The foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East, a geopolitical region including parts of Africa and Asia, has among its primary considerations matters of petroleum politics, international trade, the War on terror, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
The first major instances of US foreign policy in the region came with the American–Algerian War which lasted from 1785 through 1795, followed by the First Barbary War (1801–1805), shortly after the 1776 establishment of the United States as an independent sovereign state. US foreign policy then 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. US foreign policy delivered extensive support in various forms to anti-communist and anti-Soviet regimes.
Among the top priorities for the U.S. with regard 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. In the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. also replaced the United Kingdom as the main security patron for Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, in order to ensure, among other goals, a stable flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.
, 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.
American influence in the Greater Middle East has reduced in recent years, most significantly since the Arab Spring, yet is still substantial. Currently stated priorities of the U.S. government in the Middle East include involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction among regional states, particularly Iran.
History
The United States' relationship with the Middle East before World War I was limited, although commercial ties existed even in the early 19th century, as seen with the American–Algerian War. From 1801 to 1805, the U.S. fought against Ottoman Tripolitania during the Tripolitan War regarding tributary payment which president Thomas Jefferson refused to pay. In 1833, President Andrew Jackson established formal ties with the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. The Sultan saw the U.S. as a potential balance to Britain's overwhelming regional influence. In 1857, commercial relations opened between the U.S. and Persia, after Britain persuaded the Persian government not to ratify a similar agreement in 1851.
After defeating the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Britain and France took control of most of its former territories. They held mandates to do so from the League of Nations. The United States refused to take any mandates in the region and was "popular and respected throughout the Middle East".Fawcett, L., (2005) The International Relations of the Middle East, UK: Oxford University Press, p. 284 "Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans."Fawcett, L. (2005) The International Relations of the Middle East UK: Oxford University Press p 285
American Christian missionaries brought modern medicine and set up educational institutions all over the Middle East, as an adjunct to their religious proselytizing. The United States also provided the Middle East with highly skilled petroleum engineers.Rugh, W. A. (2005) American Encounters with Arabs: The Soft Power of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Middle East U.S.: Praeger Publishers Inc. pp 25–26 Thus, there were some connections made between the United States and the Middle East before the Second World War.
Other examples of cooperation between the U.S. and the Middle East are the Red Line Agreement signed in 1928 and the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement signed in 1944. Both of these agreements were legally binding and reflected an American interest in control of Middle Eastern energy resources, mainly oil, and reflected an American "security imperative to prevent the (re)emergence of a powerful regional rival".Le Billon, P., El Khatib, F. (March 2004) "From free oil to 'freedom oil': terrorism, war and U.S. Geopolitics in the Persian Gulf", Geopolitics, Volume 9, Issue 1 p. 109 The Red Line Agreement had been "part of a network of agreements made in the 1920s to restrict the supply of petroleum and ensure that the major [mostly American] companies ... could control oil prices on world markets".Review (Winter 1982): "State Power and Industry Influence: American Foreign Oil Policy in the 1940s", International Organization 36, no. 1 p. 168
The Red Line agreement governed the development of Middle East oil for the next two decades. The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement of 1944 was based on negotiations between the United States and Britain over controlling Middle Eastern oil. In a conversation with the British ambassador in 1944, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt summarized his view of how oil interests between the two countries should be divided: Persian oil ... is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it's ours.Yergin, D (1991) The Prize: The Epic quest for Oil, Money and Power New York: Simon and Schuster p 401
On 8 August 1944, the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement was signed, dividing Middle Eastern oil between the United States and Britain. Consequently, political scholar Fred H. Lawson remarks, by mid-1944, U.S. officials had buttressed the US position on the peninsula by concluding an Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement that protected "all valid concession contracts and lawfully acquired rights" belonging to the signatories and established a principle of "equal opportunity" in those areas where no concession had yet been assigned.Lawson, F. H. (Aug. 1989) "The Iranian Crisis of 1945–1946 and the Spiral Model of International Conflict" International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3 p. 310 Political scholar Irvine Anderson summarizes American interests in the Middle East in the late 19th century and the early 20th century noting that, "the most significant event of the period was the transition of the United States from the position of net exporter to one of net importer of petroleum."Irvine Anderson, Aramco, The United States, and Saudi Arabia (Princeton University Press, 1981) p. 36.
