The emotional steeliness of the policy-making machine is fascinating, even as international one-upsmanship brushes aside and even kills those Middle Easterners who attempt to become more than pawns on a chessboard of great power conflicts-or of the career paths of US officials. " Hugh Pope, Middle East Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal "Henry Precht writes with elegance, erudition, a subtle sense of humor [of the] Sisyphean struggle for dignity and democracy in the Middle East. He provides a gripping account of the contours and complexities of the US involvement in the region through the prism of someone 'present at creation. ' A must read for any one interested in the Middle East, its tormented relations with the United States, and the byways of foreign policy in Washington. " Abbas Milani, Imprisoned by the Shah, fired by Khomeini, Stanford University