The author is the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News and he tells the story of his two-decade career that began in the mid-1990's in Cairo for the 'Middle Eastern Times'. He is unsparing in his criticism of American policy. Before he begins though, he points out in the prologue that Dante assigned both Mohammed and Ali, the Shia patriarch, to the eighth circle of hell as "sowers of religious divisiveness." Engel's as tough as Dante.
He reviews the basics, including the infamous post-WW1 European division of the Ottoman Empire that has been universally decried for a century. He arrived on the scene in time to see the big men of the Cold War era (Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, Ben Ali of Algeria, Gadafi and Assad) crumble under the weight of "their own poor management and the actions and inactions of two two-term US administrations: Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The combined impact of Bush's aggressive interventionism and Obama's timidity and inconsistency completely destroyed the status quo." He suggests that although we aren't responsible for the Middle East's woes, our actions and missteps unleashed the madness of the Iraq war, the Syrian bloodbath, Libya's anarchy and ISIS.
Engel cites the Egyptian fundamentalist mid-90's attacks on tourists as the first steps toward the abyss. They were followed by Al-Quaeda bombing the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Hatred of the west was and continues to be a core tenet of the Islamist fundamentalists. He labels the extremists as Salafi and Wahabi jihadists. The jihadis who fought the Soviet infidels in Afghanistan were prosecuted and imprisoned upon their return home, and in Egypt, were often executed. They eventually became an army of exiles. In 2000, Engel's focus shifted to Israel, when he signed on with Agence France-Presse (AFP) as their Palestinian correspondent. He feels that the Second Intifada was caused by Ariel Sharon who casually and provocatively walked through the Arab section of the Dome of the Rock/Wailing Wall complex. Thus ended any possibility of the peace process succeeding. He was in Jerusalem on Sept. 11th and entered Iraq as a freelancer in early March, 2003. ABC took him on when he was the only American reporter left in Bagdad and he witnessed "shock and awe" and its consequences. He refers to the Bush administration plans in Iraq as a "fantasy garden of democracy that he (Bush) wanted to plant in the Middle East." Engel somehow spent years in Bagdad as it descended into total chaos, was moved to Beirut to become a bureau chief for NBC, and eventually, to NYC. The Arab Spring, Tahrir Square, the collapse of Libya, the endless Syrian civil war and ISIS followed. From the author's perspective, the region is doomed to decades more of violence and failed states.
I've always enjoyed books by journalists. After all, they usually write very well. This is both a personal memoir, as well as a brief history. He provides some interesting insights and has delivered a solid narrative.
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