Relationship between the USA and the Middle East - Essay Example

Environmental studies Introduction The Middle East is the host to a majority of the Arabic nations that are in Western Asia and almost the whole of North Africa. It also brags of being the legendary origin of major world religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. These regions’ distinctive features are hot climate and arid land that do not support agriculture. Through irrigation, part of this region has managed to make its land cultivatable by making them productive to a level of exporting some of their produce. In this decade, the Iraq has been an economical, political, and cultural sensitive area. Over the years, the region has become the centre for conflicts as the United States has been keen on safeguarding its interest and those of Israel in the region. This vast region is generally very hot and dry while its soil type is sandy soil, which does not support plant cover. Ideally, the Middle East mainly comprises of the Arab culture but it also accommodates other minute descents of the Turks, Iranians, and Israelis. Therefore, the most common religion in here is the Islamic religion. Over the years, this Iraq is a rich oil-producing region across the world, but poor administration has influenced its stunted economic growth. With most of the world nations being oil and petroleum reliant, economic growth was inevitable due to heavy supply of these products. With this, this essay will delve into the environmental issues and problems in the Middle East region, especially Iraq and the impacts of the same. Further, the focus will also be on the ways of influencing positive relationship between the USA and the people of the Middle East within my personal view. Learning the environment, culture, geopolitics, Islam, conflict, and war in the Middle East region The attacks on American soil of the 9/11 terrorist bother by the Al Qaeda in 2001 was the turning point as this made the country to scale up its efforts towards curbing insurgency on its soil and in foreign lands. The result of this was a pledge by President George Bush to wage war on terror to the point that this would no longer be a threat to the progress of this super power (Fontenot, Degen and Tohn 16). This led to the funding of military activities in Iraq in an attempt to destroy the threat that Iraq posed to other nations such as Israel through its leader Saddam Hussein because of their alleged possession of nuclear very destructive weapons. The American administration at the time pledged that the military activity in Iraq was a way of protecting Israel because it was prone to such attacks. In essence, the stalemate between Iraq and Israel began in the 1980s when the latter bombed the former’s nuclear reactors where the USA stepped in to avert a humanitarian crisis because of a retaliatory assault by Iraq. Many sources reported that the USA invaded the Iraq space as a way of protecting Israel as reported by many political analysts. This was a counter argument to the claims that America was invading Iraq to protect itself as many of the spectators in the war were alleging. People felt that the intentions by their USA were not mutual as they did not give audience to the actual problems that were ailing the Middle East. They acted for the interest of the Israeli’s, but most of them did not loud the efforts that they were putting in to secure their freedom. The situation on the ground was that Iraqis associated Americans to Jews because they fought for the same cause as they nicknamed American soldiers ‘Jews’. Subsequently, Israel felt safe because of the efforts that America had put in Iraq because of the war that was ongoing and any planned attack by the Middle East nations could not succeed. Israel suggested that the possible way for quelling the pressure on Iraq was through military action or the division of this nation into three parts. The idea was to make the north to be for the Kurds, the center of Iraq for the Sunnis and the southern part of Iraq for the Shiites. The implication of this is that America together with Britain combined forces to partition Iraq for the sake of Israel and not for their own benefits (Lansford 11). On the other hand, the war on Iraq attracted widespread protests in some European countries because many viewed it as unjust because the fight was not worth the effort. About the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ ‘how,’ and ‘who’ of the war One of the primary reasons that influenced the decisions for America to go to Iraq was for dissolving the tyranny and dictatorship rule that Saddam Hussein had subjected to the Iraqis. Ideally, the elections in this Middle East country were never democratic as Hussein found himself commanding the Iraqi administration after concurrent elections. The other reason as given by the then senior adviser to defense and the security affairs Mr. Bremer Paul, the ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ intended to bring down Saddam’s army and its entire intelligence team (Bremer 54). This was going to be a preface to the establishment of a new security and intelligence team that was going to be impartial in delivering the required services. In addition, the law that President Clinton ascended to in 1998 that sought to bring down Saddam’s administration also propelled the American involvement in ousting President Hussein (Kaim 18). The first attack on Iraq was in 20 March 2003 in Baghdad and the death toll that followed the sporadic attacks in this Middle East country totaled to thousands. However, the USA also registered its fair share of casualties as the number of soldiers that died in the Iraqi war also ran to thousands and left scores others injured or disabled for life. Iraqis also became refugees either within Iraq or in bordering regions with others becoming detainees because of their alleged participation in the Saddam Hussein administration. The effects of the war remained visible even after the war had died down as doctors in the region reported a rise in defects at birth for children whose cause they claim to have been from the weapons used by the US soldiers during the war. On the other hand, the cost implications caused by the war were also very visible as the budgetary allocation translated into trillions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money. This was inclusive of the running costs for the war and the cost of the benefits entitled to the war veterans making many to view the war as unnecessary. On the contrary, the US entry into Iraq heightened torture for Iraqis as compared to the time that Hussein was in power, which attracted the concern of many human rights activists. The US ran prisons registered inhumane acts on prisoners as the US soldiers had no regard for the cultural beliefs and practices held by Iraqis. In one instance, a journalist threw a shoe at President Bush’s press briefing in Baghdad, which was a sign of their discontent with the way that his administration was handling Iraqis. Personal worldview and vision about how to promote a positive relationship between America and the Middle East The existing popular worldview is that the way that America handled the Iraqi situation was distasteful because the plan deviated from the initial intent, which was to restore sanity to this dictator nation. Ideally, a significant part of Iraqi land has huge deposits of oil making it to have immense potential for economic growth (Duffield and Dombrowski 68). Rather than helping the nation to become independent, the US might have influenced this nation to deteriorate further economically because nothing good came out of the war except ending Saddam’s reign of terror (Duffield and Dombrowski 70). Further, the election process that followed the liberation were also not successful in bringing democracy to Iraq as the leader elected was the people’s choice, but received minimal support from outside forces. The only way of ensuring that the Middle East thrives is by respecting the decisions that they make and ensuring that they offer the support that they would require. For instance, the oil reserves that Iraq has can help the nation to prosper, but the western super powers are not willing to help this nation to capitalize on its oil deposits. The money that went into this program did not achieve the desired goals as instead the American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners in the name of restoring peace. The channeling of the money should have taken priority in training and capacity building rather than retaining soldiers that added minimal value to the process. In the end, war in the Middle East can never be a successful way of resolving conflict, but engaging those affected directly in the process can be a principle way of uniting the American people and the inhabitants of Middle East. Works cited Bremer, L. Pau. My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of hope. New York: Simon and Schuster Press, 2006. Print. Duffield, John, and Dombrowski, Peter. Balance Sheet: The Iraq War and U.s. National Security. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2009. Internet resource. Fontenot, Gregory, E J. Degen, and Tohn, David. On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Annapolis, Md: Naval Inst. Press, 2005. Print. Kaim, Markus. Great Powers and Regional Orders: The United States and the Persian Gulf. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2008. Internet resource. Lansford, Tom. 9/11 and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Chronology and Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2012. Print. Read More