U.S.-Middle East Foreign Relations Needs a Vital Reset

Foreign policy is an integral part of international relations. This study examines the United States (US) foreign policy towards Jordan from 1990 to 2017 since the period witnessed important regional and international political events that significantly impacted the US foreign policy. These events have the greatest impact on the development of relations between the two countries in terms of political and security aspects. The study looks at four political events and their impacts on Jordanian-American relations from the political and security aspects. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to examine the US foreign policy towards Jordan from the political and security aspects. This study adopted the qualitative approach. The primary data were collected from interviews while the secondary data were obtained from books, journals, theses, newspapers, seminar papers, articles and other documents. In this study, 16 respondents from political, economic and security experts in Jordan and the US were selected for semi-structured interviews. The study employed Thematic Analysis in analysing the data obtained. This study adopted the neo-realism theory as a theoretical framework. This study found that the US foreign policy recognizes Jordan as a close ally and considers its stability very important. The US foreign policy was seen slightly negative towards Jordan during the Iraqi War on Kuwait in 1990. However, the Wadi Araba peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in 1994 had promoted positive US foreign policy towards Jordan. This policy was slightly weakened in 2017 due to the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Certain political events play an important role in the US foreign policy regarding security aid towards Jordan. The study found that the US foreign policy provides security support to Jordan to protect Israel, spread American ideology and fight against its enemy. This research also found that Jordan has a suitable location to defend Israel because the country is surrounded by important Arab countries. The US links its aids to Jordan due to political events. Accordingly, the study recommends the necessity for the Jordanian state to increase its influential economic alliances at the international level. In addition, Jordanian policy must be redrawn in line with international realities to pressure the US to make Jordan play an active role in the region and international arena. Jordan should better use its geographical location to achieve international cooperation and enhance Arab security as a barrier against Israel.

Preface Introduction 1. Framing the Discussion of Globalization, Diversity and US International Affairs Ernest J. Wilson III Part 1: Growing Demographic Diversity in US Society 2. Global Work Force 2000: The new world labor market William B. Johnston 3. Travels into America's Future Robert D. Kaplan 4. The New Face of America: Blended races making a true melting pot Maria Puente and Martin Kasindorf Part 2: Political and Economic Diversity in the Global System 5. Don't Neglect the Impoverished South Robin Broad and John Cavanagh 6. The Dangers of Decadence: What the rest can teach the West Kishore Mahbubani Part 3: The Changing Face of America's International Affairs 7. Grass-Roots Policyrnaking: Say goodbye to the 'wise men' Michael Clough 8. Diversity in US Foreign Policy Making: The dilemma endures Allan E. Goodman 9. The FSO of Tomorrow Madeline K. Albright 10. A House Divided: Racism at the State Department Bruce Shapiro 11. Demographic Diversity and American Foreign Policy: Some empirical findings and the parameters of the debate Ernest J. Wilson III Part 4: The Politics of Multiculturalism in International Affairs 12. The Erosion of American National Interest Samuel Huntington 13. Multicultural Foreign Policy Yossi Shain 14. All Politics are Global: Interest groups and the making of foreign policy Eric M. Uslaner 15. Getting Uncle Sam's Ear: Will ethnic lobbies cramp America's foreign policy style? James M. Lindsay Part 5: Hispanic-Americans and US Foreign Policy 16. The Keenest Recruits to the Dream. The Economist Family Ties and Ethnic Lobbies: Latino relations with Latin America Rodolfo de la Garza, Miguel Baraona, Manuel Orozco, Harry P. Panchon and Adrian D. Pantoja 17. International Interests and Foreign Policy Priorities of Mexican-Americans Patricia Hamm 18. Dateline Washington: Cuban American clout Carla Anne Robbins 19. Here to Stay: The domestic and international priorities of Latino leaders The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute Part 6: Asian-Americans and US Foreign Policy 20. Bridges Across Continents: South Asians in the United States Arati Rao 21. Slanted Racial Prejudice is Part of What Fuelled the Clinton Campaign Scandal Robert Wright Part 7: Jewish-Americans and US Foreign Policy 21. The Genesis of the Special Relationship Between the United States and Israel, 1948-1973 Bat-Ami Zucker Part 8: Arab-Americans, Middle-Eastern Americans and US Foreign Policy 22. Local Politics is Global, as Hill Turns to Armenia Steven Mufson 23. American Foreign Policy in the Middle East and its Impact on the Identity of Arab Muslims in the United States Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad 24. How to Define a Muslim American Agenda Mohammed

