US Foreign Policy in the Middle East

From American Missionaries to the Islamic State

Geoffrey F. Gresh, Tugrul Keskin, Geoffrey F. Gresh, Tugrul Keskin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351169622
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The dawn of the Cold War marked a new stage of complex U.S. foreign policy involvement in the Middle East. More recently, globalization and the region's ongoing conflicts and political violence have led to the U.S. being more politically, economically, and militarily enmeshed – for better or worse—throughout the region.

This book examines the emergence and development of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East from the early 1900s to the present. With contributions from some of the world's leading scholars, it takes a fresh, interdisciplinary, and insightful look into the many antecedents that led to current U.S. foreign policy. Exploring the historical challenges, regional alliances, rapid political change, economic interests, domestic politics, and other sources of regional instability, this volume comprises critical analysis from Iranian, Turkish, Israeli, American, and Arab perspectives to provide a comprehensive examination of the evolution and transformation of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.

This volume is an important resource for scholars and students working in the fields of Political Science, Sociology, International Relations, Islamic, Turkish, Iranian, Arab, and Israeli Studies.

Part I

Historical Cultural and Economic Interests

1 From “heathen Turks” to “cruel Turks”

Religious and political roots of the changing American perception towards the Middle East

Ozlem Madi-Sisman, Cengiz Sisman

In his 2010 book The Turk in America, Justin McCarthy asserts that “From start to finish, the American missionaries viewed the Turks as their enemy. They carried their feelings to the American people” (p. 2). To McCarthy, this “constant image” almost never changed, as the eighteenth-century American geographers or nineteenth-century American journalists used virtually the same language in describing the Turks and, by extension, the Middle Easterners: “vindictive, jealous, haughty, intolerant, and full of dissimulation” (McCarthy, 2010, p. 18).

A closer look at the nineteenth century, however, suggests that the issue is more complex, that the century does not have a seamless, homogeneous, uninterrupted, and linear history with regards to the American perception of the Middle East. First of all, there were several individual exceptions who viewed the Turks, the Muslims, and Islam in positive lights, neutral at best. Second, a good number of Americans moderated their views about the Turks and Muslims after encountering them as merchants, diplomats, and missionaries in person. As a result, the American image of “heathen” and “tyrannical” Turks was transformed into “pluralistic” and “tolerant” Turks by the mid-nineteenth century and then into “cruel” and “bloodthirsty” Turks by the turn of the twentieth century. While the former image had been shaped by European (largely British) religious and political (read Orientalist) discourse, the latter image had been shaped by the increasing Protestant missionary activities in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. For example, 88 percent of the books on Islam in American libraries were written by missionaries in the nineteenth century (McCarthy, 2010). As a result of their intensified educational activities and increasing involvement in the Ottoman–Armenian conflict in the second half of the nineteenth century, American missionaries began to have some serious problems with the Ottoman authorities.

As shown by other scholars, long before oil interests, the American missionary experience had been one of the most important agents that set the tone of American foreign policy towards the Middle East until World War II. This chapter is an attempt to demonstrate the complexities of this picture and adumbrate the stages through which the American perception evolved over the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century.

Following chronological order, we will first survey the pre-nineteenth-century American perception of the Middle East, focusing attention on the religious elite and founding fathers. Then we will examine the changing American attitude towards the Middle East with particular attention to merchants, missionaries, and diplomats. And finally, we will discuss the Ottoman–Armenian conflict at the end of the nineteenth century in relation to the changing American perception. Before we delve into our discussion, it is important to note that in premodern European and American context, the terms “Muslims” and “Near/Middle East” were used interchangeably with the terms “Turks” and “Ottoman Empire.”

Early American perception of the Muslims, Turks, and the Middle East: Commoners, religious elite, and the founding fathers

Characterized by Orientalistic assumptions, early American perceptions of the Muslims and Turks were not so different than those of the Europeans, though with the major exception that the Americans’ physical encounters with Muslims were very limited, if not absent, before the nineteenth century. Because of that, Americans were profoundly ignorant about the Turks, Muslims, and Islam before that time. John Ledyard, an explorer and adventurer, was the first citizen of an independent United States who traveled to the Middle East (Oren, 2008). On June 30, 1788, reflecting American interest in and knowledge of (and lack thereof) the region, Ledyard jotted down the following note in his journal before setting sail for his journey: “My path will be from here … across the Mediterranean … to Grand Cairo. … Beyond is unknown, and my discoveries begin. Where they terminate, and how, you shall know, if I survive” (as cited in Oren, 2008, p. 6). Ledyard also wrote to Thomas Jefferson, thanking him for his friendship and trust and promising to honor them both (Oren, 2008).

