“America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East” (Basic Books, $29.99) by Hugh Wilford is an important book, sketching out a period of modern American history during which it attempted to develop a different relationship with the already troubled Middle East from the one that prevails now.

The period in question is the end of World War II until the Kennedy administration was, to say the least, formative and what happened then is clearly relevant to the circumstances in which the United States finds itself now.

Current tensions foreshadowed in the 1950’s include the U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio, unrest in cornerstone Egypt, monarchic rule in Saudi Arabia, and perhaps most important of all, the role of Persian, Shiite Muslim Iran in the region.

The other subplot of “America’s Great Game” are the personalities, ties and rivalries of the Americans making the moves in the drama. They were an interesting group, with their strengths and weaknesses. They included among others two grandsons of President Theodore Roosevelt, Kim and Archie, both of whom had distinguished careers in the CIA and its predecessors. (One of Kim’s sons, Mark Roosevelt, was superintendent of Pittsburgh schools 2005-10. I knew Archie.)

Their strengths, if the author’s judgment is to be accepted, is that they were attached to and knowledgeable about the region, extremely loyal to the United States in spite of their deep understanding of the Middle East, and hard-working in their approach to trying to put together and carry out a policy that melded the best interests of America and the Middle East.

America’s Arabists’ weakness, in my view, was that they were much too prone to use their own personal influence and America’s assets to intervene in the affairs of the countries of the region, quite normally without sufficient understanding of the countries concerned to do so to the best interests of the countries themselves or to America’s best interests over the long haul.

The 1953 overthrow of Iranian prime minister Mohamed Mossadegh which they engineered in cahoots with the British came home to roost in the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran which created problems that still dog America today.

There are three points upon which I disagree with the author, although I don’t see them as reasons not to read the otherwise valuable book. The first is that I think he hits too hard on the “game” aspect of what was going on.

What the American agents were doing was serious stuff, influencing not only America’s situation in the region but also the lives of literally millions of people in the countries of the region.

The second is that throughout the book the author equates Arabists with anti-Zionists. I don’t see that understanding and being able to work with Arabs means that an American professional diplomat is automatically hostile to Israel and Jews and certainly not to Israel as a national home for Jews.

The third area where I differ with the author’s emphasis is his portrayal of the sometime conduct of America’s foreign affairs in that region at that time in American class terms.

Too often, in my view, he has the aristocratic Roosevelts calling the shots while other, more mere mortal American officials labored in the vineyards. That approach makes amusing reading, but does not correspond to my understanding of how the procedure actually worked.

The preponderant value of the book is that it goes some way to explaining not only the Middle East, but how America arrived at its current relationship with the key countries of the region, including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

It also describes how the United States interacts with its allies, the United Kingdom and France, in determining policy and actions in the Middle East. For me, the other tasty dish in the book is Mr. Wilford’s description of the American and other members of the cast of players who played key roles in the affairs of that period.

There are many characters, few heroes, and few villains either, just people, to a degree America’s would-be Lawrences of Arabia.

Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor and columnist (dsimpson@post-gazette.com,412-263-1976).

First Published: November 16, 2014, 5:28 a.m.