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    Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
    Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
    Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
    Audiobook9 hours

    Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future

    Written by Stephen Kinzer

    Narrated by Alan Sklar

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the twenty-first century: Turkey and Iran.

    Besides proposing this new "power triangle," Kinzer recommends that the United States reshape relations with its two traditional Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. This book provides a penetrating, timely critique of America's approach to the world's most volatile region and offers a startling alternative.

    Kinzer is a master storyteller with an eye for grand characters and illuminating historical detail. In this book he introduces us to larger-than-life figures, such as a Nebraska schoolteacher who became a martyr to democracy in Iran, a Turkish radical who transformed his country and Islam forever, and a colorful parade of princes, politicians, women of the world, spies, oppressors, liberators, and dreamers.

    Kinzer's provocative new view of the Middle East is the rare book that will richly entertain while moving a vital policy debate beyond the stale alternatives of the last fifty years.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 8, 2010
    ISBN9781400187010
    Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
    Author

    Stephen Kinzer

    Stephen Kinzer is the author of many books, including The True Flag, The Brothers, Overthrow, and All the Shah’s Men. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany, and Turkey. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and writes a world affairs column for the Boston Globe. He lives in Boston.

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    Reviews for Reset

    3.5/5

    23 ratings4 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Typical and worthless neoliberal overly simplified world views centered around the cultish concept of democracy when the US has long abandoned the true values of democracy.
    • 3/5
      Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future by Stephen Kinzer is probably a "recommended read" for Americans interested in Turkey and Iran, but I won't call it a "must-read." Kinzer is a long-time foreign policy writer for several publications.

      The recommended reading would be the first half of the book where he details a parallel history of the struggle for democracy in both Iran and Turkey in the late 1800s and the benevolent role some American's played in Iran's struggle. America's later role of overthrowing a democratically-elected government and re-installing the Shah and all related fallout is also detailed. Turkey's modern history including the rise and significance of the AKP is also an important read.

      The second half of the book has a divergence into America's role in supporting Israel and some criticisms about Israel for everything from its treatment of Palestinians to its selling arms to South Americans. This tangent seemed very long and unnecessary, like Kinzer had done some research and didn't have a separate book in which to put it.

      One of Kinzer's theses is that Iran's underlying habit of democracy makes it a partner the U.S. should work with as a friend. My guess is that he mostly approves the Obama administration's deference to Iran as opposed to the W. Bush administration's policy of confrontation, which Kinzer condemns harshly. As Kinzer sees it, the Ahmadinejad regime reached out the U.S. in 2002, Bush/Cheney slapped its hand away, and Iran has taken a more hostile tone since.

      Kinzer lauds Turkey's AKP for its neutering of Turkey's military leadership and greater promotion of freedom of religion. Turkey's economic rise makes it increasingly a power the U.S. should work with. He well notes the cost Turkey has borne of being supportive of the U.S.-led Persian Gulf war in 1991, which I would agree is under-appreciated by Americans.

      Kinzer's thesis on Israel, however, is admittedly controversial and unrealistic. He purports that the U.S. should "impose peace" on Israel and Palestine, despite the uproar such a military presence would cause. I guess Kinzer added the material on Israel to illustrate how America has put the bulk of its foreign policy efforts in the wrong place in the Middle East and the effect it has had. If you think a President could sell Congress on putting troops indefinitely into the Middle East again to try and settle the millenia-old conflict once and for all, then you'll like this book. Otherwise...

      I found the first half of the book interesting and the second half rather not. I give it 3 stars out of 5.
    • 4/5
      Kinzer is an expert on this part of the country. I especially enjoyed his early coverage of Turkey in "Crescent and Star". Kinzer lays out a plan to shift our policies towards these countries. They both have a desire to go back to the days of their initial democratic experiences, but the US has in many ways thwarted this process. The author also lays out a plan for settling the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Essentially, the US has to superimpose a peace process and be willing to back it up. While this book is not an in-depth coverage of these countries, many will find the overview helpful and instead of just reporting he lays out a blueprint for adjusting our relationships with the Middle East countries.
    • 3/5
      Stephen Kinzer's recommendations are sound. Many American policymakers and international relations scholars agree with his conclusions and have given his book glowing blurbs (Andrew Bacevich, Thomas Pickering, Gary Sick, Juan Cold, Robert Lacey). But Reset seems unlikely to persuade the unconvinced because Kinzer radically simplifies history, molding it to simplistic and moralistic narratives built around jaunty vignettes composed of short sentences and imagined dialogue. These he presents with great confidence, as though we were there, as in the juvenile history books of our youth used to say (this is part of Kinzer's self-proclaimed "cheeky fearlessness," perhaps). Such an approach has strengths and weaknesses. It is designed to grasp the reader's imagination; Reset might be a book to give to someone who knows nothing about the Middle East. But it is not a book for a sophisticated reader; while Kinzer presents an impressive bibliography, he often relies on tendentious sources (e.g. psychobiography).