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After two decades of War on Terror, it is particularly important, for both academic and policy purposes, to clearly understand why the US formidable mobilization of means and might has transformed into a such a blatant geostrategic defeat of the US and its allies in the broad Middle East. This is all the more paradoxical that the WOT achieved a series of tactical victories - such as the toppling of hostile regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya; the crippling of the national economies of enemy states by sanctions; the successful targeted killing of lead terrorist Usama Bin Laden, ISIS cult leaders Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his successor, etc. So, why have these tactical victories not led to what was supposed to become, according to the US government, a 'Greater Middle East'? With most authors being from or living in the Middle East, this book is unique as it brings perspectives and answers from the region. This is crucially important as we are entering, we argue, the era of a Post-American Middle East.
Chapters 1 and 10 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part I - War, Expanding Chaos & Failed State-Building Across the Middle East.- Chapter 2. Afghanistan since 2001: US Geostrategic Ambitions, a Failed State, and the Return of the Taliban.- Chapter 3. Iraq 2003-2007, Geopolitics of an Imperial Democratization.- Chapter 4. Rebel Governance of Oil: The Case of the Houthis in Yemen.- Chapter 5. Wars on Terror in Arab Oil Lands, Russian Interventions, and Chinese Energy Policies: The Case of Northern Iraq and Syria.- Part II - Indirect Consequences of the War on Terror and Legacy.- Chapter 6. Political Instabilities and large-scale migrations in the MENA region: Libyan, Syrian, and Yemeni cases in regional perspective.- Chapter 7. Overcoming Jihadism in Arabia: Tight Counter-Terrorism Policies in the Gulf Monarchies.- Chapter 8. Trump and Netanyahu's Failed Palestine Sell-out: 'A hate plan, not a peace plan'.- Chapter 9. Natural Gas and Regional Energy Dis-integration in the Middle East.- Chapter 10. Conclusions.
