| The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations |  | Author: Lee Smith
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Seller: BRILANTI BOOKS
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 35,361
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.4 x 1
ISBN: 0385516118
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.05
EAN: 9780385516112
ASIN: 0385516118
Publication Date: January 12, 2010
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Product Description
In a provocative, timely book, a noted journalist and expert on Arab-American affairs overturns long-held Western myths about the Arab world, and offers a doctrine to help the United States correct its assumptions concerning the region.
Wanting to know why September 11 happened, journalist Lee Smith moved to Cairo. There, he discovered that the standard explanation-a clash of East and West led to the attacks-was simply not the case. As Smith outlines in The Strong Horse, the problems of the Middle East have little to do with Israel, the United States, or the West in general. The strife exists within the Arab world itself.
Through clear-eyed analysis, Smith explodes the many myths permeating Americans' understanding of the Arab world: colonialism spurred the region's ongoing turmoil; Arab liberalism is waiting for U.S. intervention; technology and democracy can be transforming. In response to these untruths, Smith offers what he terms the “Strong Horse Doctrine”-that Arabs want to align themselves with strength, power, and violence. Given America's ongoing interest in the Middle East, Smith says America needs to be the strong horse in order to reclaim its role there, and only by understanding the nature of the region's ancient conflict can we succeed.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Great Book! January 26, 2010
Hussain Abdul-Hussain (Washington,DC USA)
69 out of 72 found this review helpful
Not only is this book informative, but is also one of the most easy-read entertaining books. It collects tidbits from several sources, including an interview with Edward Said in 2003, an interview with Eliot Abrams in 2008, and other substantiating material such as quotes from Said's writings or literature by other authors.
Smith's book is not a textbook per se. It is an attempt at understanding what goes on the mind of the people who are from the Middle East, or those who have written or helped shape policies about the Middle East. In some parts, Smith talks to average Joe Arabs. In other parts, he analyzes French foreign policy on the Middle East and what made former French President Jacques Chirac take an unexpected stance in siding with the United States on Lebanon in 2004.
Still, the most interesting dimension of this book is its theme: While the West and America have certainly contributed to shaping history and events in the Middle East, this history has been largely the making of Middle Easterners - a hypothesis that supporters of Arab nationalism, such as Said, disagree with.
Early in his book, Smith cites a few of the inter-Arab "brotherly" confrontations, where he identifies the role of the United States and the West as being somehow secondary: Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Syrian occupation of Lebanon (1990-2005), the civil wars in North Yemen (1962-1970) and Lebanon (1975-1990), the massacres of Saddam Hussein against the Iraqi Shiites and Kurds in 1991, and the massacres of Hafez Assad against the Syrians of Hama in 1982.
The Strong Horse, a coin phrased by none other than Osama Ben Laden, is a great read. It is worth your money.
At last! A book worth reading about the Arabs February 16, 2010
B. Gilad (USA)
51 out of 53 found this review helpful
The Strong Horse is a unique book, with an amazing perspective. That alone makes it a jewel in this field where most other books are simplistic analyses of how the "the Western colonial powers" are to blame for everything that is wrong with the Arab culture, politics and use of terror. Compare this book with "The Arabs- A history" a recent book by Eugene Rogan from Oxford University, which typifies the romantic, guilt-ridden, British-naive view of the Middle East as a problem caused by horrible Western intervention. While Rogan's book is read like a piece of anti-Israeli/Anti-American propoganda devoid of any insight, Smith's book sheds a new and surprising light on the real root cause of this monumental war between the civilizations. The most insightful book in years, Smith says it all in the following: They hate us not becasue of who we are or what we do (a common misconception of well wishing liberals) but becasue of who we are NOT - Arabs. As anyone who grew up in Israel knows, Arabs only respect strength and despise weakness. Any sign of the other side weakening brings immediate violence from Arabs who believe deeper than any Westerner can ever understand that the world is about storng horses fighting. That ingrained attitude, cultivated in Arab boys since birth and dating thousand of years into Arab tribal history, makes a policy of appeasement a grave mistake. One wonders if Obama will ever read this book...
Wake - up medicine February 23, 2010
Shalom Freedman (Jerusalem,Israel)
30 out of 30 found this review helpful
As someone who has lived in the Middle East for over thirty- five years and followed its daily events I can attest to the truth of this book's fundamental thesis: i.e. It is not American foreign - policy which is responsible for the endless conflicts in the region, but rather its own historical cultural and political heritage. The tradition of the few ruling the many, of the strong ruler who manipulates the mass in order to stay in power, of the most violent and powerful being the ones admired and followed, is still in place. It is the strong horse not the weak which the great majority of the people in this region admire. Smith details the situation in the respective Arab countries and shows how they are simply not ready for the kind of democratic revolution the West, and primarily the United States would bring to them. Smith is as I understand it, calling for a more modest and realistic American foreign policy, one which in taking into account the inherent problematic character of the region does not entangle itself unduly in impossible tasks which can only lead to disappointment and disillusion.
This work is painful but realistic wake- up medicine for idealistic dreamers (Who in some cases consider themselves political 'realists') but really do not understand what the region is about.
A Great Book February 5, 2010
Michael W. Perry (Author of Untangling Tolkien, Seattle, WA)
27 out of 30 found this review helpful
I've lived in the Middle East at the time of the Camp David accords. I traveled, making a point to talk with both Arabs and Jews. The book fits well with what I discovered and offers far more detail. It's one of the best books in print on the culture and politics of the Arab world.
--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II
A Fresh Approach March 9, 2010
Roderic Fabian (Friendswood, TX United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book takes a fresh approach to the problems of international terrorism based in the Middle East. That is, it provides a cultural context for the violence and puts responsibility for it on those who facilitate and support it.
Violence is the norm for Arabs of the region, whose culture is based in tribalism, says the author. There is no non-violent mechanism for the transfer of power from one ruling regime to another in the Arab states. One tribe, the strong horse, rules until it is overcome by violence, and most of the machinations that result in international terrorism are the result of conflicts between Arabs. These conflicts have little to do with what the US or other Western countries have done. International terrorism in the region is Arab politics writ large, inflated by oil money and the need for oil.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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