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United States foreign policy in the Middle East

United States foreign policy in the Middle East has its roots in the early 19th-century Tripolitan War that occurred shortly after the 1776 establishment of the United States as an independent sovereign state, but became much more expansive in the aftermath of World War II. With the goal of preventing the Soviet Union from gaining influence in the region during the Cold War, American foreign policy saw the deliverance of extensive support in various forms to anti-communist and anti-Soviet regimes; among the top priorities for the U.S. with regards to this goal was its support for the State of Israel against its Soviet-backed neighbouring Arab countries during the peak of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The U.S. also came to replace the United Kingdom as the main security patron for Saudi Arabia as well as the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf in the 1960s and 1970s in order to ensure, among other goals, a stable flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.[1] As of 2023, the U.S. has diplomatic relations with every country in the Middle East except for Iran, with whom relations were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Syria, with whom relations were suspended in 2012 following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.

American influence in the Greater Middle East has reduced in recent years, most significantly since the Arab Spring,[2] yet is still substantial.[3] Currently stated priorities of the U.S. government in the Middle East include resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction[4] among regional states, particularly Iran.

Bilateral relations in the Greater Middle East[edit]

American allies[edit]

States

2023 American–Middle East conflict

British foreign policy in the Middle East

Arab lobby in the United States

Dual containment

Foreign relations of the Arab League

Gulf War

United States–Middle East economic relations

Middle Eastern foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration

Mission Accomplished

Foreign interventions by the United States

Books

Baxter, Kylie, and Shahram Akbarzadeh. (Routledge, 2012)

US foreign policy in the Middle East: The roots of anti-Americanism

Bunch, Clea. "Reagan and the Middle East." in Andrew L. Johns, ed., A Companion to Ronald Reagan (2015) pp: 453–468.

online

Cramer, Jane K., and A. Trevor Thrall, eds. (Routledge, 2013)

Why Did the United States Invade Iraq?

Fawcett, Louise, ed. International relations of the Middle East (3rd ed. Oxford UP, 2016)

full text online

Freedman, Lawrence. A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2009)

excerpt

Gause III, F. Gregory. "“Hegemony” Compared: Great Britain and the United States in the Middle East." Security Studies 28.3 (2019): 565-587.

“Hegemony” Compared: Great Britain and the United States in the Middle East

Hemmer, Christopher. (SUNY Press, 2012)

Which lessons matter?: American foreign policy decision making in the Middle East, 1979-1987

Jacobs, Matthew F. (2011)

Imagining the Middle East: The Building of an American Foreign Policy, 1918-1967

Kelley, Stephen A. "Getting to War: American Security Policy in the Persian Gulf, 1969-1991." (Naval Postgraduate School Monterey United States, 2020) .

online

Laqueur, Walter. The Struggle for the Middle East: The Soviet Union and the Middle East 1958-70 (1972)

online

Lesch, David W. and Mark L. Haas, eds. The Middle East and the United States: History, Politics, and Ideologies (6th ed, 2018)

excerpt

Little, Douglas. "His finest hour? Eisenhower, Lebanon, and the 1958 Middle East crisis." Diplomatic History 20.1 (1996): 27–54.

online

O'Sullivan, Christopher D. (2012)

FDR and the End of Empire: The Origins of American Power in the Middle East

Petersen, Tore. Anglo-American Policy toward the Persian Gulf, 1978–1985: Power, Influence and Restraint (Sussex Academic Press, 2015)

Pillar, Paul R. Intelligence and US Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (Columbia UP, 2014) 432p

Pollack, Kenneth. (2014)

Unthinkable: Iran, the bomb, and American strategy

Wahlrab, Amentahru, and Michael J. McNeal, eds. US approaches to the Arab uprisings: International relations and democracy promotion (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Wight, David M. Oil Money: Middle East Petrodollars and the Transformation of US Empire, 1967-1988 (Cornell University Press, 2021)

online review

US State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs

from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives

Middle East – U.S. Relations

Archived 6 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine – Shapell Manuscript Foundation

Establishment of U.S. Consuls and Colonies in the Levant