Us Support And Agendas Within The Middle East

The role of the Middle East has been very crucial to the United States, especially after WWII. The U.S. had three strategic goals in the Middle East and consistently followed them throughout various events that unfolded in the region. First, with the emergence of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the U.S., policymakers began to recognize the importance of the Middle East as a strategic area in containing Soviet influence. This also coincides with the U.S. becoming increasingly wary of Arab nationalism and the threat it posed to U.S. influence. Secondly, the emergence of the new Israeli state in 1948 further deepened U.S. policy and involvement in the region while also creating friction between the U.S. and Arab states which were

“The United States recognizes the provisional Government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.” These are the words of President Harry Truman from a speech he gave shortly after Israel became a recognized nation in 1948. Consequently, the political leaders of the United States have brought America on a rough journey to the current state of foreign policy and relationship with Israel. Since 1948, the United States’ active position in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen very little change or progress towards achieving settlement between these two nationalistic states. In the last 65 years, the majority of U.S. presidents repeated mistakes made by their predecessors in office, and this in turn has had little

After World War 2, the United States took over Britain’s job of overseeing the Middle East. The United States tried to avoid conflict while preventing the spread of communism. They successfully stopped the spread of communism, but couldn’t have done much worse trying to prevent conflict and stabilize the Middle East. The United States policy destabilized the Middle East, Iraq in particular, by overthrowing the Hussein regime at a poor time and deepening the anti-Western attitude in the Middle East.

The superpowers, namely the USSR and US were in engaged in a war by proxy, which is very easy to identify if you analyze the conflicts in the Middle East from 1948 until, and including, the Yom Kippur War of 1978. The superpowers would employ tactics such as supplying their various ‘allies’ in the Middle East with weapons and finances which would afford them the ability to engage in the many conflicts that took place in that period such as the Suez Crisis, Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. All of this was done without either superpower’s putting their own men on the ground to fight, for fear of an all out war between each other. However much the superpowers might have fuelled the conflicts with supplying the Arabs and Israelis with weapons and finances, they were not the cause for the conflicts as they are much deeper rooted. Israel and the Arab states have always seen tension as per their culture and religious differences, and the growing nationalism of the Arab states and Zionism in Israel, which amounted to extreme actions such as the three major conflicts during the time period 1956-1978.

Topic: U.S-Arab relations: Assessing the successes and failures of American policy towards the GCC since 2008.

United States policy towards the Iran-Iraq war was interesting to say the least. While the United States claimed to be a neutral party, they supported Iraq for the majority of the war, supported Iran for a brief period, then went back to only supporting Iraq. Both sides committed numerous atrocities and war crimes, and for the most part received little to no American condemnation. Through this essay, I will explore the reasons for the US involvement, and their responses to a number of war crimes, particularly Iraq’s use of chemical weapons throughout the war.

As Kelly Anderson’s Foreign Policy Analyst, the following memo will address three areas of the United States’ foreign policy. The U.S. has gone through may transition when it comes to its foreign policy. The United States has been an isolationist, neutralist, and internationalist country from the year it was founded to now. The executive branch and the president apply their power to influence and change the nation’s foreign policy. There are specific departments within the Executive Office of the President (EOP) created to assist the president in his or her process. Political context and historical events have occurred to prove why intervening with another country’s issues does not benefit the national interest and why isolationism is a better system for this country. Hopefully, the memo will accomplish informing what the foreign policy is, was, and should be.

america’s involvement in syria raises complex ethical arguments. what are the challenges surrounding the moral, ethical, societal and sovereign decisions of this involvement?

