Middle East Current Events Reading List
Explore the best books on Middle East current events with our curated reading list. Stay informed on key issues, conflicts, and developments shaping the region today.
Book
The Age of Sacred Terror
by Daniel Benjamin
Winner of the 2004 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations From two of the worldâs foremost experts on the new terrorism comes the deïŹnitive book on the rise of al-Qaeda and Americaâs efforts to combat the most innovative and dangerous terrorist group ever. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon trace the growth of radical Islam from its medieval origins and, drawing on their years of counter-terrorism work at the National Security Council, provide essential insights into the thinking of Usama bin Laden and his followers. With unique authority, they analyze why America was unable to defend itself against this revolutionary threat on September 11, 2001, why bin Ladenâs apocalyptic creed is gaining ground in the Islamic world, and what the United States must do to stop the new terror.
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Book
Sleeping with the Devil
by Robert Baer
âSaudi Arabia is more and more an irrational stateâa place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that canât get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?â In his explosive New York Times bestseller,See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIAâs efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our governmentâs cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and Americaâs dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism. For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a âharmony of interests.â America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdomâs vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Saâud family. But the rot at the core of our âfriendshipâ with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens. InSleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Saâudâs culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Saâud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groupsâan end game just waiting to play out. Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Saâud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sandâand so long as we continue to grab at the Al Saâudâs moneyâwe are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.
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What Went Wrong?
by Bernard Lewis
For centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement -- the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed. The West won victory after victory, first on the battlefield and then in the marketplace. In this elegantly written volume, Bernard Lewis, a renowned authority an Islamic affairs, examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to make sense of how it had been overtaken, overshadowed, and dominated by the West. In a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil, Lewis shows how the Middle East turned its attention to understanding European weaponry, industry, government, education, and culture. He also describes how some Middle Easterners fastened blame on a series of scapegoats, while others asked not "Who did this to us?" but rather "Where did we go wrong?" With a new Afterword that addresses September 11 and its aftermath, What Went Wrong? is an urgent, accessible book that no one who is concerned with contemporary affairs will want to miss.
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An End to Evil
by David Frum
Two foreign policy experts examine the continuing threat of terrorism, discussing the crisis with North Korea, the status of the intelligence community and military, and what the U.S. needs to do to protect itself.
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Book
Soldiers of God
by Robert D. Kaplan
First time in paperback, with a new Introduction and final chapter World affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidinâthe âsoldiers of godââwhose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God we follow Kaplanâs extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless Taliban and the defining international conflagration of the twenty-first century. Kaplan returns a decade later and brings to life a lawless frontier. What he reveals is astonishing: teeming refugee camps on the deeply contentious Pakistan-Afghanistan border; a war front that combines primitive fighters with the most technologically advanced weapons known to man; rigorous Islamic indoctrination academies; a land of minefields plagued by drought, fierce tribalism, insurmountable ethnic and religious divisions, an abysmal literacy rate, and legions of war orphans who seek stability in military brotherhood. Traveling alongside Islamic guerrilla fighters, sharing their food, observing their piety in the face of deprivation, and witnessing their determination, Kaplan offers a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of a people and a country that are at the center of world events.
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Book
The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks
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Book
Bush vs. the Beltway
by Laurie Mylroie
As the dust settles over Baghdad, a leading expert on Iraq tells the story of the obstacles that stood between the US and the fall of Saddam â and reveals that many of them came from within the US Government itself. Combining groundbreaking new research with an insider's understanding of the workings of Washington, Mylroie describes how forces within the CIA and the State Department have conspired to ly discredit crucial intelligence about Saddam Hussein's regime, from his links to al Qaeda to his development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weaponry. She charges the bureaucrats within these agencies with cynical, selfâserving behaviour, designed to help them save face even at the expense of our national security. She describes how major elements of the case against Iraqââfrom new information about the alâQaeda terrorists' possible links to Iraq, to potential Iraq involvement in the fall 2001 anthrax attacksââwere suppressed or prematurely dismissed by these agencies. She reveals how the very idea of stateâsponsored terrorism had been pronounced dead after the 1993 World Trade Center bombingââthereby giving states like Iraq the perfect cover to carry out wellâorchestrated terrorist acts without ever being detected.
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