Part 15. American Unilateralism and the Middle East

Since the end of World War II, the United States has become increasingly involved in the Middle East for a number of reasons.  Some of these reasons include the Cold War competition for influence (our desire to keep the Soviets out of the region), the presence of large oil reserves in the Persian Gulf, and our growing friendship with Israel.  But during the past thirty years, our presence in the region has accelerated even more as we have fought two wars in the Middle East and another in neighboring Afghanistan.  The collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving us as the single superpower, and the attacks of 9/11 have been the main reasons for our stepped-up activities in the Middle East and Central/South Asia.

America in the Middle East Since the Gulf War

The Cold War finally came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.  However, the Berlin Wall was brought down in 1989, after which it became obvious that the Soviet Union was not going to last much longer.  Thus, even though the Gulf War technically took place before the end of the Cold War, it is not a stretch to label it as the first post-Cold War conflict.  Unlike all of the conflicts that had taken place in the region during the preceding forty-five years, the United States was able to involve itself in a Middle Eastern dispute without having any concern about how our involvement would impact the Cold War.

It should not be surprising, then, that the United States took a much more aggressive stance towards Saddam Husayn’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait than we had done just ten years earlier when the government of our close ally, Iran, fell to an Islamic revolution.   For the first time since World War II, American armies invaded a Middle Eastern country and the full forces of American firepower were launched in a foreign land for the first time since the Vietnam War.  Although the Gulf War was over quickly, it would not be the last time that American troops would head into the region to fight.  The war officially ended in late February 1991, however Saddam Husayn remained in power in Iraq and the American government would ultimately conclude that post-war attempts to neutralize him as a threat had been unsuccessful.  All of this would lead in 2003 to another war against Iraq launched by another President Bush, this time with the goal to remove Saddam from power for good.

The War on Terrorism

Every American knows that the country changed dramatically on September 11, 2001.  In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks many Americans renewed their patriotic zeal, while others questioned what it was about our country that seemed to be so hated by many people in the outside world.  While these internal debates raged, the country mobilized itself to eliminate what appeared to be a growing terrorist threat to the national security of the United States.  Within a month President Bush declared a war on terrorism, announcing that he was launching “a war against all those who seek to export terror, and a war against those governments that support or shelter them.”

However, it is much easier to loudly condemn terrorism than it is to define what the term actually means.  It has often been said that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s revolutionary.”  Goldschmidt and Boum provide several possible definitions of terrorism, including the CIA definition, but the authors also raise the troubling question of “state terrorism,” which they claim “is now being practiced by the United States in its use of unmanned drones in Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and by Israel in its occupied territories” (Arthur Goldschmidt Jr and Aomar Boum, A Concise History of the Middle East, 2016, 389).

Whether or not you agree with these strong statements, the authors examine the question of how to define terrorism and what is the best way to combat it, asking whether terrorism can ultimately be defeated “with police, secret agents, or uniformed troops, who themselves might act like terrorists.”  They survey regional terrorism in countries such as Turkey, Iran, the Fertile Crescent Arab states, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, and Egypt.  Their conclusion is that the “War on Terrorism” may not have been the best way to combat terrorism in the Middle East, that “the military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq protected no one from terrorism, and their costs have exceeded $1 trillion dollars to the US government and are likely to rise further in the years to come.  The costs to the Afghan and Iraqi people are beyond calculation.  Two wrongs, indeed a million wrongs, cannot make a right” (Arthur Goldschmidt Jr and Aomar Boum, A Concise History of the Middle East, 2016, 416).

In discussing the Iraq War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Goldschmidt and Boum admit that there are no easy answers to solve the problems that face these countries.  The authors are critical of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, pointing out that, upon the departure of U.S. troops, “Iraq ended up with a Shi`ite government with a religious fundamentalist coloring and under the partial influence of Iran.  Such results were not among the goals of President Bush and his neoconservative advisers” (Arthur Goldschmidt Jr and Aomar Boum, A Concise History of the Middle East, 2016, 407).  In Israel/Palestine, they discuss the breakdown of the peace process, intensification of the conflict and involvement of outsiders before concluding that the Israeli government’s “true goal is a ‘Greater Israel’ rather than a peaceful and secure Israel. . . If Israel really wants peace, it should adopt the compromises needed to achieve it” (Arthur Goldschmidt Jr and Aomar Boum, A Concise History of the Middle East, 2016, 415).

Primary Source Documents and Analysis on the War on Terror

The links below provide access to documents on the War on Terror.  The first link is to the George W. Bush Presidential library where you can access texts of various speeches given by President Bush regarding the War on Terror.  The second link is an article published by the Brookings Institution in December 2001, shortly after President Bush announced the beginning of the War on Terror.  The third link connects you to a series of articles published in September 2021 evaluating the impact of the War on Terror by writers associated with the International Crisis Group.  The fourth link is a 2021 article by Georgetown University Professor Bruce Hoffman on the effectiveness of the War on Terror

https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/global-war-terror

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/nasty-brutish-and-long-americas-war-on-terrorism/

https://www.crisisgroup.org/legacy-911-and-war-terror-special-series

https://institute.global/policy/war-terror-20-years-crossroads-or-cul-de-sac