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

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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.