Constructing the Middle East: Networks, frameworks, and U.S.-Middle East relations, 1945--1967

Before U.S. involvement in the Middle East increased dramatically following World War II, few Americans had direct experience with the region. Those that did came primarily from missionary or government service backgrounds. Between 1945 and 1967 this small group evolved into a larger, loosely assembled, full-fledged network of academic, government, journalist, and business Middle East specialists. These specialists struggled to make sense of the complex region and to render it more understandable to high-level policy makers and wider America within a dangerous Cold War context. In the process, they constructed a framework for comprehending the Middle East that emphasized four main issues: the role of Islam in the Middle East and the Cold War world; the forces driving radical nationalism in the region; how to understand and control revolutionary change; and the Arab-Israeli conflict.; In analyzing this network, its impact, and the framework it developed, this study draws on a wide range of official and private sources and the published writings of numerous specialists from the period. It finds that network members experienced waxing and waning influence, determined in part by the relative importance policy makers and/or the wider public placed on the issues the specialists emphasized at any given point. For example, specialists' views on the perils and promise of political Islam went relatively unchallenged because policy makers rarely needed to address that specific issue. Both policy makers and interested and influential portions of the public, however, subjected the specialists' views on the Arab-Israeli conflict to constant scrutiny.; This dissertation thus has many levels of significance. It reveals how area specialists understood and represented the Middle East during the crucial early decades of heavy U.S. involvement there, thus shedding light on the nature of U.S.-Middle East relations during that period. This study also explores the relationship between area expertise, the production of knowledge, and the exercise of power in the making of U.S. foreign relations. Finally, the dissertation connects traditional ways of understanding U.S. foreign relations through economic and geopolitical interests with newer approaches emphasizing the cultural, discursive, and ideological ways in which people defined those interests and concerns.