 | |
| Author | Lee Smith |
|---|---|
| Genre | non-fiction |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | January 12, 2010 |
| ISBN | 978-0385516112 |
| OCLC | 780989868 |
| Website | Penguin Random House publisher page |
The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations is a 2010 historical non-fiction book by journalist Lee Smith on Middle East politics and U.S. foreign policy in the region.
The book's title is drawn from Osama bin Laden’s assertion that "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." [1] [2] Smith, who spent several years reporting from the Arab world, writes that "violence is central to the politics, society, and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East, and that Arab politics is driven by the "strong horse" principle." [1] [3] Smith himself cites the "strong horse" conceptualization of Arab politics to Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). [4]
Smith describes the region's rulers as self-interested factors struggling by any available means to retain their hold on power, while constantly threatened by regional power holders and by a rising generation of would be leaders. [2] [4] He denies that the region's problems are rooted in Western imperialism, "if we think that we are to blame for what is wrong with the Middle East - it is because of two things: our own narcissism and the tendency of Arab nationalists to blame outside forces for the problems of their region." [4]
Smith argues that "Bin Ladenism is not drawn from the extremist fringe but represents the political and social norm [of the Arabic-speaking Middle East]." and "give(s) no credence to the idea that the Arab-Israeli crisis is the [Middle East’s] central issue." [3] [5] He argues that Arab governments and societies were on a self-destructive path. [3] According to T. Edward Donselm writing in the Arab Studies Quarterly, Smith sees Islamism as an effort to employ the "a fourteen-hundred-year'old political institution" of jihad as a tool to restore Sunni Islam to the supremacism it enjoyed in Islam's first century. [5]
Reviewing the book in The Christian Science Monitor , Jackson Holahan wrote that The Strong Horse "is both succinct and accessible" and that the book "is an important read for anyone interested in the Middle East, and particularly in the involvement of the United States in the region since 2001." [6] In the Middle East Quarterly , Anna Borshchevskaya said, "However unpleasant the truth may be, Smith's book is timely, important, highly readable, and essential to anyone interested in Middle East politics." [7] Kirkus Reviews concluded that "Smith could have smoothed his narrative into a more coherent story, but he offers a somewhat provocative look at an endlessly troubled region." [8]
In his review, Michael C. Moynihan faulted Smith for failing to perceive that "a peculiarly Arab version of democracy, with all its deficiencies, is indeed developing in Iraq—by Iraqis—with the help of steadfast American action." [1]
Bernard Lewis, was a British American historian specializing in oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise was in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West. He was also noted in academic circles for his works on the history of the Ottoman Empire.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is a nonprofit press monitoring and analysis organization with headquarters in Washington, D.C. MEMRI publishes and distributes free English language translations of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and Turkish media reports.
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Arab Christians are Arabs of the Christian faith. Many are descended from ancient Arab Christian clans that did not convert to Islam, such as the Sabaean tribes of Yemen who settled in Transjordan and Syria, as well as Arabized Christians, such as Melkites and Antiochian Greek Christians. Arab Christians, forming Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities, are estimated to be 520,000–703,000 in Syria, 221,000 in Jordan, 134,130 in Israel and around 50,000 in Palestine. There is also a sizable Arab Christian Orthodox community in Lebanon and marginal communities in Iraq, Turkey and Egypt. Emigrants from Arab Christian communities make up a significant proportion of the Middle Eastern diaspora, with sizable population concentrations across the Americas, most notably in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and the US.
Martin Seth Kramer is an American-Israeli scholar of the Middle East at Shalem College in Jerusalem. His focus is on the history and politics of the Middle East, contemporary Islam, and modern Israel.
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Efraim Karsh is an Israeli–British historian, the founding director and emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London. Since 2013, he serves as professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is also a principal research fellow and former director of the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank. He is a vocal critic of the New Historians, a group of Israeli scholars who have questioned the traditional Israeli narrative of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Middle Eastern studies is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is generally interpreted to cover a range of nations including Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman. It is considered a form of area studies, taking an overtly interdisciplinary approach to the study of a region. In this sense Middle Eastern studies is a far broader and less traditional field than classical Islamic studies.
George Joseph Michael is an American professor at the criminal justice faculty of Westfield State University in Massachusetts, and previously served as associate professor of nuclear counterproliferation and deterrence theory at the Air War College and as associate professor of political science and administration of justice at The University of Virginia's College at Wise. He studies right-wing extremism, including the relationship between militant Islam and the far right, and is the author of Confronting Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism in the USA (2003), The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right (2006), Willis Carto and the American Far Right (2008), Theology of Hate: A History of the World Church of the Creator (2009), Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance (2012), and Extremism in America (editor) (2014). Professor Michael has also published research on SETI and is the author of Preparing for Contact: When Humans and Extraterrestrials Finally Meet (2014).
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Lee Harold Smith is an American journalist. He is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and was a senior editor at the Weekly Standard. Smith was formerly editor-in-chief of The Village Voice Literary Supplement, a national monthly literary review. He has written for publications including The New York Times, The Hudson Review, Ecco Press, Atheneum, Grand Street, GQ, and Talk.
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