Peter L. Hahn - Böcker

Libya and the West: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a welcome update to the literature on Western diplomatic relations with Libya. It specifically analyzes the complicated relationships that Italy, Britain, the United States, and France developed with Libya beginning in the 1910s. On the basis of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, it offers insights into the political and socio-economic conditions within Libya that concerned Western leaders and shaped their policies. Among the crucial episodes that this book embraces are fascist Italy's military conquest and colonization of Libya; the expulsion of Axis armies from Libya and other north African states during World War II; the enthronement of King Idris in 1951; the discovery of oil in Libya in 1959. It explains the seizure of power by Muammar Qaddafi in 1969; the low-intensity military conflict between the United States and Libya in the 1980s; the Western response to Libyan acts of terrorism, including the murder of a British police officer in London in 1984 and the downing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988; the enduring turmoil sparked by the Arab Spring in 2011; the decision by NATO powers to intervene militarily in the Libyan civil war to ensure the downfall of the Qaddafi regime; and the murder of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens at Benghazi in 2012.

Libya and the West: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a welcome update to the literature on Western diplomatic relations with Libya. It specifically analyzes the complicated relationships that Italy, Britain, the United States, and France developed with Libya beginning in the 1910s. On the basis of a wide range of primary and secondary sources, it offers insights into the political and socio-economic conditions within Libya that concerned Western leaders and shaped their policies. Among the crucial episodes that this book embraces are fascist Italy's military conquest and colonization of Libya; the expulsion of Axis armies from Libya and other north African states during World War II; the enthronement of King Idris in 1951; the discovery of oil in Libya in 1959. It explains the seizure of power by Muammar Qaddafi in 1969; the low-intensity military conflict between the United States and Libya in the 1980s; the Western response to Libyan acts of terrorism, including the murder of a British police officer in London in 1984 and the downing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988; the enduring turmoil sparked by the Arab Spring in 2011; the decision by NATO powers to intervene militarily in the Libyan civil war to ensure the downfall of the Qaddafi regime; and the murder of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens at Benghazi in 2012.

This volume, the third in a series of James G. McDonald's edited diaries and papers, covers his work from 1945, with the formation of the Anglo-American Committee, through 1947, with the United Nations' decision to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs. The "Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine" was a group charged with finding a solution to the problem of European Jewish Refugees in the context of the increasingly unstable British Mandate in Palestine. McDonald's diaries and papers offer the most thorough personal account we have of the Committee and the politics surrounding it. His diary is part travelogue through the desolation of postwar Europe and a Middle East being transformed by new Jewish settlements and growing Arab intransigence. McDonald maintained discreet contact with Zionist and moderate Arab leaders throughout the Committee's hearings and deliberations. He was instrumental in the recommendation that 100,000 Jewish refugees enter Palestine and won President Truman's trust in order to counter attempts to nullify the report's recommendations.

Egypt figured prominently in United States policy in the Middle East after World War II because of its strategic, political, and economic importance. Peter Hahn explores the triangular relationship between the United States, Great Britain, and Egypt in order to analyze the justifications and implications of American policy in the region and within the context of a broader Cold War strategy.This work is the first comprehensive scholarly account of relations between those countries during this period. Hahn shows how the United States sought to establish stability in Egypt and the Middle East to preserve Western interests, deny the resources of the region to the Soviet Union, and prevent the outbreak of war. He demonstrates that American officials' desire to recognize Egyptian nationalistic aspirations was constrained by their strategic imperatives in the Middle East and by the demands of the Anglo-American alliance.Using many recently declassified American and British political and military documents, Hahn offers a comprehensive view of the intricacies of alliance diplomacy and multilateral relations. He sketches the United States' growing involvement in Egyptian affairs and its accumulation of commitments to Middle East security and stability and shows that these events paralleled the decline of British influence in the region.Hahn identifies the individuals and agencies that formulated American policy toward Egypt and discusses the influence of domestic and international issues on the direction of policy. He also explains and analyzes the tactics devised by American officials to advance their interests in Egypt, judging their soundness and success.

Postwar American officials desired - in principle - to promote Arab-Israeli peace in order to stabilize the Middle East. Yet Peter L. Hahn shows how, during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, that desire for peace was not always an American priority, as U.S. leaders consistently gave more weight to their determination to contain the Soviet Union than to their desire to make peace between Israel and its neighbors. U.S. leaders were unable to relinquish responsibilities that became increasingly difficult to fulfill, and they were unable to resolve a dispute that would continue to generate instability for years to come.

The current state of affairs between the United States and the Middle East is probably the most volatile and absorbing relationship the U.S. is involved in today. Prior to 1941, however, the U.S. preferred to limit its involvement with the Middle East to launching ministries of evangelism and social welfare across the region and investing in the pumping, refining, and transportation of oil to Western markets. It was not until World War II and the Cold War, when the threat of losing control of the region and therefore losing its natural resources, military bases, and lines of communication arose, that U.S. officials were motivated to take a greater interest. Since then, the increasing level of violence in the area has led to an increase in U.S. involvement, which—in most cases—has been far from positive: the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1981, the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, and the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.The A to Z of United States-Middle East Relations is an essential tool to understanding how diplomatic relations deteriorated to this point. This volume concentrates on the history of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Middle East from the onset of the Cold War up to the present. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, an appendix, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the countries involved, significant events, major crises, important figures, controversial issues, and doctrines and policies. For scholars, historians, and students interested in the diplomacy of these two regions, this is an essential reference.

U.S. foreign relations in the Middle East has remained crucial through many decades and the complications facing the United States in the Middle East have become even more acute. While the United States downgraded its military operations in Iraq, that country failed to achieve a stable, democratic footing and instead experienced schism and civil strife. Israeli-Palestinian disputes over land, the status of refugees, and control of Jerusalem intensified, and international conflicts between Arab states and Israel escalated for the first time since the 1980s. The Arab Spring protest movements of 2011 and after ignited political turmoil across the region, leading to revolutionary change in several states and triggering persistent unrest and violence in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. During the recent decade, in short, the Middle East has become the most unstable, dangerous, and complicated region of the world and the United States remains near the center of the maelstrom.This second edition of Historical Dictionary of United States-Middle East Relations contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on national leaders, non-governmental organizations, policy initiatives, and armed conflicts, as well as entries on such topics as intelligence, immigration, and weapons of mass destruction. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the US and Middle East Relations.

Although it seems almost incredible today, the United States had relatively little interest in the Middle East before 1945. But the dynamics and outcome of World War II elevated the importance of the Middle East in the American mind, and the United States has viewed the region with vital interest to its security and economy ever since. The projection of American power into the region has had consequences that have forever changed the United States and the Middle East, with the rise of al Qaeda and the turbulent occupation of Iraq being the latest examples. Crisis and Crossfire surveys and analyzes the broad contours of U.S. involvement in the region. It probes the reasons why the United States implemented various policies and assesses the wisdom of American leaders as they accepted greater responsibilities for preserving stability and security in the Middle East. Major themes include U.S.-Middle East policy in the context of the Cold War, the rise of Arab and Iranian nationalism, decolonization, the U.S. approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the politics of Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and America's military interventions, particularly its two wars against Iraq. This book's concise narrative and selection of primary-source documents make it an ideal introduction to U.S.-Middle East relations for students and for anyone with an interest in understanding the history behind today's events.