Ike's Gamble

Ike's Gamble, America's Rise to Dominance in the Middle East, by Michael Doran, Free Press, Simon & Schuster 2018 

When former General Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded interim president Harry Truman, the World War II hero knew he would face a new set of post-war challenges - the Soviet Union, growing oil, nationalist  and military interests in the Middle East upon which the booming US economy partially depended, and a fractured Europe not yet recovered from the war.  For the man  from Kansas, global inter-relationships, diplomacy and trusting agreements did not match the world he had grown up and recently campaigned and fought in.  Although author Michael Doran traces the US dominance in the Middle East to President Eisenhower's decisions and strategy, the reasons behind the history resulting in the difficult events in today's region are complex and powerfully disruptive.

The President went forward with good intentions and plans for agreements that would protect US and Israeli interests.   

Eisenhower's overall objectives required highly organized responses to big events in the Middle East.  While he may have originally envisioned the US as what Doran calls an "honest broker" helping to negotiate inter-Arab conflicts, as well as European and US interests, Doran believes that Eisenhower gradually transformed his leadership objectives as he began to see inter-Arab conflicts as unmanageable, and as he witnessed the Soviet-Egyptian arms deal in September 1955 that strengthened  Egypt's nationalist leader, Nasser.  When the British and the French, who operated the canal, joined with Israel to take it back by force, Eisenhower intervened and stopped the invasion, hoping he could win back the trust of the Arab world.  In fact, when Max Fisher, a leading member of the American Jewish community, visited Eisenhower at his farm in 1965, the former president admitted regrets.  "You know, Max, looking back at Suez, I regret what I did, " said Ike.  "I never should have pressured Israel to evacuate the Sinai."   Doran cites yet another parallel to current events when he writes that  Eisenhower's goal when he took office in 1953 was to shut the Soviets out of the Arab world.    

The Suez crisis marked the end of Eisenhower's initial approach to Middle East policy and led the US to turn toward Israel as its main ally, leaving us today with questions about what the US position viz-a-viz Israel and the Arab countries can and should be.   

Doran asks questions of Ike's strategies and outcomes - if Eisenhower had abandoned his "honest broker" position earlier, could he have eliminated the turmoil of nationalist movements in the Middle East?  If Eisenhower had shut down Nassar early, instead of building him the Aswan Dam, would that have settled things down for a few more years, and if Eisenhower had not so clearly signaled his support of Israeli interests and the end of anti-Israeli pressures, could he have preserved a stronger pro-Western base?  In his post-Presidential retirement years, Ike noted to the NYTimes' Sulzberger his choices, and possibilities that might have enabled different outcomes.  But he had run out of time.