Will Israel always have America’s backing?
Marc Lynch is angry. The word ‘rage’ appears six times on the first page, and comes in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. This should be sufficient warning to anyone expecting a cool, calm, dispassionate analysis of the Middle East that they might have picked up the wrong book. That is not to say that Lynch, who runs the George Washington University’s Middle East programme, is not worth reading. On the contrary, and despite the occasional lapse into the sort of political-science-speak favoured by academics, he is a fierce and compelling voice. Lynch dates the beginning of America’s Middle East to 1991, the conclusion of a swift military campaign against
