According to a pervasive academic narrative, many journalists, and the rhetoric of the Obama administration, the woes of the Middle East since World War II have been shaped by wrongheaded and even disastrous American meddling. George Simpson, Jr. argues that this is all wrong, bringing evidence from the U.S. role in the creation of Israel, the 1953 Iranian coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and the Six-Day War:

To its opponents, the change in the legal status of certain areas of Judea and Samaria is “annexation;” to its proponents, it is the “extension of sovereignty” or the “application of Israeli law.” Naomi Khan argues that the last term best captures the practical implications of the measures in question. Since the Six-Day War, the Jewish state has continued to uphold the Ottoman legal system in areas of the West Bank under its jurisdiction—despite the fact that the Ottoman empire ceased to exist in 1922; “annexation” would end this situation. Setting aside the usual questions of foreign policy, security, and the possibility of Palestinian statehood, Khan argues that this change would be the one most felt by those who live there: