Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to Econ Talk. in to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done

going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econ talk.org we'd love to hear from you. Today is January 16, 2024, my guest is Michael Orrin.

Between 2009 and 2013 he was Israel's ambassador to the United States.

He was later a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

He is the author of many books, but I particularly want to recommend six days of war

June 1967 in the making of the modern Middle East which is a superb treatment of the

six day war Michael's-stack is entitled clarity.

Michael, welcome to Econ Talk. Hey Russ, good to be with you. You're a former ambassador of

the United States. In 2011 you published Power, Faith, and Fantasy, America in the Middle

East 1776 to the present. How do you understand the United States role in the Middle East right now in this kind of intense moment?

Unclear.

Unclear if I've been asked to you President Biden's administration's policy in the Middle East,

this is going back to the inception of his administration, till today I can't.

There's no clear line. It's a tremendous amount of zigzagging.

You know, for a small example, for several years,

the administration cold-shouldered Netanyahu. For whatever reason, they cold-shouldered,

and that was a fact, didn't invite him to the White House.

They cold-shouldered the Saudis, you know, because of the Khashoggi affair, the cold showed it to Saudis.

And then suddenly, uh, last summer, they turned around and started bear hugging both

the Saudis and Bibi in an attempt to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But the total, you know, Votefas, as they say, or about face.

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