This paper revisits the momentous developments, known later as the ‘Middle East crises,’ in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan during the revolutionary summer of 1958 through the lens of key American intelligence organizations and Embassies. More specifically, this paper explains how American officials in different Arab capitals and Washington interpreted local developments in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan leading up to the joint Anglo-American landings in mid-July 1958. The period preceding Anglo-American intervention was marked by a political crisis later turned civil war in Lebanon, political unrest in Iraq which set the stage for the Free Officers revolt on 14 July 1958, and a political crisis in Jordan that eventually led to a coup attempt by the Jordan Arab Army against the monarchy. Drawing from newly declassified American intelligence and diplomatic records and archival evidence from Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Great Britain, this paper argues for a novel understanding of the foundations of American policy in the Middle East during the 1950s and in particular at the height of the Arab Cold War in 1958. This understanding is crucial for explaining the relationship between intelligence and policy at one of the most important junctures in the history of Arab-American relations and the Middle East.