Customer Reviews

Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fascinating history of one of the State Department's most oft-discussed branches. Particularly among American Jewish circles and those who study the Middle East, "Arabist" has a particular connotation of unjustified anti-Israel bias and a flavor of anti-Semitism. Kaplan's work identifies the origins of the Arabists and, more importantly, tests the level of their bias through analysis of their record on Middle East policy and diplomatic reporting.

Kaplan traces the development of American Arabists (those who learn Arabic and study Arabs, like Sinologists or Sovietologists) beginning with Protestant missionaries in the 19th Century through the development of the Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) Bureau at State. Kaplan, a journalist, tells his story with engaging portraits of the principal actors. He begins with the American view of the Middle East as fertile ground for missionary work and follows the missionaries' children and grandchildren who go on to develop American foreign policy towards the region. Kaplan's protagonists are the quintessential upper-crust (male, mostly) WASP diplomats who went to Deerfield Academy and Princeton and Amherst before returning to their childhood haunts in Lebanon and Syria as missionaries or diplomats. But Kaplan is not out to paint the Foreign Service in a negative light. Rather, he skillfully exposes how the clique of WASP missionary Arabists goes on to become the core of the NEA bureau and how their perspectives shape American foreign policy for good and ill throughout the 20th Century.

For obvious reasons, the majority of the book focuses on the past, when the Foreign Service was the purview of the Ivy League boys' club. But he also notes the State Department's efforts to modernize and the growing participation of a diverse middle-class America in the foreign policy debate. In fact, his synthesis of this process, beaurocratic maneuvers and the effects of the Gulf War lead to an analysis of the NEA bureau today and the direction of American foreign policy planning that is likely to be well regarded for years to come.

Being a Middle East hand myself (and an Amherst graduate), I was particularly interested in The Arabists, so perhaps my perspective is skewed. Nonetheless, this book is a must-read for anyone considering the Foreign Service as a career. Kaplan does a good job with the stories of some of State's big names. Their biographies as well as their career arcs are illustrative for FSO's today. As the book draws to a close, it is clear that the FSO's of today will be less area-focused than the old-school Arabists. This will be a mixed blessing, however, allowing us to avoid the "localitis" that leads to some missteps, but denying us the deep cultural insight that lead to some of the Arabists' greatest foreign policy triumphs.

Again Kaplan does what he does best -- he gets to the heart of a matter by talking to individuals who have experienced it. The flip side of that is as glaring here as in his other works -- he uses the experiences of a few individuals to draw broad conclusions which he presents as the unquestioned truth. The truth about the Arabists is that Kaplan presents a "truth" that is HIGHLY contested by many ex-state department officials who were not interviewed, but who were every bit as involved. I found Google searching the title of this book yielded some interesting refutations of it.

I found this book very informative both in what it said and what it left out. I learned a great deal reading it, not least of all because I was inspired to find out more about the issues he presents from other sources. I would definitely recommend this book, as it brings to light the history of our country's diplomatic dealings with the Middle East -- about which none of us can afford to be ignorant.

Read it, but read it as one man's side of a very complicated, politicised, and polarized story. Then start reading the books he cites.

Kaplan strings together pearls of biography to create a historical review of an interesting segment of the State Department's Foreign Service. Beginning with T.E. Lawrence and several other well-known British, the author weaves together a story of diplomatic intrigue in the Middle East. I found two particular segments especially fascinating - the rescue of Jewish Falashas from Sudan and the history leading up to the Gulf War with Iraq, in light of a potential repeat in world affairs.

Although Kaplan does highlight the tensions between Arabists and those with pro-Israeli sympathies, the work serves to demonstrate through historical biography the evolution of western influence in the region. He makes the case that the Palestinian-Israeli issue has not strictly defined the Middle East. Kaplan doesn't write from personal recollection, however, as he did with Balkan Ghosts. This book is research based through reading and extensive interviews with many from the State Department and elsewhere.

The last portion of the book focuses on events in the State Department leading up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Kaplan blasts many of the Arabists, former ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie foremost among them, for attempting to appease Saddam. Although he qualifies his critique by portraying a lack of policy emphasis from Washington leaving the embassy staffs in the Middle East to find their own way forward, Kaplan claims the Arabists continued to view Iraq and other totalitarian regimes through rose colored glasses. Had they represented U.S. interests instead of romanticizing from within embassy walls, he argues that our diplomats could have sent Saddam the signal that the U.S. would respond to aggression.

Overall, I found the book provided an interesting historical background on the Middle East region through the eyes of the diplomats that have served there. Kaplan provides good background reading up to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Given the current tension surrounding the Iraqi regime, I found much of the book relevant to contemporary affairs. Well worth the read!

The first thing that needs to be said about the book is that Mr. Kaplan is a former Israeli soldier (though he doesn't exactly advertise that fact very often). He doesn't exactly come to the subject with a detached political view.

The book is a thinly veiled attack on a generation of State Department officials who actually cared about the countries they served in. Who valued their cultures and tried to understand the countries.

