The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East

A bold reexamination of U.S. influence in the Middle East during the Cold War.

The Arab Spring, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Iraq war, and the Syrian civil war—these contemporary conflicts have deep roots in the Middle East’s postwar emergence from colonialism.

In The Pragmatic Superpower, foreign policy experts Ray Takeyh and Steven Simon reframe the legacy of U.S. involvement in the Arab world from 1945 to 1991 and shed new light on the makings of the contemporary Middle East. Cutting agai...