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The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent
The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent
The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent
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The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent

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In this book, Fouad Ajami analyzes the struggle for influence along the Fertile Crescent—the stretch of land that runs from Iran's border with Iraq to the Mediterranean—among three of the regional powers who have stepped into the vacuum left by the West: Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. He explains that, of the three powers competing for influence, Saudi Arabia and Iran are in it for the long haul. Each of those powers has a sense of mission and constituencies that enable them to stick it out and pay the price for a sphere of influence. Each country's prospects for supremacy is detailed and Ajami asserts that Iran must ultimately be reckoned to be the strongest.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 1, 2014
ISBN9780817917562
The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent
Author

Fouad Ajami

Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is a contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report and a consultant to CBS News on Middle Eastern affairs. Ajami is a frequent contributor to Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and other periodicals and outlets worldwide. Born in Lebanon and raised in Beirut, he is based in New York City.

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    The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent - Fouad Ajami

    HERBERT AND JANE DWIGHT WORKING GROUP ON ISL AMISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER

    Many of the writings associated with this Working Group will be published by the Hoover Institution. Materials published to date, or in production, are listed below.

    ESSAY SERIES:

    THE GREAT UNRAVELING: THE REMAKING OF THE MIDDLE EAST

    In Retreat: America’s Withdrawal from the Middle East

    Russell A. Berman

    Israel and the Arab Turmoil

    Itamar Rabinovich

    Reflections on the Revolution in Egypt

    Samuel Tadros

    The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent

    Fouad Ajami

    The Weaver’s Lost Art

    Charles Hill

    The Consequences of Syria

    Lee Smith

    ESSAYS

    Saudi Arabia and the New Strategic Landscape

    Joshua Teitelbaum

    Islamism and the Future of the Christians of the Middle East

    Habib C. Malik

    Syria through Jihadist Eyes: A Perfect Enemy

    Nibras Kazimi

    The Ideological Struggle for Pakistan

    Ziad Haider

    Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah: The Unholy Alliance and Its War on Lebanon

    Marius Deeb

    [For a list of books published under the auspices of the WORKING GROUP ON ISLAMISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER, please see page 59.]

    The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the thirty-first president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic and international affairs. The views expressed in its publications are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, officers, or Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution.

    www.hoover.org

    Hoover Institution Press Publication No. 649

    Hoover Institution at Leland Stanford Junior University, Stanford, California, 94305-6010

    Copyright © 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the

    Leland Stanford Junior University

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher and copyright holders.

    For permission to reuse material from The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent, by Fouad Ajami, ISBN 978-0-8179-1755-5, please access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of uses.

    Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

    ISBN 978-0-8179-1755-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)

    ISBN 978-0-8179-1756-2 (epub)

    ISBN 978-0-8179-1757-9 (mobi)

    ISBN 978-0-8179-1758-6 (PDF)

    The Hoover Institution gratefully acknowledges the following individuals and foundations for their significant support of the

    HERBERT AND JANE DWIGHT WORKING GROUP ON ISLAMISM AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER:

    Herbert and Jane Dwight

    Mr. and Mrs. Donald R. Beall

    Stephen Bechtel Foundation

    Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

    Mr. and Mrs. Clayton W. Frye Jr.

    Lakeside Foundation

    CONTENTS

    Series Foreword

    by Fouad Ajami and Charles Hill

    The Struggle for Mastery in the Fertile Crescent

    I. The Patrons

    II. In the Name of the Saints

    III. Blowback

    IV. A War with No Secrets

    V. A War with No Victors

    VI. A Foreigner’s Gift: Liberation in Iraq

    VII. The Matter of State Power

    VIII. The Last Refuge?

    Source Notes

    About the Author

    About the Hoover Institution’s Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order

    Index

    SERIES FOREWORD

    The Great Unraveling: The Remaking of the Middle East

    IT’S A MANTRA, but it is also true: the Middle East is being unmade and remade. The autocracies that gave so many of these states the appearance of stability are gone, their dreaded rulers dispatched to prison or exile or cut down by young people who had yearned for the

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