The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East

If you are like me, once you've established your basic opinion on something, you tend to skim the newspapers on the subject, often only reading headlines and maybe the first few paragraphs. So it has been with me and the Middle East conflicts over the last 30 years. However, every so often, a book like this comes out that is so deep, so excellent, and so challenging that it will wipe out all my cozy assumptions and ignite an interest that will carry me for several years at a minimum. I read this over a period of months with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. It is in my opinion a literary masterpiece by a courageous reporter who is also a true intellectual, steeped in history as well as the stories of people that great journalists seek like air or food. There are so many levels to this book that a review cannot do it justice, but I will try. First, there is the autobiographical side of this, where Fisk explains his obsession with war and injustice and man's inhumanity to man - it originated with his conflict with his father, a WWI veteran, which leads to his search for the truth and the need to document the lives of those who suffer. At times very moving, always vivid, this in many ways is the core of the book's theme. Second, there are the historical analyses of conflicts starting with WWI and its aftermath - the Balfour Declaration - that saw the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of the modern Middle East. This covers a huge range of countries, from Algeria to Turkey and Iran. You can see the roots of where the conflct started with the end of Turkish authority, how it got complicated by decolonization and the establishment of Israel, and how it has evolved into an increasingly murderous direction. Because of the superficial grasp I had of the history, I learned a tremendous amount from this, including from the first systematic account of the Armenian genocide, to the civil wars in virtually all the rest of the countries covered. Not everything is covered, however, only what Fisk investigated on assignment. In a sense, he is showing how similar the recent actions - even the rhetoric - of Bush are to the first forays of European imperialists in the 1920s. Third, there is a political analysis of the root of the current crisis that increasingly pits the US and Israel against the Moslem world. In a nutshell that badly oversimplifies, Fisk argues that the US has always taken Israel's side uncriticially and unequivocably, which Moslems have taken as unfair and inimical to their causes and civilization; the West always makes expedient promises that it never intends to keep, while allowing the Israelis free rein to be as brutal as they wish with the Palestinians. This, Fisk argues, has contributed to their hostility to the West, even to terrorism. Fisk also laments how this cannot even be questionned - he recounts how often he is often accused of anti-semitism for opinions contrary to the pro-Israeli view.

Who will ever forget Robert Fisk's trenchant reports from Baghdad in the weeks leading up to the war and especially those in the first hours, days of the invasion? This reporting was courageous, first rate, and historic. Where would our knowledge of what was going on on the ground have been without these ground zero communications in those crucial hours of destiny? For this service alone, the book deserves our attention. For better or worse, few of us have the time to embark on such a demanding venture as reading this work presents - the life of a man, the blood of nations, the biography of large scale populations, and the fate of moral values. Perhaps, we all should stop and read it. What could be more critical to our lives that what is in this text? What is presented is the ultimate examination of the continued brutality of our ongoing assault on life. I cannot second guess Fisk - as others have done in their reviews. I wasn't there. He was. What I do know is that no one writing about the war has spent as much time on the ground in as many crucial situations - and few have such an elevated perspective. From the writing angle - one might wish the book was in several volumes - a procedure which might have tightened up some of the sprawling narrative. But this story has emerged as the central narrative of our time, and attempts to delimit it, in retrospect, seem artificial and paltry. And no English speaking journalist is in a better position to relate it than Fisk. And what is the content of this narrative? The horror - the horror which Fisk (who really is a primary standard bearer for integrity in journalism today) presents in meticulous detail. And why? What is shown here again and again is the brutality and madness of policies which utterly ignore the sanctity of human life - itself the pretense of civilization - and it's disregard, the grist of the hypocrasies of those who claim to base those policies on ideologies of human betterment. Fisk shows us with his usual adroit and accurate reading of events - the madness which is threatening the survival of humankind - not merely 'civilization' - and to his argument, gives us a massive 30 year historical justification in first-hand witness. Thus the book is signal - the most important work on the Middle East. Why? Nowhere else available is such an extensive first hand account combined with such a passionate and humane account of the ideological underpinnings of events - too horrible for most of to contemplate, no less to reflect on, analyse, distill, and report at the highest levels of insight and dignity. An achievement of Golgothan proportions.

"Always let your conscience be your guide", sang Disney's dapper little bug. Robert Fisk adopts this theme in this monumental history of the modern Middle East. Prompted by a World War I soldier father's actions and admonitions, Fisk's sense of justice outweighs that mighty rock sitting at the gate to the Mediterranean Sea. As he travelled from "the Med's" shores to Afghanistan, Egypt, Palestine and other states, he watched the growing unrest and resentment as the last world empire retreated to Downing Street and a new one emerged from the shores of the Potomac. With rising anger and no little resentment of his own, he records the sufferings of ordinary people as these empires played nations and their leaders as pawns in what the British Empire deemed "The Great Game". In graphic, and sometimes disturbing prose, he portrays how fear became the catalyst to inflict pain without reason or justice. It would have been easy for Fisk to simply stack up his notes and have them bound as a volume of essays. Instead, he approaches his task by depicting the recent history of a locale. Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Palestine - the list is a detailed tour of a land deemed by history "The Cradle of Civilization" - hence his derived title. Each nation's recent history is reviewed. It's a sorry tale of interference from "outsiders", whether Christian West or Communist North. Centre to the tale is the imposition of the State of Israel on Palestine by the Balfour Declaration following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The continuing presence of British and French "mandated" authorities remained a festering irritant to the Muslim populations. An uprising in Iraq in 1920 against the British presaged another, much later, "insurgency" which Fisk recounts in vivid detail. The journalist in Fisk mostly kept him away from "leaders" except when necessary. Instead, he travels among the general populace, recording their fears, hopes, and all too often, griefs. That close and direct contact nearly cost Fisk his life when a refugee Afghan child identified him as "Mr Bush". That brought rocks, fists and kicking feet. Fisk was saved by an Afghan "Good Samaritan" who took him to a police truck. His reporting of the event was typical of a man who'd spent so much time recording the impact of selfish policies and mindless actions by the Western Powers. Like his rescuer, he forgave his attackers. He knew well what the Afghans had endured during the Russian occupation, Taliban domination and now the bombardment of villages and farms to rid their nation of "terrorists". The response to his account regrettably typified what journalism had become at the beginning of the 21st Century. Instead of applauding his escape and his willingness to risk violence for a story, Western commentators jeered and vilified Fisk. Mark Steyn of "The Wall Street Journal" typified what Western journalists had become. By absolving the Afghans who resented the American presen

I think this mammoth but absorbing book will eventually be regarded as the definitive journalistic work on recent Middle Eastern history and politics. In it, Fisk comes across more as a Wilfrid Owen of prose than some left-wing ideologue. What I also like about his writing is that it shows up all the main protagonists (Bush, Blair, Sharon, Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah,Islamic Jihad, Shin Bet, Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Khomeni and so on) for what they are or were: as bad as each other. And that's what infuriates the different supporters of this motley bunch, isn't it? Nobody gets to claim the moral high ground.

I'm close to halfway through this title. Although the page count is somewhat daunting, I have never picked it up and not become immediately engrossed. Not a book for the faint-of-heart, as it describes many war scenes and tales of torture and mayhem. Perhaps the strongest parts of the book are when Fisk reports from his personal experiences in the Middle East. The writing is always superb, and my admiration for the writer grows by the page.