Today America's role as the dominant power in international relations is anchored in the Middle East as never before, but there has never yet been a single broadly accessible narrative of how American administrations since Eisenhower's have approached the region following the creating of the Israeli state. This book tells that story for the first time. Drawing on three decades of first-hand experience both close to the circle of power in Washington and on the ground in the Middle East, Patrick Tyler will show how the region has emerged as the focus of American national interests, a battleground and morgue for thousands of American troops, and a fount of global terrorism. A World of Trouble begins with the rise of the new secular nationalism among the Arabs and Eisenhower's orchestration of the Suez fiasco, and takes in the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the antics of OPEC, relations with the Saudi Royal Family, the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran, the Iran - Iraq war, Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the spread of Islamic fervour through the region and the waves of violence that have followed. At each point, Tyler examines the motivation behind US policy decisions, from attempts to limit Soviet expansion to the slippery compromises made in pursuit of oil security.