As Spellberg (2014) states, “Americans had inherited from Europe almost a millennium of negative distortions of the faith’s theological and political character” (p. 4). During interdenominational Christian violence in Europe in the early modern times, Muslims were chosen as a test case for the delineation of theoretical boundaries of Christian believers. Islam and fictional “oriental” figures such as Turks, Persians, and Arabs were used by the Europeans and Americans as vehicles to criticize falsehood and intolerances of other Christian denominations. Also, several books were published on fictional Muslim converts to Christianity in order to prove the veracity of Christianity over Islam. Islam and Muslims were debated in relation to how, and why not, to construct a society or religion with Muslims.

In fact, Islam and Muslims have been part of American history since the arrival of Europeans to the New World, but they almost always lived at the margins of the society and did not play prominent roles in the early colonies. Rumours suggested that Moriscos (forced Spanish Muslim converts to Christianity) and Marranos (forced Spanish Jewish converts to Christianity) were on board Christopher Columbus’ ship during his accidental Atlantic crossing. It is estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of the African slaves brought to the Americas were of Muslim origin. Historical records indicate that New York/Manhattan had some European-origin-free Muslim residents since the mid-17th century. For example, Anthony Jansen van Salee (1607–1676), the son of Dutch convert to Islam Jan Janszoon van Haarlem (aka Murad Reis), was one of the most famous Muslims who settled in Manhattan in the 1630s, living there until his death. Known as the “Troublesome Turk,” this rich and powerful creditor and real estate mogul was perhaps the first free American Muslim and was reported to have carried a Qur’an under his arm at all times (Hershkowitz, 1965). Marrying his children to the elite of Manhattan, Anthony became the great-grandparent of some prominent Americans, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) and President Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) (Hershkowitz, 1965).

Until the nineteenth century, for the majority of Americans, the main sources of knowledge concerning Islam, Muslims, Turks, and the Middle East were religious texts, sermons, and rich, imaginative literature about the “orient” and “oriental” people. For example, A Thousand and One Arabian Nights was one of the most widely read texts in early modern America. As noted by McCarthy (2010):

The Early American geography and history texts devoted very little attention to the Ottoman Empire and Islam beyond a few pages of insults and questionable history. … These books gave often more space to camels than the Ottoman government. They usually dedicated a paragraph or two to the present government in which the words “cruel,” “despotic,” “arbitrary,” and “brutal” featured prominently.

(pp. 13–14)

As stated by Allison (2012), eighteenth-century American and European literature made the Muslim world a counterpoint to the idea of individual autonomy. In that period, wrapped in such heavy biases, American intellectuals and the public kept referring to the land of Muslims (North Africa and Near East) as the lands of “barbary,” “tyrants,” “exotics,” and “heathens.”

While the popular knowledge was shaped by imaginary literature, religious masses were exposed to Islam through religious texts and sermons that portrayed Muhammad as an impostor and evil and Islam as the religion of the devil. Despite the fact that the clergy class was the most educated segment of the society, their knowledge about Islam, Muslims, and Turks was quite limited. To these Protestant and evangelical masses, there was not much difference between Turks, Jews, papists, and heathens; in particular, Muslims and Turks were the universal bad example (McCarthy, 2010). They were either agents of the Antichrists or the Antichrist himself (McCarthy, 2010). These were the legacies of the European reformers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who defined the Antichrist in terms of Islam and Muhammad (Spellberg, 2014). For example, American Puritan minister Cotton Mather (1663–1728) contrasted the liberty of Americans with the tyranny of Muslim societies. He asserted that heaven shone on “Our parts of the Earth” in allowing “Improvement of our modern Philosophy,” while no followers of the “thick-skull’d Prophet” were permitted to question the scientific truths revealed to Muhammad (Allison, 2012, p. 317). An evangelical Baptist spokesperson denounced Muhammad as a “hateful” figure who spreads his religion with force of sword. For a Presbyterian preacher from South Carolina, “religion of Mahomet originated in arms, breathes nothing but arms, is propagated by arms” (Hutson, 2002, para. 6). According to Reverend George Bush (1796–1859), who wrote the first American biography of Muhammad, The Life of Muhammad, Muhammad was an impostor and “fanaticism, ambition and lust were his master passion” (McCarthy, 2010, p. 15). Bush’s book on Muhammad was printed in America in 1830 and reprinted many times in the following years. Most of the school textbooks that educated masses of the time condoned the negative portrayal of Turks, Muslims, and Islam.

