America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East

Hugh Wilford (Get this book)
By turns admiring and critical play-by-play of CIA Arabists as they directed the Cold War's Middle East chessboard. As the blowback from America's meddling in the Middle East continues to return in the form of the toppling of dictators long supported by Washington, Wilford spotlights the activities of several prominent CIA Arabists who helped manipulate the Cold War regimes in Egypt, Iran, Syria, Jordan and others, often to contradictory and devastating effect. A mostly insightful examination of these "Mad Men on the Nile."--Kirkus