FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Fwd: Reader Request! It's the last chance in the Middle East. --We Read It [So You Don't Have To]--

[Robert Tapp (tappx001]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Robert Tapp <tappx001 [at] umn.edu>
> Date: July 29, 2010 10:24:03 AM CDT
> To: Humanist Institute Discussion Group Discussion Group <hidisc [at] 
> humanistinstitute.org>
> 
> This Newsweek service is a good way to spot important books you might 
> otherwise miss. David Gardner's, reviewed today, is a good example.
> 
> Bob
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: "Newsweek" <newsweek [at] email.newsweek.com>
>> Date: July 28, 2010 1:08:08 PM CDT
>> 
>> Subject: Reader Request! It's the last chance in the Middle East. --We Read 
>> It [So You Don't Have To]--
>> Reply-To: "Newsweek" <newsweek.01FQ4.9609 [at] email.newsweek.com>
>> 
>> Trouble viewing this email? View online
>>       July 28, 2010  Subscribe Now
>>  
>>      
>> Share:
>>              
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>> 
>>      
>> Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food
>> by Paul Greenberg
>>  
>>      
>> Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk From an Energy Insider
>> by John Hofmeister
>>  
>>      
>> 'Pornland': How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality
>> by Gail Dines
>>  
>>      
>> Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World
>> by Tom Feiling
>>  
>>      
>> The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
>> by Sonia Shah
>>  
>>      
>> The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America
>> by Andrew McCarthy
>> See more
>>  
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> BUY THIS BOOK 
>> Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance
>> David Gardner
>> “We Read It” reader: David A. Graham
>> In light of the botched Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla and the 
>> continuing rule of Gaza by Hamas, it might seem as though the situation in 
>> the Middle East is as hopeless as ever. It’s actually worse, says Gardner: 
>> if the world—especially the Arab nations and the major Western 
>> powers—doesn’t address several major problems now, a new dark age could last 
>> for generations.
>> Our First Reader Request!
>> “We Read It” keeps you abreast of the freshest books on politics, foreign 
>> affairs, society, and more. Did we miss an important one? Do you have a book 
>> you think we should be covering? Let us know at wereadit [at] newsweek.com. 
>> Here we present out first reader-requested volume.
>>  
>> What’s the Big Deal?
>> Sure, there have been more than a few “big picture” books published about 
>> the West’s interactions with the Muslim world recently, some serious, some 
>> less so. Gardner’s book is worth the attention, though, from its author’s 
>> deep knowledge of the region and its key actors (the book draws on 
>> interviews with Yitzhak Rabin, Rafik Hariri, and senior Saudi leaders, among 
>> others) to the stark and sobering conclusions he draws about everything from 
>> the war in Iraq to the short-term prospects for the House of Saud.
>>  
>> One-Breath Author Bio
>>      
>> Now an associate editor and chief editorial writer for the Financial Times, 
>> Gardner is an experienced reporter who edited the paper’s Middle East 
>> coverage for several years.
>>  
>> The Book, in His Own Words
>> “[W]e really do not have that much time; what we are starting to live 
>> through is not some periodic up-and-down in relations between the West and 
>> East. Unless policy changes, we can expect at least one generation of 
>> conflict, more probably several, between the western and Muslim worlds. A 
>> neo-medieval pall will descend upon Arab and Muslim countries—and the shared 
>> values of Islam and the West will wither” (page 18).
>>  
>> Don’t Miss These Bits
>> 1. First, the Arab world. Gardner distills the problems with each of the 
>> regimes—from the fundamentalist Saudi monarchy to the stultifying Egyptian 
>> dictatorship—into three themes: autocracy; power that is maintained by the 
>> military and, in particular, the intelligence services, or Mukhabarat; and 
>> an overall lack of legitimacy (pages 3–4). That’s why, he says, focusing on 
>> poverty as the root of problems is misguided: “Above all, however, the 
>> argument is flawed and misleading because the high-octane fuel firing 
>> Islamist fury is a volatile compound of humiliation and political despair” 
>> (page 28). To put it a little differently: it’s not the economy, stupid.
>> 
>> 2. Then there’s Israel. His arguments aren’t new, but they’re forcefully 
>> made: the lack of a tenable solution by now is “an astonishing abdication of 
>> western as well as Arab-Israeli responsibility” that is “all the more 
>> perplexing since there is no mystery as to what the outlines of such a 
>> settlement would have to be” (page 151). To wit, a two-state solution with 
>> East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital.
>> 
>> 3. If nothing else, don’t miss Gardner’s searing conclusion. The West has a 
>> choice, he says, between despots and democrats; between sticking with safe 
>> allies who oppress their peoples, and risking volatile but free regimes with 
>> Islamist urges. Heretofore, we’ve chosen the former. “If these are the 
>> choices, then do not howl in incredulous outrage when forces incubated by 
>> them—however alien and evil—fly airliners into your buildings, bomb your 
>> resorts and hotels, your train systems and embassies, your churches and your 
>> synagogues. Above all, do not when this happens keep insisting that ‘they 
>> hate us for our freedoms’ or that ‘the world has changed.’ It has not, 
>> precisely because you have chosen not to change it” (page 204). His stark 
>> call won’t be easy to heed.
>> 
>>  
>> Swipe This Critique
>> As an exposition of the current state of the Middle East and Western policy, 
>> Last Chance is excellent—erudite and elegant, lucidly written and logically 
>> argued. Its major flaw, however, is that the strong component parts don’t 
>> quite add up to the whole that Gardner promises. Since (as the author ably 
>> shows) Western policies for at least the last half century have been 
>> disastrous, it’s not really clear why today is the “last chance” in the 
>> title. This would be a rather minor oversight were it not the title of the 
>> book, because Gardner makes the compelling case that our policies need to 
>> change, regardless of deadlines.
>>  
>> Gradebook
>>      
>> Prose: Short, sweet, clear.
>>      
>> Aesthetics: The wonderful chapter titles almost make up for the clip-art 
>> dust-jacket design. Almost.
>>      
>> Jargon : The book tackles highly technical concepts (e.g., Islamic 
>> jurisprudence) with remarkable clarity for the lay reader.
>>  
>> 
>>      
>>  
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