Ivory Towers on Sand:

The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America

Non-fiction, 2001

By Martin Kramer

Rating: 4 Coffee Cups

In the years just after World War II, the American Government had just about steamrollered the Brits in Latin America, while entrenching itself deeply in “Old Europe” and on the fringes of Asia. With the new challenges that Moscow and Peking posed, the political classes in Washington were not going to repeat the mistakes they made after World War I, and return to isolationism. In this vein, they were anxious to find out what they needed to know to control the rest of the world; and they were ready to spend many millions of dollars in the effort.

The Committee on Near Eastern Studies started out as a dozen or so professors interested in the lands “east of Suez,” whose original aim was getting a share of that federal money for their universities. In an early report (1949), they wrote:

This Committee, of course looks forward to a time when the United States might lead the world in Near Eastern scholarship, when all the essential competences in the field – and they are very many – will be represented in American educational institutions, with adequate provision for their continuance and development, and with all the tools necessary to make them effective, not only in scientific, but in practical life[1].

Exactly what did the Committee mean when they were talking about the practical effectiveness of their proposed Middle Eastern Study centers? Were these new institutions supposed to cultivate scholars that would go to the Middle East and learn to cook mulkhiya? Were they maybe coming back to the US to educate the American public about Arabic music and Islamic manners? Were they going to help average Joes in the heartland understand, appreciate, and even like Muslims more, in the pursuit of world peace? Of course not—scholars employed in Near Eastern studies, were going to earn Uncle Sam’s money with contributions to policy-making and predicting political trends, making it easier for Washington to tighten its grip on the region for a long, long time.

At least, this is how Martin Kramer describes it. He is a graduate of Middle Eastern Studies from Princeton and Columbia University, and a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. His book, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America, indicts big university Middle Eastern Studies Departments for flubbing this mission. Specifically, Kramer blames them for wasting Washington’s investments and failing to foresee just about every important development in the Middle East since the 1950s, notably the emergence of Khumayni in Iran in the 70’s and 80’s, as well as the failure of “Islamist” movements to get power in the 90’s.

Kramer’s audience, it appears, are upper-echelon conservatives in Washington. He hopes to bring Middle Eastern Studies Departments back to their original intent: advising the Defense Department in securing American interests in the Middle East region. 

The  author of Ivory Towers on Sand blames the failure of Middle Eastern Studies on a number of “bad guys.” An important factor was the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978. It is obvious that Martin Kramer does not like the late Palestinian professor, whom he dismisses as an English major rather than a true Middle Eastern scholar. For Kramer, Orientalism contained a dangerous blend of “Palestinian passion and academic virtuosity” that broadened its appeal for specialists and the general public as well, at a time when there was increasing interest in a “Palestinian” perspective on the Arab-Israel struggle. Edward Said’s major sin, according to Kramer, was tarring Middle Eastern Studies Departments in the USA with the brush of “Oriental Studies,” the old European name for studying the world east of the Mediterranean. Orientalism painted both disciplines as “supremacist,” even “racist,” tools of Western colonialism. Said was lucky enough to make the charges stick,  and thus he put Near-Eastern Studies Departments on the defensive for a long time. Professors of Near-Eastern Studies were encouraged to overcompensate with apologetics and political correctness (that is, romantic leftist “liberation” doctrines), while ignoring what their subjects were really doing.

Another “villain” castigated is John Esposito. In a section of the book conveniently titled “Esposito’s Islam,” Kramer writes that the Georgetown professor would have “remained obscure” had there not been a demand for “sympathetic texts,” whether true or not, about Islam for introductory classes hastily set up in response to the “bad news” always coming from the Middle East.

These failings, according to Ivory Towers in the Sand, are intensified by a lack of accountability that Kramer says exists in Near East Studies departments to this day. The specialists have never fully explained to the government’s moneymen how and why, for example, just prior to the hellish Civil War in Lebanon, they were claiming that country was going to be the model of democracy in the region. In Iran, none of the academics expected Khomeini to lead a coup and establish his “Islamic Republic” (Kramer, however, is in error here: some scholars did see him coming; and Washington attempted to use them to contact Khumayni in the early phase).  They also have never explained how they would improve their analyses to do better in the future.

If Kramer has his way, and pushes Middle-Eastern Studies departments to become better servants of Washington’s interests abroad, that would be bad news for the hundreds of young Muslims and Muslimahs who turned down medicine and engineering to enter the field, hoping to make it more “Islam-centric” as Professor Al-Faruqi once dreamed. Very soon, with their careers in the balance, they will be forced to choose between serving the Ummah, and serving Washington, the CIA, and big business.

This book is an overview of the crisis that is taking place in Middle Eastern studies departments in the US. Martin Kramer does not want to see his country lose its dominance or hegemony. He calls for the training of experts who will help the US government do just that.

But there are many lessons for Muslim readers too. Failures of Middle Eastern Studies departments in American universities to forecast political change—or lack of it—in the Middle East reflect similar failures among Muslim activists, especially those whose stock-in-trade is “political analysis.” Some Muslim movements were telling their followers that there would be no Gulf War in 1991. Later on, they claimed that Khilafah would be re-established before the year 2000. However, the 50 or so Muslim nation-states still exist; in fact, they are stronger than ever. Their mukhabarat and torture apparatuses effectively prevent voices of dissent from just expressing themselves, let alone challenge existing régimes. Like the professors in their classrooms, the operatives of Muslim political parties never even admitted their mistakes and failed to learn from them.

If you are an Islamic activist wanting to bring Islam back to power, understanding the political realities gives you an ability to forecast events in a particular region. A thorough grounding makes it easier to come out on top in a crisis, rather than merely react. On the other side, a flaw in political analysis is expensive; it can cost money, strategic positioning, and human life. It becomes critical that when a Muslim movement errs in its political analysis, it must review its error, recognize it, and correct its analysis to reconcile it with the reality.

Almost all the Islamic political movements now existing must reconcile their understandings of the working of the world with the current reality. Many are stuck with paradigms that were good for the 60’s but obsolete in today’s world. The majority of us carry conspiracy theories about the Masons or Jews controlling the whole world. Such thinking will never bring us back to the position of leadership. Muslims must become more critical and analytical in their understanding of our situations. How can we ever solve our problems if we cannot even understand them thoroughly? We hope that this book inspires you to think more clearly, and that it serves as a caution to all Muslims considering working in Middle East Studies departments, whose real goal is making sure that the US dominates the Islamic regions of the world.