Kaplan is dismissive of such attitudes. In this book he is dismissive of such attitudes because they clashed with his pro-Israeli political views. But the book is interesting in that when seen in the broader context of Kaplan's more recent works. In his most recent book, "imperial grunts", Kaplan views the entire world beyond "the west" as "injun country". An area similar to the old american west in need of civilization by the US army. In "the coming anarchy", he presents large parts of the world as inhabited by uncivilized peoples whose very existance is a threat to what he calls the west. And in "Warrior Politics", he promotes a pseudo-fascist militarism in place of Jewish/Christian traditional ideas of morality.

Seen in the context of those works, Kaplan's problems with the Arabists is not really that they are anti-Israel, its that the arabists treated arab culture and arab peoples with a level of respect. To Kaplan, such peoples be they in the middle east or Africa are savages without a culture and in need of the firm civlizing hand of a western army rather than the understanding of diplomats. The savages in "Injun country" need to be beaten down and taught how to be little Americans rather than having Americans adopt what he sees as the customs of savages.

The Kaplan mentality is illlustrative of how the US blundered into a disaster in Iraq. While Kaplan glories in the "defeat" of the Arabists and their departure from the scene, the US has paid the price in having lost the very experts who might have made a difference in Iraq.

This book describes in detail the exotic lives of American Foreign Service officers. The amount of research and related firsthand interviews is unprecedented. These characters are truly interesting. Kaplan categorizes them in two groups that can be simply referred as the old breed and the new breed.

In Part I and II of the book, Kaplan describes the old breed as a true intellectual and academic elite. They graduated near the top of their class from Ivy League universities. They were fluent in several languages including Arabic. Thus, they were able to confer with the locals, read the local press, listen to the local radio. They often lived for decades in Arab countries. From this experience, these individuals developed an unparalleled understanding of the Middle East. But, their recommendations were at odds with the government hierarchy. These "Arabists" had a deepened bias to maintain diplomatic relations no matter how dire the situation. Such a vision was self-serving. For them, the potential of their embassy closing meant a devastating blow to their own careers. They had no intention to recycle themselves as Washington DC bureaucrats.

In Part III, Kaplan describes the spectacular failings of these old breed Arabists blinded by their self-interest (maintain their foreign assignment jobs) and idealism. The most egregious case is with April Glaspie, one of the more formidable Arabists, yet one who made the gravest error of judgment. She met with Saddam Hussein in 1991 a week before Iraq invaded Kuwait. According to confirmed reports, Hussein shared his intent to attack Kuwait to Glaspie, and she responded that she would recommend that the U.S. stays out of this conflict, and maintain relationship with Iraq under any circumstances. As they say, the rest is history. And, history has not been kind to Glaspie.

Additionally, because of their perceived leniency towards Arab dictators and totalitarian regimes, these "Arabists" were also perceived as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Some "Arabists" did state that the formation of the state of Israel ruined everything, as related tension throughout the entire Middle East disrupted the continuity in many of their careers.

As described in Part IV, the new breed of Arabists is different. They are more likely to have graduated from a state university than an Ivy League. But, they are much more pragmatic than their predecessors. This is for three reasons. First, their language skills now typically include not only Arabic but also Hebrew. Second, they don't view a temporary post in Washington D.C. as a demotion. Thus, they are a lot more mobile back and forth between country assignments and Washington assignments. Third, they are most entrepreneurial from a street sense perspective. Many of them have graduated from long and successful stint with the Peace Corps where they honed their survival skills so to speak. The mix of their language skills and career mobility makes them a lot more pragmatic and objective in their judgment of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. As a result, their judgment is better trusted in Washington D.C. than their predecessors.

If the old breed was much like Indiana Jones, advantureous and brilliant individuals with a romantic view of the Arab World; the new breed is more like "The Recruit" much less affected by ideals, and better able to handle policy ambiguity.

Throughout the descriptions of these colorful characters, Kaplan imparts a fascinating history of the Middle East that is now more relevant than ever to understand current events.

Mr. Kaplan does an excellent job of pulling together information, quotations, and raw data from numerous sources to paint a compelling picture of the forces that shaped this mysterious, interesting, and oft-misunderstood region.

More balanced than one would expect for a book with this title, Mr. Kaplan nicely straddles the line between fact and commentary, with only a couple times succumbing to interjections of personal opinion. However, without such points, a rather dry, far less thought-provoking, piece of academia would have resulted.

A book guaranteed to broaden the knowledge of anyone interested in this fascinating part of the world.

This book is a flawed look at the US state department in the middle east and
those who served in it. Its flawed because the author brings a pro-Israel anti
Arab bias to writing it along with a conspiracy mindset that invents bad
motives in those he doesn't agree with. He also uses a method of selective
example to make a general case about thousands of people.


In the old days, the people drawn to serve overseas in the state department often
came from high academic backgrounds, had exposure through parents to
other cultures at an early age and believed that their role was beyond just
a political agenda. It was to build friendship, cultural understanding and
bridges with every country in the world. Even hostile countries because things
always change (as we have found out in Iraq).