Based on the Copenhagen school of thought, the securitization theory is applied to examine the framing of the Iranian nuclear deal as a security threat to the United States (US). The paper examines the transition from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to the Maximum Pressure Campaign under the Trump administration and the subsequent re-engagement efforts by the Biden administration. The research utilizes the theoretical framework of securitization to understand the securitizing actors, referent subjects, referent objects, audience, and context involved in the securitization process of the Iran nuclear deal. The paper also explores the implications of US foreign policy towards Iran's nuclear program for global nuclear non-proliferation efforts and its wider impact on US foreign policy in the Middle East. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the complexities and challenges of US foreign policy towards Iran's nuclear program, which is a key issue in international relations and nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

This chapter provides a summary of the findings and an analysis of what the future holds for US foreign policy in the Middle East and around the world. The main finding is that US foreign policy toward the Middle East in the last seven decades is characterized by continuity in foreign policy geostrategic objectives and strategies to achieve them. The main objective has been maintaining regional hegemonic status and preventing the emergence of another regional hegemon. For this reason, the USA has pursued the grand strategy of offshore balancing to maintain the balance of power in every region. If there will be no change in its hegemonic status and geography, US foreign policy will continue to remain the same in substance.

Throughout most of its existence the State of Israel had only a handful of friends and allies. However, even during the era of pan-Arabism, when Arab nationalism held sway over the Middle East, eng...

The official history of US foreign policy, published by the State Department as the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), has profoundly changed how historians of foreign relations can conduct research and prepare students to do the same. This primary source amalgam, compiled by professional historians, operates under a statutory requirement to ‘include all records needed’ for comprehensive documentation of all ‘major’ and ‘significant’ US diplomatic activity and foreign policy decisions. FRUS is an easily accessible, digestible resource – a veritable simulacrum of US foreign policy – that profoundly alters research methodology. This article utilises FRUS to conduct a comparative analysis of seemingly similar US-backed military coup d’états in Brazil in 1964 and Indonesia in 1965. Both nations were the largest, most powerful countries in their respective regions and critical to US foreign policy – Brazil by proximity, Indonesia by geopolitical strategy. Both nations also became targets of covert operations, which resulted in military coups that installed governments closely aligned with US foreign policy. Nevertheless, each coup was conducted under differing circumstances that required varying levels of direct US intervention. Regime change in Indonesia, as FRUS so clearly highlights, required a considerably more substantial amount of time, money, and effort than that of Brazil. This case study highlights the stark contrast between the relative ease of system maintenance in a region already subordinated to US hegemony and the painstaking process of drawing a new area of the globe into the American sphere of influence.

Perspectives on <i>The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War</i>

This chapter examines the evolution of US foreign policy toward the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by examining the changing role of the United States in the post-Cold War era. Special attention will be given to the 9/11 attacks on the United States and its ramifications for the MENA region. The impact of US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, which led to long and painful occupations, is examined closely. Attention then turns to the regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, and their secret negotiations, on the other, while examining their implications for the possible emergence of a new security structure in the region. We discuss the role of new actors in the region (such as China) in the wake of the decreasing US military footprint in the region. We expound on the emerging contours of US foreign policy under the presidency of Joe Biden. We end the chapter by analyzing the forces that inform the current dynamics of US foreign policy, and what may lie ahead.

