The quest for a middle eastern hegemony after World War II.

Abstract

This research examines the United States’ foreign policy in the Middle East after WWII. It shows basically the pioneering foreign diplomacy of the United States, a long lasting isolationist nation which decided that this way had done enough and that time for carrying interventionist diplomacy came to face up its very enemy, the Soviet Union. The latter have, indeed, loomed up as the most powerful nations and run a crucial race for world hegemony. The Middle East, the region the most affluent in oil, was targeted by both superpowers which brought to the already wobbly region their Cold War strategic frenzies. This dissertation tries to unveil the motives, the goals and the nature of those policies initiated by the United States in the Middle East then tries to show their impact on the region in a period that coincided with the birth of consciousness and the growing nationalist waves that targeted the imperialist nations’ interests. The nationalist rise in the Middle East together with the communist spreading had puzzled the American policymakers and disturbed their fresh engagements in the region. This work intends to show how uncalculated steps of the United States during their Middle Eastern interventions mined their credibility in the Middle East and led to endless conflicts and instabilities. History is then to witness how Washington men failed to learn lessons from these early flawed policies. This work makes use of many studies, Arab and Western, early and/or more recent writings, including primary resources such as speeches, declassified documents of CIA secret operations carried during the 1950s in the Middle East. Therefore, describing and analyzing such historical events and happenings enabled us understand the origin of today's confrontations and deteriorated relations between the Middle Eastern states and the West. This work finally clarifies why it was difficult to find grounds for peaceful settlements in such a troublesome region, i.e. the Middle East.