The book aims to quantify and analyze how two water scarce but ideologically different Middle Eastern political economies, Saudi Arabia and Syria, addressed water sector investment between 1980 and 2000. The study examines how narrow-coalitions of decision-makers obsessed by impossible-to-achieve food self-sufficiency goals, lacking environmental consideration and safe political processes contributed to massively waste scarce resources and unsustainable water policies.
The book shows that of Saudi Arabias US$1,034 billion in oil revenues (1974-2001), 48% was spent on security, plus 10% on the...

America's War on Terrorism uses democratization of the Arab World as a main weapon. The Islamic Shield argues that democratization of Arab countries is a fantasy because democratic elections today would lead to replacing the dictatorships of Arab rulers by Islamist theocratic dictatorships. The book contends that the Arab peoples are generally characterized by a culture of obedience to hierarchical authority in the home, school, mosque, the work place, and the country at large. The book identifies religious and cultural causes, as well as domestic and foreign political factors that set off...