During the1890s, the United States showed little interest in foreign affairs. The U.S. relied on previous foreign policies which resulted in inconsistent international trade in the years leading up to the twentieth century. However, following the rise of the industrial revolution in the United States American business began to recognize the vast potential of the international market place. The U.S. sought out to expand its territory globally to increase trade and protect its assets more effectively. The United States, at this point in the late 1890s, also began to listen to Alfred Thayer Mahan, an admiral and naval strategist. Mahan had previously called for a strengthening of the U.S. navy and an expansion of U.S. markets globally. Mahan also had great influence over his friend and current assistant secretary of the navy Teddy Roosevelt. In 1898 the U.S. was able to exploit a huge mistake made by the Spanish empire in Havana Harbor. The American ship U.S.S. Maine mysteriously exploded on February 15, 1898, killing 266 American sailors. The American public was outraged and they called for war to overthrow the “Spanish Murders” in Cuba. At this time, Spain was an imperial power with land possessions in the Caribbean as well as the pacific. They controlled Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and the Philippines and Guam in the pacific. American politicians, including Secretary of State John Hay and President William McKinley, now began discussing the idea on going to war

America believed that it was isolated from the rest of the world, and its foreign policy reflected these ideas and beliefs. The United States was on its way to becoming a world power and advancing its own interest in the world, especially in the North and South America. Isolationism caused the United States to avoid being involved in other countries politics and for the U.S. to remain neutral in foreign policy

In the post -World War II era, the competition of global supremacy between the superpowers of the time, United States and the Soviet Union resulted in the Cold War. Many countries in the world were pulled into this rivalry including many of the states of the Middle East. Allies against the Soviet Union received substantial quantities of United States aid and were encouraged to purchase weapons of Western means. Those who were in opposition to the United States’ power received economic and military assistance from the Soviet Union. The United States were inclined to view the rivalry between them and the Soviet Union as a vie for global supremacy. The challenge of attaining democracy in the Middle East has been insufficient leadership specifically in those who shared a common border and were in proximity to the Soviet Union. The United States, in their determination to impede the threat of expansion of the borders of the Soviet Union as well as contain the spread of communion, provided economic and military assistance to keep Iran, Iraq and Turkey politically stable. Although this was the goal of the United States, they actually impeded the democracy and political stability of these countries through its persistent influence in government affairs, determining its future’s livelihood.

In modern time, the U.S. has had a stronger presence. It has been an area deemed to unpredictable. Part of this unpredictability stems from the belief of terrorist groups originating from this area. The United States policies, decisions and overall image to other states in the international systems has continuously fluctuated. The U.S. has ranged from rejecting political responsibility in the Middle East to acceptance of responsibility of it based off a global power foundation. The past image of U.S. foreign policy, during the Cold War, could have been considered inclusive. There was a sense of willingness to embrace any country that opposed communism. When the United States had faced the Soviet Union, they held militarily strength. However, during the war on terror, the U.S. has not been as inclusive.

On January 29, 2002, United States President George W. Bush blasted Iraq with these words, “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror… States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” [State of the Union] But as late as 1990, Iraq had received major military, economic, and intelligence support from the U.S. [Arbuthnot] This aide included “numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.” [Dobbs] It was this aide that gave Iraq the upper hand in its war against Iran and would later lead to Iraq’s ability to gas the Kurdish people of Northern Iraq in 1988. Despite the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988, the U.S. did not change their foreign policy in Iraq until 1990, when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait. Despite Hussein’s actions against the Kurds in 1988, why did the US continue to support the regime economically and militarily?

In 2003, when the Turks denied the United States entrance into Iraq, the Kurds helped overthrow the battling group, Saddam, irrevocably. That’s where it all started for the Kurds and the U.S. but since then they have worked together to take down this powerful threat that is ISIL. Kurd fighters, the Peshmerga, are known for their ferocity, power, and nobility. Every win the Kurds take, is used for the safety of the people. Slowly the Kurds have been creating

Turkey’s poltical trajectory in its aftermath of the failed military coup, has significantly impacted the United States already strained relations with Turkey. Turkey’s relationship with the US has been previously stained due to the US's cooperation with the Kurdish PYD in Syria, which turkey considers a terrorist organisation. However, despite much tension, Turkey remains an instrumental geological ally of the United states and other NATO members, as the Nations geological location provides regional stability within the middle east.