However, as argued earlier, there were some exceptions to this standard negative view of the Muslims in early modern America. For example, the Yale College president cited a study claiming that “Mohammadan” morals were superior to Christians (Hutson, 2002). In his book on Muhammad, Washington Irving (1783–1859) portrayed him as a good man who tried to reform the corrupt religion of his followers (McCarthy, 2010). Likewise, Samuel Goodrich (1779–1860), one of the most prolific American writers of the time, whose books on literature, geography, history, and religion were used in American schools, gave accounts of the Turks whereby they were even praised for their tolerance toward Christians (McCarthy, 2010). John Leland (1776–1841), a Baptist minister and champion of religious freedom and staunch ally of Jefferson, supported Muslim rights in his sermons and editorials published from 1790 until the end of his life. His principled support for the Muslims, like the views of other founding fathers, was mostly based on imaginary rather than real people (Spellberg, 2014). Leland’s view on liberty and toleration is quite remarkable and surely way ahead of his time:

The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable, it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest, to grant indulgence, whereas, all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians. Test oaths and established creeds, should be avoided as the worst of evil.

(As cited in Spellberg, 2014, p. 240)

Opinions of the American founding fathers constitute another exception to the standard negative American view on Islam and Muslims. One of the major themes for the founding fathers was whether to build an exclusively Protestant nation or a religiously plural state and society. In particular, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were keen on the issues of citizenship and diversity. Their interest in Islam was not about it as a religion per se, but rather about “imaginary,” and most probably “white,” Muslims, who could be the future American citizens (Spellberg, 2014, p. 8).

In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) relates that the English evangelical Rev. George Whitefield, having come to Philadelphia in 1739, was not allowed to preach in any of the churches. He proposed to build a place where everyone could gather and preach their faith and convictions. In this, one of the earliest American pluralistic, inclusivist, and somewhat secular documents, Franklin does not see any problem with including the Muslims in his imagined American society:

It being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemency, the Building of a House to meet in was no sooner propos’d and Persons appointed to receive Contributions, but sufficient Sums were soon receiv’d to procure the Ground and erect the Building, which was 100 feet long and 70 broad, about the Size of Westminster Hall, and the Work was carried on with such Spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both House and Ground were vested in Trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious Persuasion who might desire to say something to the People of Philadelphia, the Design [purpose] in building not being to accommodate any particular Sect, but the Inhabitants in general, so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a Missionary to preach Mahometanism [Islam] to us, he would find a Pulpit at his Service.

(As cited in Metaxas, 2016, pp. 75–76)

In 1784, George Washington (1732–1799) wrote a letter to a friend, looking for a carpenter and bricklayer for his home: “If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [Muslims], Jews or Christian of an[y] Sect, or they may be Atheists” (as cited in Spellberg, 2014, p. 5). Theoretically, Muslims could be part of a religiously free society. However, it would be hard to imagine that the founding fathers were visualizing a large free Muslim population in the country.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and third president of the United States (1801–1809), developed an even keener and somewhat positive interest in Islam and the Near East. His interest in Islam and Muslims began with his purchase of a Qur’an 11 years before the Declaration of Independence (Spellberg, 2014). A philosopher hero of Jefferson’s was John Locke, who, in his seminal “Letter on Toleration” (1689), insists that Muslims and all others who believed in God be tolerated in England. Campaigning for religious freedom in Virginia, Jefferson followed Locke, demanding recognition of the religious rights of the “Mahamedan, the Jew and the pagan.” He said, “Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan [Muslim] nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion” (Jefferson, as cited in Spellberg, 2014, p. 3). As stressed by Spellberg (2014):

Even earlier in his political life – as an ambassador, secretary of state, and vice president – Jefferson had never perceived a predominantly religious dimension to the conflict with North African Muslim powers, whose pirates threatened American shipping in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.

(p. 8)

Jefferson would insist to the rulers of Tripoli and Tunis that his nation harbored no anti-Islamic bias (Spellberg, 2014). In the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, the American state explicitly announced that the United States of America was not founded on Christian religion and had no enmity against Islam as a religion:

As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

(Spellberg, 2014, p. 207)

From imagined to real Muslims: Merchants, missionaries, and diplomats

By the turn of the nineteenth century, the American perception of the Middle East began to change, with the increasing trade volume in the Mediterrane...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Introduction: US foreign policy in the Middle East
• PART I: Historical Cultural and Economic Interests
• PART II: Cold War Challenges
• PART III: Balancing Regional Alliances
• PART IV: Rapid Political Change and the Spread of Regional Instability
• Acknowledgments
• Index