The Cauldron: The Making Of The Modern Middle East, Montefiore - B

        "The Middle East is an arc of territory that extends from Morocco's Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf." The "gritty and gnarly realities of geography" are as vivid and critical today as they have been for millennia. This history starts in the early 20th century, when almost all of the Muslim world was part of occupying empires. Indeed, only Morocco, Persia, and Saudi Arabia were independent.

       The British occupied Egypt in 1900 to secure their access to the Suez Canal. Its connection to the Raj became paramount to its foreign policy for the next five decades. In 1908, in northwestern Iran, an event took place that would transform the Middle East forever. An English company found oil. The First World War started well for the Ottomans, but soon turned, and defeat was at every turn. In late 1917, the UK announced its support for "a Jewish home in Palestine." At war's end, almost all of Arabia was a British Mandate. Peace did not stop the internecine fighting in the crumbling empire.

        Perhaps the most important post-war event was Kemal's consolidation of Turkey. He defeated the Greeks and eliminated them from Asia Minor, and quashed further discussions of Armenian and Kurdish states. He abolished the Sultanate and created the Turkish Republic. The only other actor of the decade to accomplish as much was Reza Khan, who led a coup to take over the failing Persian state. He was soon made Shah. One observer who was very concerned about a godless soldier assuming the title was a twenty-three-year-old seminarian, Ruhollah Khomeini.

       During the Second World War, the Arabs preferred Germany as a way to escape British and French imperialism, and for its anti-Jewish policies. Ironically, German repression increased the number of Jews emigrating to Palestine. The Jews supported Britain, the Arabs plotted and planned, Rommel came very close to reaching Cairo, and Iran was occupied by Britain and the USSR.

        Stalin ignored his Yalta promises and demanded to stay in Iran and further insisted that Turkey allow him access to the Straits. Both gambits failed, and Turkey joined NATO. The British reversed their position on a Jewish homeland, offered one to the Arabs, and barred Jewish immigration. The UN tried to negotiate a compromise in Palestine, failed, and the Zionists successfully defended their new homeland, which they named Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Jews either left their Arab countries or were forced to emigrate to Israel.

        The post-war West wished to keep both Egypt and Iran, the two largest and most powerful Muslim nations, away from the Soviets. A military coup in Egypt exiled the king, and Nasser assumed control. A few years later, he upset the existing order by accepting Soviet MiGs from Czechoslovakia and nationalizing the Suez Canal. The French proposed that Israel invade the Sinai and that the British and French would intervene and recover the Canal. Eisenhower disapproved, quashed the arrangement, and the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai. A decade later, in 1967, Nasser mobilized his armed forces, and the Israelis preemptively attacked and defeated the Arabs in the Six-Day War. Nasser died three years later. His inner circle said he died in June 1967, as he was shattered by the crushing defeat inflicted by Israel. From that point on, the US enthusiastically supported Israel, a fellow democracy and anti-Soviet bastion. Six years later, Sadat thought he could force a peace by crossing the canal into the Sinai. His initial surprise attack was successful but quickly repelled. In 1978, Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords, settling matters between the two nations.

         Nineteen fifty-three saw the Shah eliminate a populist prime minister with CIA help. In 1967, he announced himself King of Kings. Four years later, he held a 2,500th-anniversary party celebrating the founding of the Persian Empire. It was extraordinarily extravagant by anyone's standards and offended the country's religious and poor. Iran's oil revenue quadrupled during the 1970s, but his reforms destabilized the nobility, and industrialization sent millions to the cities. Discontent roiled the country while Khomeini watched from afar. Tensions increased, and the very ill Shah left Iran in January 1979. The following month, Khomeini returned, and the Islamists took over the country. Their revolution was "a world-changing epochal moment" as significant as those of 1789 and 1917. "Islamic religious extremism was unleashed across the region." The executions began, and it is believed the mullahs killed 100,000 people in their first year. In November, they captured the US embassy and murdered the faithful in Mecca. Two years later, Iraq invaded Iran. The long-drawn-out war was a stalemate.

         The troublesome Saddam decided to invade Kuwait in 1990. The US sent troops to Saudi Arabia, which, among other things, confirmed in the mind of the al-Qaeda leader, bin Laden, that jihad must be pursued against the secular Arabs and the American-led Crusader alliance. The following January, the US-led coalition destroyed the Iraqi armed forces. Nonetheless, the never-ending bickering, quarreling, and killing continued in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Oman, and Iran. The al-Qaeda attacks of September 11th changed the Middle East and the world. The US declared a war on terror, took down the Taliban, and chased bin Laden from Afghanistan. Bush somehow equated Iraq with 9/11 and destroyed its armed forces in 2003. The ensuing occupation was a cataclysmic failure as a fierce counterinsurgency pushed back. It was led by the Iranians. They organized the Quds forces "to orchestrate clandestine warfare, political control, secret espionage and special tasks across Muslim lands, based on the doctrine that Iran would defend itself in Arab states with Arab blood." They backed Hezbollah's further destruction of Lebanon and endless bloodshed in Gaza.

       Netanyahu aggressively diminished the status of the residents in the West Bank and Gaza while the US was encouraging the Israelis and Saudis to come to terms. Quds trained Palestinians for an attack in 2023, and on October 7th, the Palestinians fired 4,300 missiles and invaded with 7,000 men. The next day, Hezbollah launched missiles from Lebanon. Israel suffered its greatest losses in its history and retaliated for much longer than ever before. Because the Arab losses were much greater than the Israeli losses, Hamas won the international public relations battle. After a failed Iranian drone attack, Israel responded by defeating Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon. In 2025, when the nuclear inspectors reported that Iran was three weeks away from having nine bombs, the US and Israel attacked. After the destruction heaped upon the country, the economy nearly collapsed, and the people took to the streets. The mullahs killed more people in a few days in January than the Shah did in four decades. Israel and the US attacked in February, and Iran responded throughout the region. "The cauldron churned and the flames blazed."

        "The Middle East continues to be a region where the sword decides who rules and where people measure themselves by the virtues of battle." Some solution to the incredible complexities of the region lies in the hands of its mightiest powers: Turkey, Israel, and Iran. It is Iran, though, that is the linchpin and most complicated player. The author believes it will ultimately collapse from within. "Revolutions seem impossible before they happen, and inevitable after," once said Hannah Arendt. Hopefully, since the vast, vast majority of people in the region simply wish for peace, freedom, education, and prosperity, they will eventually prevail over the extremists throughout the Middle East.

         I have read a few of Montefiore's books, and I do not think this is his best work. Nonetheless, it has been highly acclaimed by the professional reviewers. He casts his net wide, far and wide, citing endless tiresome plots by tribal misfits, absurd quarrels, and pointless assassinations. I am reminded of a taunt made by T.E. Lawrence to Prince Ali in the film Lawrence of Arabia: "So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel." Perhaps it's just a line written by a screenwriter, but it certainly describes much of what this book has been about. That said, they did not attack Israel for half a century until the mullahs funded and provoked the 2023 war. Clearly, any hope for the future requires the end of hate and extremism in Iran.