Conviction and Credence: US Policymaking in the Middle East

The book Conviction and Credence: US Policymaking in the Middle East focuses at how US administrations from Nixon to Bush have tried with little success to attain the goal of peace in the Middle East, how values have operated in the search for solutions, and how failed US policies have depended too much on the conventional wisdom of power politics. Chapter I addresses the philosophical approaches of Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Regan to peace. Chapter 2 focuses on how and why fundamentalism plays an important role in the area, thereby proving the need for a "new wisdom" on the part of US mediators. Chapter 3 examines how and when "conventional wisdom" worked to achieve peace and where it failed. Chapter 4 discusses the risks of Gulf thinking in the United States regarding "ally" and "enemy" patterns. Chapter 5 identifies how and why a "new wisdom" might provoke success for the United States in the Levant. Chapter 6 offers the Bush administration a prescriptive agenda to follow in the Middle East during the first half of this decade.

177 pages, hardcover, no dust jacket, good condition: clean and tight copy. ISBN 1555871771.

To develop a new wisdom, we must thoroughly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the conventional wisdom that has determined US policemakers` actions and reactions in the recent past. US efforts to shape the peace process have, on occasion, earned it gratitude and a richer place in the world.
(Melvin A. Friedlander: Conviction and Credence: US Policymaking in the Middle East, page 17)

Another book you may enjoy:
cauldron of turmoil: America in the Middle East