The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations

Abstract

Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy and Origins of American-Israeli Alliance, by Abraham Ben-Zvi. New York: Columbia University Press. 1998. xii + 139 pages. Notes to p. 191. Bibl. to p. 204. Index to p. 219. $47.50 cloth; $17.50 paper. Reviewed by Duncan L. Clarke Decade of Transition could and should have been 25-page article. Ben-Zvi's style is repetitive, wordy and awkward. Some sentences run for 12 lines. This is painful reading, made even more so by author's strained use of theory. Moreover, while Ben-Zvi employs numerous primary and secondary sources, this study, like another of his books I reviewed,' suggests that he does not grasp much of essence of American foreign policy. Ben-Zvi apparently conducted no interviews, and virtually all substantive acknowledgments are to Israelis. His theses are straightforward. The first Eisenhower administration (1953-56) completely failed in its exclusive reliance on strategies of coercion and deterrence against Israel (pp. 19-20). Oddly, Ben-Zvi then concedes, almost in passing, that rare occasions, in the 1953 Water Crisis and Suez Crisis of October 1956, US pressure Israel 1. Abraham Ben-Zvi, The United States and Israel: The Limits of Special Relationship (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); reviewed in The Middle East Journal 48, no. 2 (1994) 371. largely successful in precipitating desired Israeli behavior (p. 20). Yet, reader searches in vain for an extended discussion of these two most representative instances of successful employment of US leverage (compellence) Israel. Ben-Zvi does correctly maintain that Eisenhower administration was motivated almost exclusively by its concept of US national interests. It was largely unaffected by what Ben-Zvi calls the special relationship paradigm (pp. 4-5), that is, domestic political pressures behalf of Israel. The second Eisenhower administration (195760), says author, retained a facade of consistency with first, but increasingly saw Israel as strategic asset to United States... (pp. 60-61, 95). This perceptual shift never transformed into concrete..., yet it established the infrastructure that enabled President Kennedy to anoint Israel strategic asset (pp. 61, 90). As consequence, Kennedy and second Eisenhower administrations generally avoided pressuring Israel. Overt pressure was, indeed, less common in late 1950s, but even noting qualified phrase strategic asset, and ambiguity of conceptual infrastructure, Ben-Zvi fails to make convincing case for this central assertion. Eisenhower certainly was committed to Israel's security (as narrowly and properly defined), and, especially by 1958, was aware of possible situations where Israel might be helpful to United States. But this is very different from viewing Israel anything approximating net strategic asset. That Eisenhower acquiesced in Israel's nuclear weapons development during his last weeks in office is cited by Ben-Zvi evidence of Israel's new-found importance to United States (p. 93). But Avner Cohen (whose early work Ben-Zvi cites) tells rather different story in his authoritative 1998 book. Cohen agrees that Eisenhower administration avoided public clashes with Israel, but finds that Israel's nuclear weapons program became sore point between two countries and, in its final weeks, administration sought to force Ben Gurion to cancel it. …