'The Great Betrayal': Revolutions rarely succeed in the first attempt - review

These realities, Gerges contends, mean that liberal constitutional models remain “alien to the people,” many of whom associate them with colonization and secular Western values.

Gerges implies that Gamal Abdel Nasser, who became president of Egypt in 1952 and remained in office until his death in 1970, comes closest to the leader who might have transformed Egypt and the Middle East. Nasser confiscated land from wealthy, mostly non-Egyptian owners and turned it over to peasants. He nationalized industries, improved working conditions, and provided universal public education to all children.

By defying the United States and Great Britain and nationalizing the Suez Canal, Nasser became a hero in the Arab world, turning a military defeat into a political victory.

However, he chose a state-controlled economy over free-market capitalism, opposed parliamentary democracy, dissolved political parties, and assumed dictatorial powers. Nasser’s attempt to position Egypt as a neutral nation and his recognition of China antagonized the US.

With the collapse of the United Arab Republic, Nasser’s attempt to unify Egypt and Syria, the momentum for Arab nationalism stalled. Nasser lost credibility as well when he committed Egypt’s poorly equipped, badly led army to disastrous wars in Yemen and with Israel. Meanwhile, the United States turned to Islam to combat “Godless Communism” and weaken Arab nationalism.

Gerges points out that Nasser’s successors Anwar al-Sadat, Hosni Mubarak, and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi relied on a system of governance that featured brutal suppression of dissent and state-run crony capitalism.

Esmat Sadat, Anwar’s half-brother, a former bus driver, accumulated assets worth about $150 million. Gamal Mubarak lined his pockets as the spokesman of the Egyptian American Businessmen’s Council and heir apparent to his father. Political elites in other Arab countries have stashed away billions.

Gerges is harshly critical of how the United States has dealt with the Middle East. Democratic and Republican presidents, he emphasizes, pay lip service to human rights and democracy but do not prioritize these values.

Despite a string of failures, including the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq and an unwillingness to punish Bashar al-Assad for unleashing chemical weapons on his own people, the United States still seeks to preserve the status quo by maintaining military bases throughout the region and supplying weapons and foreign aid to pro-Western authoritarian leaders.

In a recent poll, more than 75% of respondents across the Arab world characterized the US and Israel as “the biggest threat to the security and stability of the region.” Somewhat contradictorily, however, Gerges claims that the United States no longer dominates international relations in the Middle East; that regional actors keep their distance from both America and China “to mitigate risk and maximize gains”; and that “blowback” to US support of Israel’s war in Gaza and its attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran “is inevitable.”

Many factors, according to Gerges, contributed to the rise of non-state organizations in the Middle East. Anger at pervasive corruption and the plundering of Arab economies provided the context. Many organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, gained support through charity work and resistance to Israeli occupation. Religious, tribal, and ethnic identities grew as well from the divide-and-conquer strategy of dictators intent on holding on to their power.

Meddling by foreign powers played a role as well. Intent on turning Iraq into a client state after Saddam Hussein was deposed, the US dismantled all state institutions, weakening the authority of the central government, and encouraged the Kurds to create an autonomous region in the north. Determined to weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel’s security establishment quietly boosted Hamas. These developments, Gerges notes, have weakened national cohesion in the region.

That said, Gerges believes that the hope for a brighter future in the Middle East rests with the leaderless mass protest movement of the Arab Spring, which erupted in Tunisia in December 2010, spread to a half dozen other countries, and has continued to flare up intermittently.

Attracting young people feeling “trapped in a system that offers them nothing,” including a few who have self-immolated, the Arab Spring, Gerges writes, included no “poisonous rhetoric or slogans.” Civil and patriotic in tone, the movement was energized by communal unity, not divisiveness; by hope, not despair; by an assertion of the agency of ordinary citizens. The Arab Spring, Gerges acknowledges, has not produced the desired outcome. But its assessments and aspirations are now “part of the repertoire of political discourse and popular memory.”