America's Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State

by Osamah F. Khalil

Overview

As the postwar U.S. national security establishment required Middle Eastern expertise, it cultivated a beneficial relationship with universities. But by the time the Bush administration declared its Global War on Terror, Osamah Khalil shows, think tank agendas aligned with neoconservative goals were the drivers of America’s foreign policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674971578
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/17/2016
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Osamah F. Khalil is Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of America’s Dream Palace, which was named a Best Book of 2017 by Foreign Affairs. His research on foreign policy, national security, and military affairs has been featured widely, from PBS NewsHour to USA Today.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations ix

Note on Translation and Transliteration xi

Introduction: Hue Crossroads of Empire 1

1 Private Knowledge: American Missionaries, the Inquiry, and the First World War in the Middle East, 1917-1922 9

2 Wartime Expertise: The Office of Strategic Services, the Army Specialized Training Program, and World War II in the Middle East, 1940-1945 39

3 A Time of National Emergency: The National Security Establishment, Academic Institutions, and the Origins of Middle East Studies, 1947-1957 76

4 America's Sheet Anchors: Creating Cold War Universities in the Middle East, 1922-1962 112

5 (In)Visible Government: The National Defense Education Act and the Establishment of Middle East Studies, 1950-1967 145

6 Modernizing the Middle East: Constructing Traditional Society and Expertise, 1950-1973 182

7 Privatizing Knowledge: Think Tanks, Middle East Expertise, and the Decline of Area Studies, 1973-1988 213

8 Empire and Its Limitations: Neoconservatism, the Bush Doctrine, and the Global War on Terror, 1989-2009 252

Epilogue: America and the Arab Spring 282

Notes 297

Bibliography 383

Acknowledgments 413

Index 417

Editorial Reviews

04/03/2017
In this timely study, Khalil, assistant professor of history at Syracuse, provides a thorough analysis of how U.S. foreign policy interests have driven the development of American specialist knowledge about the Middle East from WWI to today. Khalil argues that in the early 20th century, American cultural, political, and historical knowledge about the Middle East was scarce, but with America’s emergence as a global superpower after WWII and the onset of the Cold War, the U.S. government expanded efforts to advance the production of knowledge about the Middle East in alignment with national security interests. He analyzes various phenomena, largely chronologically and in scholarly detail: the advance of the academic disciplines of regional studies, the role of American universities abroad, the influence of oil companies and private foundations, the rise of think tanks, tensions between academia and the government, and more. Khalil demonstrates how American analysis of the Middle East has been, and continues to be, tainted with the ideology of American exceptionalism and orientalist notions of the region’s political and cultural immaturities and deformities, even today. With the Arab Spring, drone warfare, surveillance, and U.S. Special Forces operations throughout the region, he convincingly argues that this is “a story that is still being written.” (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

America’s Dream Palace offers a wide-ranging exploration of the complex relationship between the knowledge that Americans have produced about the Middle East and the exercise of American power in the region, from the First World War down to the invasion of Iraq. Well-researched and engagingly written, it should be of interest to scholars and nonscholars alike.
— Zachary Lockman, author of Field Notes: The Making of Middle East Studies in the United States

America’s Dream Palace is a brilliant and meticulously researched work. Khalil carefully documents how scholars’ production of knowledge about the Middle East shaped, and was shaped by, the rise of America as a twentieth-century global military power. This is a vital contribution to our understanding of Middle East studies and to our understanding of the political economy of knowledge production.
— David H. Price, author of Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, The Pentagon, and the Rise of Dual Use Anthropology

Thoroughly documented, carefully argued, and well crafted. In a detailed look at the nexus of American academic expertise on the Middle East and Washington’s diplomatic and intelligence power centers, from the Wilson era through the Obama presidency, Khalil keeps his prose crisp and his judgments sober.
— John Waterbury Foreign Affairs

Khalil provides a trove of new data, especially about the pre–Cold War and post-2001 eras, [but] his interest isn’t so much the history of ideas as the institutional career of Middle East studies in America. He’s particularly good at piecing together scattered archival evidence to reveal previously hidden patronage relationships between area specialists and government agencies such as the State Department and the CIA. And by quoting one undeniably prejudiced statement after another, he demonstrates the Orientalism of successive generations of Middle East experts to devastating overall effect.
— Hugh Wilford London Review of Books

In this timely study, Khalil provides a thorough analysis of how U.S. foreign policy interests have driven the development of American specialist knowledge about the Middle East from WWI to today…Khalil demonstrates how American analysis of the Middle East has been, and continues to be, tainted with the ideology of American exceptionalism and orientalist notions of the region’s political and cultural immaturities and deformities, even today.
— Publishers Weekly

Well-researched and containing a breadth of sources, America’s Dream Palace provides the reader an in-depth treatment of the history of Middle Eastern Studies in the U.S.
— David Max Korzen Arab Studies Quarterly

Khalil’s America’s Dream Palace is a well-researched study of the evolution of knowledge about the Middle East over the course of a century…[An] excellent study of an unusual aspect of the Cold War as it relates to the Middle East…[It] constitute[s] required reading for the student of the Middle East and the layman interested in the region alike.
— Juan Romero Reviews in American History

[Khalil’s] extensive use of archival sources, sharp prose, bold assertions and arguments makes America’s Dream Palace a timely and unique addition to the emerging scholarship on the U.S. and the Middle East during the Cold War and beyond.
— Jeffrey G. Karam H-Diplo

From the Publisher

Khalil’s America’s Dream Palace is a well-researched study of the evolution of knowledge about the Middle East over the course of a century…[An] excellent study of an unusual aspect of the Cold War as it relates to the Middle East…[It] constitute[s] required reading for the student of the Middle East and the layman interested in the region alike.

Reviews in American History - Juan Romero

Thoroughly documented, carefully argued, and well crafted. In a detailed look at the nexus of American academic expertise on the Middle East and Washington’s diplomatic and intelligence power centers, from the Wilson era through the Obama presidency, Khalil keeps his prose crisp and his judgments sober.

Foreign Affairs - John Waterbury

America’s Dream Palace offers a wide-ranging exploration of the complex relationship between the knowledge that Americans have produced about the Middle East and the exercise of American power in the region, from the First World War down to the invasion of Iraq. Well-researched and engagingly written, it should be of interest to scholars and nonscholars alike.

Zachary Lockman

America’s Dream Palace is a brilliant and meticulously researched work. Khalil carefully documents how scholars’ production of knowledge about the Middle East shaped, and was shaped by, the rise of America as a twentieth-century global military power. This is a vital contribution to our understanding of Middle East studies and to our understanding of the political economy of knowledge production.

David H. Price

[Khalil’s] extensive use of archival sources, sharp prose, bold assertions and arguments makes America’s Dream Palace a timely and unique addition to the emerging scholarship on the U.S. and the Middle East during the Cold War and beyond.

Jeffrey G. Karam

Khalil provides a trove of new data, especially about the pre–Cold War and post-2001 eras, [but] his interest isn’t so much the history of ideas as the institutional career of Middle East studies in America. He’s particularly good at piecing together scattered archival evidence to reveal previously hidden patronage relationships between area specialists and government agencies such as the State Department and the CIA. And by quoting one undeniably prejudiced statement after another, he demonstrates the Orientalism of successive generations of Middle East experts to devastating overall effect.

London Review of Books - Hugh Wilford

Well-researched and containing a breadth of sources, America’s Dream Palace provides the reader an in-depth treatment of the history of Middle Eastern Studies in the U.S.

Arab Studies Quarterly - David Max Korzen