Michael Young on Central Intelligence Arabists

At a
time when intelligence services have come to play an outsized role
in American foreign policy, Hugh Wilford’s informative and highly
enjoyable book America’s Great Game:
The CIA‘s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the
Modern Middle East imparts some especially important lessons.
Among these lessons, reviews Michael Young, is the fact that spies
cannot substitute for diplomats. Allowing them to pursue political
agendas, then as now, defeats the purpose of having a non-partisan
intelligence agency.

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