Pax Americana in the region—if only the Israelis could be sidelined

(Roosevelt, who headed the CIA's Middle East division in the Eisenhower administration... was also deeply involved in the Arab world. Indeed, he was the agency's foremost "Arabist." ...These officials were fiercely anti-Zionist, convinced that American support for Israel was a strategic blunder of the first order. This was because... they believed "in the overriding importance of American-Arab, and Christian-Muslim, relations." ...(examine) the role of CIA Arabists by tracing the careers of Roosevelt and two of his comrades: his cousin Archie and Miles Copeland, an Alabama jazz musician... ….The Roosevelt cousins, Copeland and other leading Arabists believed that a century of American missionary activity had paved the way for a Pax Americana in the region—if only the Israelis could be sidelined. The early Eisenhower administration was their heyday. Eisenhower and Dulles gave such professionals in the State Department and the CIA carte blanche. But the Arabists' massive efforts notwithstanding, Nasser drifted into the Soviet orbit and began spreading nationalist revolt throughout the region.)