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AMERICAN AND IRAQI FOREIGN POLICY

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has pursued a consensus foreign policy of global engagement aimed at providing a stable international security environment, while promoting free markets and democracy in the international community. The difficulties facing US policy arise from three sources: The actions of other countries, the inherent conflicts between American objectives, and domestic disagreements over the proper ends and means of American foreign policy.

More difficult, however, for the United States are the ensuing conflicts between American objectives and political expedience. For example, the American interest between promoting democracy and human rights often conflicts with the interest in promoting stability when a strategically important country has a friendly, yet authoritarian ruler. The interest in promoting economic liberalization may conflict with the interest in promoting democracy when, for example, the United States must decide whether to allow free trade, or whether to impose or maintain sanctions on a country on like Iraq. These conflicts between objectives often give rise to the most serious problems that American foreign policy faces.

Because of these conflicts, foreign policy often fails in that objectives and political exigency are far apart. Such a failure was clearly apparent in the handling of Iraq by the administration of the former President William Clinton. This failure has meant that Iraq, under its leader, Saddam Hussein, deployed a strategy of focused engagement to weaken the collation that had ejected him from Kuwait, with an eye to eliminating United Nations (UN) sanctions. This strategy becomes apparent when we examine the events that took place before Operation Desert Fox.

During Clinton's second term in office, the US "dual containment" policy toward Iran and Iraq, which he inherited from the Bush, Sr. administration and then intensified during his first term, failed com...

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AMERICAN AND IRAQI FOREIGN POLICY. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:14, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1706385.html