Black Wave

Starred review from December 1, 2019
Illuminating account of the origins of sectarian violence and the current political shape of the Muslim world. "What happened to us?" So runs a common refrain in households from Pakistan to Libya. Beirut-born journalist Ghattas (The Secretary: A Journey With Hillary Clinton From Beirut to the Heart of American Power, 2013), now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, locates an answer in three events of the same year, all tightly linked: the overthrow of the shah and the revolution in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the attack on the Grand Mosque of Mecca by Saudi militants. "Nothing has changed the Arab and Muslim world as deeply and fundamentally as the events of 1979," she writes. Her fluid, fast-moving narrative ably proves the thesis. The Iranian Revolution put into sharp relief the ancient division between Shia and Sunni Islam, an argument at once religious and political, with the Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors vying for power with an implacably opposed--though just as conservative--form of Islam. The struggle has played out in many times and places over centuries, but since 1979, it has taken a form more familiar to Westerners. While occasionally Shia and Sunni clerics allied to battle a common enemy, such as the secularist Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the two powers of Iran and Saudi Arabia have more often squared off through proxies in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and particularly Pakistan after the withdrawal of the Soviets from neighboring Afghanistan--a defeat paid for by Saudi money but whose aftermath was swayed by Iran. One constant in the narrative: Wherever Americans have been involved, the aftereffects have been worse, whether attacking Iraq in 1991 and 2003 or attempting to shift the balance of power in the Middle East, with the bumbling of the current administration enabling such things as the savage murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The headlines from the Middle East make a little more sense through the lens Ghattas provides. Essential for all who follow world events.

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January 1, 2020

Ghattas (The Secretary) sheds insight on the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The personal narrative details the ongoing impact of the Iranian Revolution in 1978-79, along with siege of Mecca in 1979. It was this year, notes the author, that Iran and Saudi Arabia, once close allies, become rivals, each facing differing amounts of religious intolerance and fanaticism. Ghattas explores political unrest in her native country of Lebanon along with other countries, including Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. She continues by recounting the lingering effects of economic stagnation, political repression, and widespread sectarian violence in the Middle East. Ghattas combines journalistic and academic references with firsthand narratives from political leaders and civilian activists throughout the region in order to better portray how suppression and intimidation impacts religious and cultural pluralism. The book highlights people who resist intolerance and violence; Ghattas maintains optimism that people, especially the silenced majority, can enact societal change. VERDICT A wide-ranging, lively historical overview of current geopolitical relationships within the modern Middle East and how they came to be. These profiles in courage are an informative, enlightening read. [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/19.]--Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2019

Beirut-born Ghattas, author of the New York Times best-selling The Secretary and part of an Emmy Award-winning BBC team covering the Lebanon-Israel conflict of 2006, argues that the Sunni-Shia antipathy seen as informing Islam really began only after the 1979 Iranian revolution, with Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia using religion as part of their toolkit in the fight for dominance in the region.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.