Untangling the Middle East

"Ori Soltes gives the reader a fair, clear-eyed tour d’horizon of today’s Middle East. He roots the region’s essentially permanent troubles in its ancient sectarian divisions and its modern inability to form durable, popular, successful states. After 100 years and the disappointments of Nasser, Saddam, and Assad, the Arabs have yet to create such a state. Only the non-Arab peoples—Iran, Turkey, and Israel—have succeeded, but at a pitiably high cost in resources and regional good will. The road forward will be as bumpy as the road behind, and Soltes provides a brisk, readable guide."
—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Quicksand: America’s Pursuit of Power in the Middle East

"Ori Soltes gives the reader a fair, clear-eyed tour d’horizon of today’s Middle East. He roots the region’s essentially permanent troubles in its ancient sectarian divisions and its modern inability to form durable, popular, successful states. After 100 years and the disappointments of Nasser, Saddam, and Assad, the Arabs have yet to create such a state. Only the non-Arab peoples—Iran, Turkey, and Israel—have succeeded, but at a pitiably high cost in resources and regional good will. The road forward will be as bumpy as the road behind, and Soltes provides a brisk, readable guide."
—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Quicksand: America’s Pursuit of Power in the Middle East