Marc Lynch

From the Gulf War to Gaza, a compelling critique of how and why Washington ensnared itself so destructively in the Middle East.After Hamas'' shocking 2023 attack on Israel, the United States stood firmly behind Israel''s near-genocidal war on Gaza, despite widespread moral outrage and significant damage to Washington''s global agenda. But Gaza is only the latest paradox in thirty-five years of Middle East policy. How did this pattern develop, why can''t policymakers learn from repeated Middle Eastern calamities, and what does Gaza''s destruction mean for America''s place in the world?Marc Lynch charts the United States'' disastrously failed approach to the post-Cold War Middle East, where aspirations for US leadership and a calm region have only produced war, instability and humanitarian catastrophe. Lynch exposes the failure of each president''s efforts to transform the Middle East in America''s image, or pivot away from the region; Washington''s refusal to take seriously the views of Middle Easterners; and its fantasy of forging a regional order ''without'' the Palestinian issue.Moving between American politics and Middle Eastern realities, this incisive account explains why US policy has not changed despite its horrifying human costs, from Iraq, Lebanon and Syria to Iran, Yemen and Libya.

Marc Lynch's last book, The Arab Uprising, described the then ongoing revolutionary change and prospect for the consolidation of democracy in key Arab countries that still seemed possible. But Lynch saw dark signs on the horizon, especially in Syria. That book ended with the hope that the Arab uprisings heralded a fundamental change over the long-term, but with the warning that Arab regimes would not easily give up their power. Instead, Egypt's revolution has given way to a military coup; Libya's produced a failed state; Yemen is the battleground for a proxy war and will be destroyed; Syria has become a sprawling humanitarian catastrophe that will take a generation to begin to recover from.At the same time, America has less and less reason to want to engage with the region and now has only one functional ally apart from Israel. The New Arab Wars describes how the political landscape of an entire region has been convulsed, with much of it given over to anarchy, as proxy wars on behalf of three competing powers - Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia - scar the region. It is a brutal, compelling story.