Book Review: The Middle East Crisis Factory: Tyranny, Resilience and Resistance

The Middle East Crisis Factory, written by Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed Gatnash, is a book that criticizes the political dynamics that have shaped the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the modern period and offers solutions to the ongoing problems of authoritarianism, terrorism, and foreign intervention. As an insider, el-Baghdadi, born in Kuwait and forced to leave the country by Emirati authorities, and Ahmed Gatnash, who is of Libyan origin, bring a unique perspective to the academic literature by addressing issues that Western scholars usually discuss. The authors believe that tyranny, terrorism, foreign intervention, and the resulting political, social, and economic consequences have turned the Middle East into a crisis factory. They argue that the region constantly produces crises and that these three factors (tyranny, terrorism, and foreign intervention) continue to fuel the situation. They also state that the production of these crises is not random but is produced by foreign interventions.