PORTLAND, OREGON -- Renowned American-Israeli historian and best-selling author Michael Oren is touring the United States promoting his new book Power, Faith, and Fantasy, a sweeping history of America's involvement in the Middle East from 1776 to the present. It's the first and only book on the subject ever written, and it's current inching toward the top of the New York Times best-seller list for non-fiction.
I first met Michael Oren under Katyusha rocket fire when he worked as a Spokesman for the IDF Northern Command in Israel during last summer's war against Hezbollah, and I met him again when he came to my home town of Portland, Oregon, last week on his book tour.
MJT: So tell us, Michael, why does America's involvement in the Middle East 200 years ago matter today? What does it have to do with September 11 and Iraq?
Oren: Well it matters, Michael, because many of the same issues that Americans are facing today in the Middle East were confronted by America's founding fathers -- Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington. For example, they had to confront the issue of state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. They had to face a threat to the United States, and decide whether to generate military power and then project that power thousands of miles from the United States. They had to decide whether to involve the United States in an open-ended and rather expensive bloody war in the Middle East. This was, of course, the Barbary War, America's first overseas military engagement and America's longest overseas military engagement. It lasted from 1783 to 1815. During the course of this engagement, as my book shows, the United States was confronting a jihadist state-sponsored terrorist network that was taking Americans hostage in the Middle East. It's very similar to what is going on today.
MJT: They were more than hostages, they were slaves, weren't they?
Oren: They were slaves. But beyond the military component -- the book is not a military history, it's also a diplomatic, cultural, artistic, and economic history -- I wanted to show Americans today that our experience in the Middle East has very deep roots. Overall it's a story of magnificent things that America did for the Middle East. It wasn't always about confrontation, it was also about schools and hospitals and building for development and artistic inspiration and cooperation.
LOL, I missed meeting him by like 100 feet - I was speaking at a corporate conference that had rented space in the Nixon library the same day he was speaking there. I thought about sneaking over on break...
A.L.
Where's Davebo? He certainly needs to read this one. That lasted 'bout 32-33 years by my 'rithemetic.