Book Forum: Losing the Long Game by Philip Gordon

Tue, Dec 1, 2020, 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5)

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Join Rethinking Iran and Middle East Studies at SAIS for a book forum with Philip Gordon about his new book Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has set out to oust governments in the Middle East on an average of once per decade—in places such as Iran, Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The reasons for these interventions have been extremely diverse, and the methods by which the United States pursued regime change have also been highly varied, ranging from diplomatic pressure alone to outright military invasion and occupation. What is common to all the operations, however, is that they failed to achieve their ultimate goals, produced a range of unintended and even catastrophic consequences, carried heavy financial and human costs, and in many cases left the countries in question worse off than they were before.

Philip H. Gordon’s Losing the Long Game is a thorough and riveting look at the US experience with regime change over the past seventy years, and an insider’s view on US policymaking in the region at the highest levels. It is the story of repeated US interventions in the region that always started out with high hopes and often the best of intentions, but never turned out well. No future discussion of US policy in the Middle East will be complete without taking into account the lessons of the past, especially at a time of intense domestic polarization and reckoning with America’s standing in the world.

Learn more about the book

Participants

• Philip Gordon is the Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2013-15, he served as Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region. His latest book, Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, was published in October 2020.
• Adria Lawrence is the Aronson Associate Professor of International Studies and Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, a joint appointment by the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Political Science Department at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS). She is a scholar of Middle Eastern and North African politics. She studies colonialism, nationalism, conflict, and collective action.