventions. Yaqub treats the ED as something that disappeared after 1960, which is quite misleading. He also argues that the US and Nasser operated within a shared moral framework, which was kind of a throwaway thesis that he didn't really back up (and of which I'm skeptical: Arab nationalist dictator acting in the same moral framework as elected President?).

This book is quite well done but it takes place within such a narrow time frame that I can only recommend it for specialists in USFP in the Middle East or Modern Middle East historians. It's just too inside baseball to be enjoyable to virtually all other readers.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salim Yaqub is a true historian in the sense that he looks at merely 3 years of events that took place primarily in Egypt, Israel, and Syria with a microscope. Yaqub creates a detailed and credible history, allowing for his book to become unquestionably one of the most interesting political narratives I have recently read.

[Patrick Link · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eisenhower going from comparing Nasser to Hitler and then thinking he may make a good anti-communist ally six months later is telling.