The problem that developed in the middle east was that the Israel-Arab
conflict created a climate where everyone had to take sides. Anyone who
was too interested in Arab State was viewed with suspiction by political
appointees and pro-Israel fanatics. Fanatics who, like Kaplan, are Arab
haters in private. They also had the view that peace was a real possibility
and that there wasn't one moral or right side in the conflict between Israel
and its neighbors. Kaplan comes from a different mindset. He sees Arabs
as a Roman saw Germans. He sees negotiations and peace to have no value.
The arab can only be taught by force and Israel is unquestionably
on
the side of right in every respect.

Under the old system, the cultural and political contacts developed in
country by these "arabists" provided invaluable information in constucting
policy toward Arab countries. And contrary to Kaplan's conspiracy
thinking, while their opinions were listened to, they often did not translate
into policy.

Today the State Department is a very different place. Power is in
Washington. Embassies are staffed with ignorant frat-boys who trade visas
for sex with the locals. Travel and communications has led to a generation
that makes decisions about the rest of the world sitting in Washington
and either proudly being ignorant about the countries or (like Kaplan)
considering them little better than savages.

I was in turkey a few years ago and noted the difference between a
european embassy and the american one. The european one was constantly
having cultural events, parties, etc that built contacts between locals and
both expats and the embassy staff. When asked why the American embassy
didn't do similar things, I was informed that it "was not the mission"
of an american embassy to do such things. And quite frankly, there were
people in that embassy who seemed to consider being there a prison
sentence and who could be described as having contempt for the locals.

Beyond that (and worse) the state department has gradually become a
second-class player in diplomacy anyway. A large amount of international
relations these days is handled out of the pentagon and through the
regional military commanders of the US in the various regions of the
world.

What I object to most in this book is Kaplan's slanders against state
department officials in Iraq before 1990. Nobody in the state department
gave Saddam Hussein a green light to invade Kuwait. The orders to be friends
with Iraq didn't come from "arabists", they came from people at the top of
the Reagan and Bush administrations. The same people who did the end-run
around the state department and got into Iran-Contra. There were even
pro-Israel people who viewed Syria and Iran as bigger threats and wanted
to use Iraq as a counter-weight.

Arabists, at least the "old" generation, tend not to like this book because they feel that it unfairly stigmatizes them as hopelessly affected with clientitis, diplomats who have "gone native," and who are fundamentally biased towards Israel and out of touch with U.S. interests. Yet in highlighting these Arabists Kaplan provides an excellent introduction to the field: the legendary figures of the U.S. Foreign Service in the Arab world, among them diplomats like Bill Eagleton, Richard Parker, and Hume Horan. Also included are some of the "new" Arabists like Alberto Fernandez, who as of this writing heads up the public diplomacy efforts of the Near East Bureau in the State Department. He's one of the few U.S. government officials whose Arabic is good enough to frequently appear on Al-Jazeera talk shows.

"Fascinating" seems to be used in nearly all the reviews for this book, and deservedly so. My favorite chapters are the three beginning with "Mugged by Reality." I find myself re-reading those every few months. The portraits of Hume Horan and Jim Weaver, such different personalities, are remarkable. The effort to rescue the Falashas is amazing and inspiring, in a real-world way. Horan, even in his "downfall," is philosophical and wise. Fascinating!

I approached this book with caution. While I admire Kaplan's writing skills, I consider him -- fairly or unfairly -- as a troglodytic neo-con, one of these people who have a lot more faith in the efficacy of U.S. imposed military solutions to international problems than I do.

This book looks at the rise and fall of a group of American diplomats who devoted their careers to the difficult job of learning Arabic and living in Arab countries. They came out of the Protestant missionary tradition of the 19th century and they fell in love with their polite, gracious Arab hosts -- to the detriment of U.S. foreign policy in the region in Kaplan's opinion.

As an excellent writer, Kaplan writes a charming story of the Americans who have lived and worked in the Middle East for the last 200 years, but he gets more pointed and pained as he works his way up to the early 1990s and the beginning of the first Gulf War. The downfall of the Arabists was that despite their expertise they saw the Arab world through rose colored glasses and Israel as an unwelcome intruder. Obviously Kaplan is pro-Israeli -- although he doesn't spare them criticism -- and he is patronizing in his characterization of Arabs. In one place, he comments that the Arabists weren't used to dealing with people as smart as themselves -- i.e. the Israelis.

"Clientitis" is of course a common disease of specialists of all ilks, including Arabists. The book is a little misleading as it didn't explore the clientitis among American Jewish diplomats which is probably just as prevalent as a pro-Arab bias of the Arabists. One major, adverse consequence of the fall of the Arabists was, of course, that we had few Arab experts in 2002-2003 while the U.S. was contemplating an invasion of Iraq. Thus a bunch of ignorant idiots seized control of US policy and started a silly and tragic war. Had the Arabists still been influential we would have been a lot wiser.

Smallchief