The Icarus Agenda

Last week I finally finished reading 'The Icarus Agenda' by Robert Ludlum. It's typical of his style: international conspiracy, governments within governments, corruption, an incredibly thick plot with plenty of twists and turns along the way, etc. It's a pity that other, more degrading elements come into play that are sadly typical of his style as well.
The CIA is portrayed as a classically inept agency that is knee-deep in corruption. Okay, okay, the CIA does have a history of mind-boggling ineptitude. I'll give you that.
But America is always portrayed as being a big bully run by militaristic psychos who want to nuke the world and escalate the arms race to the point of national bankruptcy, and only heroes like Icarus' protagonist, Evan Kendrick, do the right thing by speaking truth to power when they appear on national television and berate generals and other officers for being bloodthirsty maniacs. These Joe Citizens are whistle-blowers! They've got morals and don't want the world to be blown up! Yeah, yeah, sure. And it just so happened that the book was written in 1988, at the closing of the Reagan years, with SDI being bashed by all reasonable, thinking people because it was an excuse for the military to put big lasers into space so that they could kill people. At least according to the book.
Going along with the idea of America as the Big Bully, everyone else in the world harbors a deep distrust of America because America is bad and does bad things. This is probably one of the more realistic viewpoints in the book, because there's a lot of people in the world who don't like America (this is because they are morons). But everyone?! Come on, Bob.
Also, why do all characters in the book use the Lord's name in vain ("Christ," "goddamnit," etc., in case you had no idea what I was talking about) exclusively? Sure, there's the "damn," "shit," and occasional "fuck," but it's almost as if the only way to swear is to use God. This sadly is another part of Ludlum's typical style.
The last thing that really bugged me about the book is how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed: there's good people on both sides, but the conflict is dumb and unnecessary because killing people only produces more killing, and they're just fighting over land. Tell that to Israelis who can't even walk through shopping malls without a 12-year-old Palestinian blowing himself to bits and taking innocent lives with him.

So we've got the inept CIA, a corrupt government, evil military men, and Jews and Arabs killing each other for a petty thing like land. Is there anything good about the book?
Yep, there is. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down, which is typical Ludlum for you. He knew how to write a compelling story, and I myself was guessing about the plot up until the very last page (and even the back cover). The characters are deep and multi-dimensional, the settings seem authentic, and who doesn't love a good old-fashioned conspiracy plot to... wait, wait, no spoilers.
All in all, reading the book was time well spent, even with all of the typical nonsense that seems to be required when writing an international thriller. However, if you'd like to read a more realistic novel that doesn't treat America and Americans like civilization's worst enemies, I'd suggest reading any of the Blackford Oakes novels by the late great William F. Buckley, Jr.