By the end of the Second World War, according to linguist Noam Chomsky, Washington had come to consider the Middle East region as "the most strategically important area of the world."Chomsky, Noam (January/February 2005) "Imperial Presidency", Canadian Dimension, Vol. 39, No. 1 p. 8 A U.S. State Department analysis concluded that Saudi Arabia's oil resources "constitute a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history". In 1943, Roosevelt stated that "the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." In 1980, President Jimmy Carter told a joint session of Congress that "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America."
Samir Amin argues that the strategic importance of Middle Eastern oil has historically been viewed as a critical source of global geopolitical leverage.Amin, Samir (2019). The long revolution of the global South: toward a new anti-imperialist international (1st ed.). New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 58. . National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski contended that given the dependence of Western Europe and East Asia on Middle Eastern oil, Soviet domination of the region would have enabled the Soviets to "blackmail" both regions, forcing them into diplomatic accommodations on favorable terms.Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1986). Game plan: a geostrategic framework for the conduct of the U.S.--Soviet contest (1st ed.). Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press. p. 51. . Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intelligence analyst Kenneth M. Pollack echoed this position, stating that the U.S. seeks more than just the continuous flow of Persian Gulf oil; it also aims to prevent any hostile actor from dominating the region's resources to build a power base or exert global "blackmail." In 1990, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that anyone controlling the flow of Middle Eastern oil would possess a "stranglehold" over the U.S. economy, as well as "on that of most of the other nations of the world as well".Sifry, Micah L.; Cerf, Christopher, eds. (2003). The Iraq war reader: history, documents, opinions. New York: Touchstone. p. 399. . Chomsky argued that by controlling Middle Eastern oil, the U.S. gains a strategic stranglehold that allows it to effectively "blackmail" industrial rivals; he identifies this strategy of keeping Europe and East Asia dependent on corporate America as "one of the main reasons the United States has been so interested in Middle Eastern oil." He added, "We didn't need the oil for ourselves;" until the early 1970s "North America led the world in oil production. But we do want to keep our hands on this lever of world power".Chomsky, Noam; Naiman, Arthur; Barsamian, David (2011). How the world works: four classic bestsellers in one affordable volume. Real story series. Berkeley, Calif.: Soft Skull Press. p. 27. . He contends that a secondary objective is to ensure that "the flow of petrodollars should be largely funnelled to the U.S. through military purchases, construction projects, bank deposits, investment in Treasury securities, etc."Chomsky, Noam (2016). Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (2nd ed.). Pluto Press. p. 20. .
Following World War II, the region was going through great social, economic, and political changes and as a result, internally the Middle East was in turmoil. Politically, the Middle East was experiencing an upsurge in the popularity of nationalistic politics and an increase in the number of nationalistic political groups across the region, which was causing great trouble for the English and French colonial powers.
Historian Jack Watson says that "Europeans could not hold these lands indefinitely in the face of Arab nationalism".Watson, J. B. (1981) Success in Twentieth century World Affairs since 1919 Norwich: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd p. 295 Watson continues that "by the end of 1946 Palestine was the last remaining mandate, but it posed a major problem".Watson, J. B. (1981), Success in Twentieth Century World Affairs since 1919, Norwich: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd p. 295 This nationalistic political trend clashed with American interests in the Middle East, which were, as Middle East scholar Louise Fawcett argues, "about the Soviet Union, access to oil and the project for a Jewish state in Palestine".Fawcett, L. (2005), International Relations of the Middle East UK: Oxford University Press, p. 284 Hence, Arabist Ambassador Raymond A. Hare described the Second World War, as "the great divide" in United States' relationship with the Middle East, because these three interests later served as a backdrop and reasoning for a great deal of American interventions in the Middle East, and came to be the cause of several future conflicts between the United States and the Middle East.
During the Cold War following World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom launched covert and overt campaigns to encourage and strengthen Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East and southern Asia. These Islamic fundamentalists were seen as a hedge against potential expansion by the Soviet Union, and as a counterweight against nationalist and socialist movements that were seen as a threat to the interests of the Western nations.