Review: A World of Trouble
Sunday in The Baltimore Sun, read a review of A World of Trouble by Patrick Tyler (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / 640 pages / $30 ). Some exceprts from the review:
Tyler’s strikingly readable new history argues that Obama inherits a decidedly mixed, though mainly unhappy, diplomatic legacy. ... In Tyler’s view, it adds up to a history of miscalculation, inattention, stuttering and almost inadvertent progress undone by contradictory aims, exhaustion and distraction. ...
Tyler is inclined to attribute rather too much blame for America’s Middle East failures to what he regards as Israeli recalcitrance and excessive Washington influence by pro-Israel Americans. Putting aside the merits of any particular situation, it’s simply a fact that we know more about Israel and its internal political struggles because it is an open society ... . We have no similar access to the inner workings of Israel’s antagonists. Moreover, it’s easy to forget that — until relatively recently — the influence of Israel’s friends in Washington was more than matched by the power of the State Department Arabists and the petroleum lobby.
Tyler also assigns a bit too much consequence to American policy in the region. The underlying assumption seems to be that if a preternaturally wise president formulated a perfect American policy that was flawlessly executed by supremely competent U.S. diplomats, the results would be deterministic. Maybe, but maybe not. It’s a view that essentially denies agency to the people of the region, whether Israeli or Arab.
