Episode 8 - American Empire in the Middle East - Part 1

In this episode, the first of a series, Chelsey G and Andrew Marshall take a look at the actual historical record, starting from the end of World War II and going up until the late 1950s. We examine some key documents from within various US administrations, outlining their interests and objectives in the region, ranging from oil resources, transit routes, and Israel. From the 1948 Israel-Arab War, the development and rapid growth in Arab Nationalism, the role of the British (and French), the rise of Nasser in Egypt, the 1953 CIA coup in Iran, to the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Eisenhower Doctrine, and the Jordan and Lebanon crises in July 1958, resulting in the deployment of British and American forces into the region, with America’s 1958 deployment to Lebanon being the first U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. But certainly not the last. We bring documents from the 1950s to the present context, and help explain how and why America’s role in the region evolved over the past eighty years.