Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II [Hardcover]

Lloyd C. Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2009

As American policy makers ponder a strategy for withdrawal from Iraq, one of our preeminent diplomatic historians uncovers the largely hidden story of how the United States got into the Middle East in the first place.

A breathtaking recovery of decisions taken, brazen motives, and backroom dealings, Three Kings is the first history of America's efforts to supplant the British Empire in the Middle East, during and following World War II. From F.D.R. to L.B.J., this is the story of America's scramble for political influence, oil concessions, and a new military presence based on airpower and generous American aid to shaky regimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq.

Marshaling new and revelatory evidence from the archives, Gardner deftly weaves together three decades of U.S. moves in the region, chronicling the early efforts to support and influence the Saudi regime (including the creation of Dhahran air base, the target of Osama bin Laden's first terrorist attack in 1996), the CIA-engineered coup in Iran, Nasser's Egypt, and, finally, the rise of Iraq as a major petroleum power.

Here, the tangled threads of oil, U.S. military might, Western commercial interests, and especially the Israel-Palestine question are visible from the very beginning of "The American Century"--a history with frightening relevance for the distant prospect of peace and stability in the region today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gardner (Pay Any Price) finds the roots of a fractured and turbulent Middle East in American machinations in the decades following WWII. He begins with the Truman Doctrine, whose goal of Soviet containment focused American power designs in the Middle East and whose parsing of strategic interests as a global ideological struggle enabled an imperial presidency and the vast allocation of military spending—hallmarks of 21st-century American foreign policy. Rather than plodding through successive American presidencies and their attendant policies, Gardner homes in on two key events in U.S.–Middle East relations—the 1952 Egyptian revolution and the 1979 Iranian oil crisis—and keeps his readers rapt and focused on the current relevance of these episodes. He weaves together anecdotes, congressional hearings and historical accounts to illustrate how the U.S.'s carefully pursued aim of creating a sphere of influence in the Middle East has fomented the unrest in Iran, a fraught Saudi reign and the Israel-Palestine crisis. An erudite, persuasively argued and lucid primer for both the layperson and the expert. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

Since the withdrawal of British military forces after World War II, the U.S. has been the dominant outside power in the area. It is, however, debatable how and why that ascendancy evolved, and it also is unclear how much power the U.S. actually exerts to control events. In this absorbing and often provocative study, Professor Gardner asserts that this American “empire” was the result of a calculated, even cynical plan to dominate the region and its resources as British imperial power waned. Many scholars will, of course, dispute both his assumptions and conclusions. Still, this account is filled with informative and fascinating details, as American policymakers strive to deal with monarchs, Arab nationalists, and, always, Israeli-Arab hostility. Gardner’s views are hardly the final word on the topic, but they are a valuable contribution to our understanding of our still-deepening involvement in this region. --Jay Freeman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (November 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595584749
• ISBN-13: 978-1595584748
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,101,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lloyd C. Gardner is the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including Three Kings and The Long Road to Baghdad. He lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Perils of Empire, December 15, 2010

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John Baesler (Bloomington, IN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Three Kings: The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II (Hardcover)

Lloyd Gardner is one of the major proponents of William Appleman Williams' Wisconsin school of the history of U.S. foreign relations, which sees an internal drive for expanded power, with the goal of access to markets, as the founding principle that drives America's foreign relations. He applies this thesis again in his treatment of the origins of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, beginning with FDR's post-Yalta meeting with the "three kings" of the middle east, most prominently king Saud of Saudi Arabia. He ends with Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq in the late 1960s, which of course provides only one of many occasions when the text makes explicit comparisons to today's situation. For example, Gardner calls U.S. alliance policies under Truman as Dean Acheson's search for a "coalition of the willing."

Gardner sees the Truman Doctrine of 1947 as the relevant contemporary reformulation of the Open Door notes, directed not at areas already under communist control, but rather those parts of the world still accessible to U.S. power. It's no coincidence to Gardner that Turkey, the gateway from Europe to the Middle East, was one of the original targets of U.S. containment policy.

The book gives fairly detailed discussions of U.S. policies toward Egypt, Israel, Iran, as well as Syria and Iraq from Truman to Kennedy. He points out the dilemmas inherent in a policy aimed at good relations with Arab countries AND support for Israel, as well as pursuing a partnership with Britain AND supplanting the Lion as the alpha animal in the region. Fascinating is especially Gardner's treatment of U.S. ambiguity toward Nasser's Eqypt. Apparently America sincerely pursued its goal of making Egypt a major ally, but never really found a way of dealing with Nasser. In the end, mistrust of Arab nationalism trumped all other concerns as the U.S. worked toward "regime change" throughout the region with the help of the CIA and the Marines. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. was stuck with unstable allies, and its goals were merely holding on the "smaller of two evils" regimes.

One major concern to me is the relative absence of Soviet policy in the text, even though it is not completely absent. However, at times reading this book feels like watching only one tennis player in a Wimbledon match. We would really like to know more about what the other side is doing. Nevertheless, this book is extremely enlightening. One cannot help but realize how the dilemmas of U.S. power policies in the middle east were present a the creation, in Dean Acheson's words.