Findings and Implications

Abstract

Since WWII, the USA has arguably been the most influential foreign actor in the Greater Middle East. The demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 removed the last biggest constraint to the USA’s hold on the region. This dominant position in one of the most strategically important areas of the world gave US policymakers a noticeable edge over their global competitors in order to advance the US national interest. Therefore, it is not surprising that successive US administrations’ primary concern in the Greater Middle East has been to maintain their country’s influential status. In particular, the USA has always been seriously concerned with any crisis that could substantially alter the existing distribution of power. Over time, US officials came to see the status quo in the region as highly beneficial to the US national interest and any threat to the status quo as correspondingly dangerous. Hence, US involvement in covert actions aimed at reinstating the shah to power in Iran in 1953, US assistance to the insurgency fighting Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s, and US military intervention in 1991 to repel Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.