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.
