The Best Kind of American

What does the 1984 murder of Middle East scholar Malcom Kerr in war torn Beirut tell us about what went wrong for America in the Middle East? And why does the US-Iran-Israel stand off have its origins in the Lebanon of the 1980s. In her new book, The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East, acclaimed journalist and author Kim Ghattas reconstructs the circumstances that led to Malcom Kerr’s murder, an assassination which was never formally investigated. She explores the moment when Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon collided with Iran’s own regional ambitions and how 1980s Beirut became the crucible, where the triangle of U.S., Iranian, and Israeli enmity turned violent, first in proxy warfare, then in open confrontation, in a conflict that still burns today.

Join New America’s Future Security Program as they welcome Kim Ghattas for a discussion of her new book The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East. Kim Ghattas is an author, Emmy-award-winning journalist, contributing writer for The Atlantic and The Financial Times, and a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. She was a Distinguished Inaugural Fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Global Politics. She previously reported for the BBC from the Middle East and Washington, DC. She is the author, in addition to her new book, of Black Wave, a New York Times notable book on the Saudi-Iran rivalry, and of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, a New York Times bestseller.

Join the conversation online using #BestAmerican and following @NewAmericaISP. 

Participants:

Kim Ghattas
Author, The Best Kind of American

Contributing Writer, The Atlantic

Moderator:

Peter Bergen
Vice President, New America
Co-Director, Future Security
Professor of Practice, Arizona State University