US Policy
Oil and the Middle East
The contemporary international political economy of oil presents a puzzle: political instability in regions where oil is found coexists with steadily falling prices. This combination of continuing political conflict and uncertainty in the Middle East (particularly the Gulf), and the continuing slide in the real price of crude oil encourages consideration of relations between world oil markets, Middle East politics and the international role of the United States. To comprehend these relations, one must consider both the political and geopolitical objectives of the states involved and the economic motivations of the key actors in the international oil industry.
“Praise God and Pass the Ammunition!”
Analyses of the US-Israel relationship usually focus on the question of influence. Is the pro-Israel lobby more powerful, or are Washington’s strategic thinkers in charge? In fact, neither question is particularly useful. Rather, Israeli and US interests intersect in the political and strategic arenas of US decision making.
The past decade has witnessed the consolidation of a strategically unchallenged, post-Soviet US hegemony in the Middle East. During this period of global transition, continuity and change have characterized the political and military arenas of US-Israeli relations, particularly during the first two years of Binyamin Netanyahu’s premiership.
The Containment Myth
Among those who direct American foreign policy, there is near unanimity that the collapse of communism represents a kind of zero hour. The end of the Cold War so transformed the geopolitical landscape as to render the present era historically discontinuous from the epoch that preceded it. Policy makers contend that America’s mission abroad has had to change to keep pace with these new circumstances.
The Rise and Fall of the “Rogue Doctrine”
Since 1990, US military policy has been governed by one overarching premise that US and international security is primarily threatened by the “rogue states” of the Third World. These states — assumed to include Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria — are said to threaten US interests because of their large and relatively modern militaries, their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and their hostile stance toward the United States and its allies. To counter this threat, current American strategy requires the maintenance of sufficient military strength to conduct (and prevail in) two Desert Storm-like operations simultaneously.
From the Editor (Fall 1998)
Five years ago on the White House lawn, President Bill Clinton assumed he had achieved a monumental Middle East policy coup. Since then, the overall situation in the Middle East has worsened, largely due to the ignorance and arrogance that characterize US policy making in the region. In the face of growing crises in the Middle East, critical assessments of flawed US policies in the region are long overdue.
To Clear the Minefield
Irene Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945-1958 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
With the February 1998 news that the Clinton administration was preparing unilateral military action against Iraq, sectors of the US public seemed shocked by this unnecessarily violent turn in foreign policy. Gendzier’s scholarly sleuthing uncovers important clues for solving this puzzle and, in company with other literature, prompts us to think about constructive alternatives.
US Aid to Israel
Not long ago right-wing Israel backer William Safire wrote in his column in the New York Times that the Palestinians had to recognize that their “100 million-plus [dollars] annual financial support from the European Union had ties to mutual movement” in the Oslo process. [1] On a certain level of abstraction he is correct. Significant international backing, whether financial or political, should imply commensurate adherence to international norms, whether in international human rights law, respect for the sovereignty of neighboring countries, fulfillment of United Nations resolutions or implementation of internationally backed treaties.
Legalism and Realism in the Gulf
In his State of the Union address in January 1998, President Clinton won thunderous applause for threatening to force Iraq “to comply with the UNSCOM regime and the will of the United Nations.” Stopping UN chemical and biological weapons inspectors from “completing their mission,” declared the president, defies “the will of the world.” In the next three weeks, the White House ordered a massive show of force in the Gulf. Even traditional hawks, however, realized that a bombing mission could undermine American hegemonic interests in the Gulf that are served by a continuation of the sanctions regime.
From the Editors (Spring 1998)
Not all in Clinton’s administration were happy with his grudging acceptance of the UN-Iraqi agreement negotiated by Secretary General Kofi Annan. It is likely, however, that at least some were grateful to have a way out of their self-created political trap. Weeks of escalating rhetoric against the backdrop of a massive and carefully choreographed military buildup in the Persian Gulf and continued defiance in Baghdad, had brought Washington to the brink of launching a major military strike. The only alternative would have been to acknowledge that it really had no viable policy toward Iraq.
Following the Flag
In a recent volume, The Cold War and the University, the prominent biologist R. C. Lewontin argued that the Cold War was the “high road to professional prosperity for the great majority.” [1] He is referring to those academics who prospered from extraordinary government largesse in a period when the ideological atmosphere inspired “an unprecedented and explosive expansion of the academy.” Those who were in a position to act as conduits for such support, as a result, acquired extraordinary power within the academic bureaucracy and its allied instruments of communication.
(Re)Made in the USA
Over the last two decades, a number of presidents of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) have used their platform at annual meetings to express concern about decline in the field. [1] One is reminded of the Ottomans who, according to many (now discredited) accounts, were also in perpetual decline. Recently, though, this theme has acquired a new tenor of urgency as people involved in area studies wrestle with the implications of what is popularly termed “globalization.” The question is if area studies as a distinct form of international scholarship has outlived its utility. Rashid Khalidi captured the mood with the title of his 1994 MESA presidential address: “Is there a future for Middle East studies?” [2]
From the Editor (Winter 1997)
Our intent with this issue is simple: to present a critical evaluation of the current state of the field of Middle East studies. We focus centrally on the United States but also look at Middle East studies in other parts of the world, highlighting some of the important issues that have shaped the field. A 1975 issue of this magazine addressed the determining imprint of US policy interests on the development of a “Middle East Studies network” of institutions, foundations, security agencies and influential scholars. This issue charts some of the key developments since that time — new trends, debates and greater diversity as well as the continuing influence of state policy and power.
The Demise of Operation Provide Comfort
The evacuation of several thousand Iraqi Kurds from northern Iraq by the US military in December 1996 constituted the last gasp of Operation Provide Comfort. This operation was launched in the spring of 1991, in the wake of the Gulf war and Kurdish uprising against Baghdad, as hundreds of thousands of Kurds, fleeing Iraqi depredations in the valleys below, escaped to the high mountain ranges that mark the Iraqi-Turkish border. In October 1991, the Iraqis withdrew, freeing the Kurds to carve out an autonomous region. This territory was nominally protected by an allied Military Coordination Center based in the Iraqi border town of Zakho and by allied fighter jets and AWACS planes patrolling the no-fly zone above the thirty-sixth parallel from the US airbase at Incirlik, Turkey.
Nuclear Counterproliferation in the Middle East
The United States and France are developing strategies for using nuclear weapons in developing countries, ostensibly to counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological). The Middle East in particular has become a testing ground for nuclear war games. [1] This worrisome trend is more likely to provoke a Middle East arms race than to stop proliferation.
Keeping Up with the French
Foreign policy insiders in Washington are fond of describing France as a uniquely amoral weapons-trafficking nation that will sell anything to anyone. This harsh judgement seemed to be confirmed last August, when the latest Congressional Research Service report on arms transfers revealed that France had replaced the United States as the leading exporter of arms to the Third World, and in a decisive fashion had grabbed 45 percent of all new arms agreements with developing nations in 1994, nearly twice the level of sales registered by the outgoing titleholder.