174 SAISREVIEW continuous American support for German unification and German insistence on remaining a member of NATO indicate the continued validity of this observation. Despite its underlying strength, this relationship is experiencing increasing difficulties. Smyser attributes these difficulties to "the growth of German power, the relative decline ofAmerican power, and the emergence ofthe new Europe and the new world." The present and future of German-American relations are best understood by "an appreciation of the exploding breadth of the relationship." From global economics to reconstructing the East, to non-regional issues, a constantly widening agenda offers the possibility both for greater cooperation and for greater conflict. During the Cold War, the commitments and dependencies arising out of the nuclear relationship between the two countries exacerbated the potential for conflict. An "extraordinary degree of mutual trust" was required, which prompted "ceaseless mutual scrutiny" in the search for reassurance. Smyser does not reflect on whether Europe's impending demilitarization will relax this strain. Concluding his study, Smyser recommends that balanced communication and understanding between the United States and Germany be facilitated through the institutionalization of increased high-level contact. Further, he asserts that principles necessary to guide the relationship should be the focus of such contact. Directing high-level attention towards the relationship is logical given the added weight that a newly-unified Germany will cany in world affairs. Yet the potential threat that such a policy will eclipse other European powers poses a dilemma. As the Germans increasingly infuse their foreign and domestic policies with a European component, it will be appropriate for the United States to structure its relations with Germany in the context of other European institutions as well. American National Interest: Virtue and Power in Foreign Policy. By Karl Von Vorys. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1990. 276pp. $39.95/Hardback. Reviewed by Mark S. Mahaney (SAIS M.A., 1990), Presidential Management Intern with the Department of State. What to make of a book that casually roams from the conceptual underpinnings of strategic deterrence, to the trials and tribulations of historical European security structures, to the social, economic, and political obstacles facing development planners in the Third World? And what to make of an author who can concisely outline the reasons why U.S. military intervention is unlikely to succeed in Latin America, explain how U.S. policy lost contact with domestic political reality during the Vietnam War, and then conclude that the nation needs a small, highly trained, and highly mobile Rapid Deployment Force? Von Vorys declares at the outset that the purpose of his book is "to develop national interest as a pre-policy standard, a standard that by consensus sets the parameters for official policy...[a standard] by which foreign policy can be evaluated." Sound familiar? It should. American foreign policy thinkers from Charles Beard to Walter Lippmann to Hans Morgenthau (to name only a few) BOOK REVIEWS 175 established their reputations through their efforts to wed U.S. foreign policy to a "correct" interpretation of American national interests. How does Von Vorys fare in such exalted company? Answer: the odds were against Von Vorys from the start, but his attempt is interesting and quirkily provocative. What might help explain the quirks of this book—its drift into and out of topics as diverse as SDI, the fundamental tenets of Islam, and foreign aid—is the rather unusual perspective the author brings to the main subject. Von Vorys' previous books focused on communalism in Malaysia and political development in Pakistan. All the more impressive, therefore, is his sharp analysis of the foreign policy challenges confronting U.S. national interests. According to Von Vorys, those challenges come in the following order of importance: those to our vital interests (our national existence); those to our special interests (our friends and allies); and those to our general interests (international order). By carefully setting up this hierarchy, Von Vorys has half the battle behind him. After all, one of the greatest challenges facing our country has always been our unwillingness or our inability to discriminate between those national interests that are truly vital and those that are not. The former sometimes obligate the expenditure of our most precious resources—our...

Few figures in the past quarter-century have played a more significant role in American foreign policy than Colin Powell. He wielded power at the highest levels of the most important foreign policy bureaucracies: the Pentagon, the White House, the joint chiefs, and the state department. As national security advisor in the Ronald Reagan administration, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and secretary of state during George W. Bush's first term, he played a prominent role in four administrations, Republican and Democrat, spanning more than twenty years. Powell has been engaged in the most important debates over foreign and defense policy during the past two decades, such as the uses of American power in the wake of the Vietnam war, the winding down of the Cold War and the quest for new paths for American foreign policy, and the interventions in Panama (1989) and the Persian Gulf (1990–1991). During the Clinton era, he was involved in the controversies over interventions in Bosnia and Somalia. As America's top diplomat from 2001 to 2004, he helped shape the aims and goals of U.S. diplomacy after September 11, 2001, and in the run-up to the Iraq War. In this exploration of Powell's career and character, Christopher D. O'Sullivan reveals several broad themes crucial to American foreign policy and yields insights into the evolution of American foreign and defense policy in the post-Vietnam, post-Cold War eras. In addition, O'Sullivan explores the conflicts and debates between different foreign policy ideologies such as neo-conservatism and realism. O'Sullivan's book not only explains Powell's diplomatic style, it provides crucial insights into the American foreign policy tradition in the modern era.

Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War and Justice. By Noam Chomsky, Gilbert Achar, Stephen R. Shalom. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press, 2009. 319 pp., $18.95 (ISBN-13: 978-1-59451-313-8). The United States and Latin America after the Cold War. By Russell C. Crandall. New York City: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 260 pp., $24.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-71795-3). America and Its Critics: Virtues and Vices of the Democratic Hyperpower. By Sergio Fabbrini. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008. 222 pp., $22.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4251-2). To See Ourselves as Others See Us: How Publics Abroad View the United States after 9/11. By Ole R. Holsti. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2008. 234 pp., $24.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-472-05036-9). The Obama administration faces many challenges in the world from the ongoing war on terrorism and the quest for peace in the Middle East, to issues of the environment and trade. Each of the books reviewed suggest that the United States cannot solve these problems alone. Ole Holsti argues, “few contemporary international problems lend themselves to unilateral solutions” (p. 218). However, a hallmark of the Bush administration has been the idea that you are either with us or against us. This philosophy of unilateralism has led to short-sighted and reactionary policies that have unintended consequences. The alienation of our allies and the “wariness of China and Russia” have led to a situation where “we have more to fear from our own mistakes” (Chase 2002:8). According to Russell C. Crandall, the challenge for future policymakers is “not [to] let outdated assumptions…automatically lead us to foregone conclusions” (p. 247). The authors reviewed analyze American policy in different regions of the world, ask different research questions and use different methodological approaches. But the thread that ties these books together is a call for a more multilateral approach to foreign policy or, in the words of Holsti, “a cold eye assessment of policies and consequences” (p. 187). In Crandall's, The United States and Latin America after the Cold War we get an exhaustive look at American foreign policy in Latin and South America. Crandall contends that the end of the Cold War “diminished the ideological and strategic constraints that…dictated US policy” (p. xi). However, he states that political analysis of the region continues to suffer because we continue to view it through an outdated security paradigm. This text is an attempt to fill that gap in the literature by systematically addressing US policy through the post-Cold War administrations. He finds that America has “acted …

In Donald Trump’s Digital Diplomacy and Its Impact on US Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East, Ahmed Y. Zohny develops a well-blended mix of history and political science, supplemented by content analysis and critical discourse analysis of Trump’s statements and tweets. Americans are primarily interested in the domestic implications of Trump’s presidency, whereas people around the globe are more interested in his foreign policy’s implications. Both remain puzzled by Trump’s mixed messaging, his tendency to change his mind and make decisions on the impulse of the moment. The findings indicate that, by scuttling U.S. adherence to the Iran Accord, Trump has guaranteed its collapse, and contributed to an already volatile Middle East. Trump recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel brought an international crisis. Under international law and countless decisions by the UN, the final status of Jerusalem should be decided by negotiation, not unilateral action by the United States or Israel. The Abraham Peace Accord with the four normalizing relations agreements which were signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco mark a new and important shift in the Middle East geopolitics, it can be considered as a success for Trump’s foreign policy.

This paper examines the complex dynamics of the Israel-Palestine conflict, focusing on the role of interest groups, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in shaping US foreign policy. The conflict, rooted in historical and territorial disputes, has seen recurrent escalations, most recently triggered by Hamas attacks on Israel. The United States, a longstanding ally of Israel, provides substantial financial and military aid, with AIPAC exerting influence on policymakers to maintain and strengthen this relationship. Through qualitative research methods and literature studies, the paper analyzes the impact of AIPAC's lobbying efforts on US policy responses to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The article finds that the AIPAC lobby is deeply rooted in US policymaking structures, ranging from vice-president, and higher-echelon staff, to parliament members. This article also finds that since 2021, AIPAC has developed its policy to participate in political campaign contributions. Understanding AIPAC influences, the authors note that ethical considerations are crucial to maintaining a strong and representative democracy in the United States. This paper recommends the US to refocus its national interest because such overly foreign influence on national policymaking has the potential to harm America's long-term relationships and interests in the Middle East if the US can’t make the barrier for foreign interference toward its national interests.

This chapter examines how US foreign policy on environmental issues has evolved over a period of nearly five decades, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. It first considers the United States’ environmental multilateralism as well as environmental initiatives under Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Donald Trump before discussing key trends and puzzles in US foreign environmental policy. It shows the United States as an environmental leader during the Cold War, but an environmental laggard in the post–Cold War period, with the Obama administration’s re-engagement in climate diplomacy as a significant exception. The chapter also explains how the larger trend of waning environmental leadership from the United States has occurred at the same time as international environmental problems, especially climate change, have increasingly moved from the periphery towards the centre of world politics.

This chapter provides a comparative case study analysis of US foreign policy toward the Middle East during the Cold War by focusing on major presidential doctrines. The cases of the Truman, Eisenhower , Nixon, Carter , and Reagan doctrines successfully test the claim that US foreign policy was characterized by continuity rather than change. Its foreign policy objectives to maintain regional hegemonic status by preventing the emergence of Soviet hegemony remained unaltered throughout the Cold War. The absence of a supranational government, possession by the Soviet Union, uncertainty of its intentions, and the need to survive dictated the aggressive reaction of the USA. Also, given its geographic location, the USA relied consistently on the grand strategy of offshore balancing to achieve its objectives.