US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: 1979-1990

Background and Proposed Research Focus

Protests by Islamic fundamentalists in Iran erupted into violence in 1978. The government of the Shah declared martial law in 12 major cities in early September of that year, and a military government for the country was appointed two months later. The Shah was forced to flee the country in January 1979, and the opposition leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned to Iran in earlyFebruary of that year. Iran was declared an Islamic Republic on 1 April 1979.

The events that occurred in Iran in 1978 and 1979 demanded a complete reappraisal of American foreign policy for the Middle East. Under the Shah, Iran had formed one of the cornerstones of American policy in the region. Open warfare broke out between Iran and Iraq in September 1980, and that conflict caused more shifts in American foreign policy toward the Middle East. The continuing ArabIsraeli dispute, an enduring and deepening American dependence on Middle Eastern energy sources, and a growing concern with international political terrorism, much of which originated in Middle Eastern countries further complicated to development and application of American foreign policy in the Middle East. On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded the State of Kuwait. This date proved to be another watershed in American foreign policy development in the Middle East.

To many observers, American foreign policy toward the Middle

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political development is a part of conflict behavior at the societal level9 Conflict behavior is contrasted with competition. Where competition is "aimed at achieving particular goals, conflict implies "behavior aimed at affecting an opponent."10 The differentiation between conflict behavior and competition is significant, because conflict assumes the necessity or the desirability of confrontation. C. R. Mitchell defined conflict behavior as ". . . overt actions undertaken by one party . . . aimed at an opposing party with the intention of making that party abandon or modify its goals."11 Coercive diplomacy is a type of conflict behavior.12 The use of coercion as a form of political participation is a negative action, as opposed to the pursuit of a positive policy.13 The use of coercion is one means of attempting to upset some sort of existing balance. It attempts to cause the party at which it is directed "to relinquish values that would __________ 8Quincy Wright, A Study of War, Abridged Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964), 2O5. 9C. R. Mitchell, The Structure of International Conflict (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), 29. 10Ibid., 30. 11Ibid., 120. 12Robert Mandel, "The Effectiveness of Gunboat D
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Approximate Word count = 1922
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)