The Development Strategies of the Oil-Rich Countries of the Gulf - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages Support for dictatorships in the Middle East emphatically demonstrates that cold, hard geopolitical factors influence American state behavior and supersede any concern the United States may have for other factors such as Middle Eastern democracy or the promotion of human rights. Human rights abuses are routinely ignored in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has resisted calls for democratic reform and remains President of the Egyptian Republic since the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat in 1981. Saudi Arabia is a notorious oppressor of human rights and commits rights violations against women and religious and sexual minorities on a near-daily basis. Since Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, the United States has turned a blind eye to human rights violations and has helped prop up the theocratic Saudi monarchy since the days of Ibn Saud. Both countries, either overtly or tacitly, supported the US invasion of Iraq (Morag, 2006).
The US invasion of Iraq of 2003, codenamed “Operation Iraqi Freedom” curiously was not undertaken following Saddam Hussein’s genocide of the Kurdish minority in Halabja in 1988, nor after the violent suppression of a Shi’a insurgency following the First Gulf War. Instead, US interests lie in securing the availability and continued flow of oil from one of the world’s most important producers of this important natural resource. Although cloaked in rhetoric concerning the freedom of the Iraqi people, the invasion in fact has led to untold death on both sides, military occupation, and a violent 5-year-old insurgency. Saudi Arabia is home to untold natural wealth and the despotic Al Saud regime has ensured a strong relationship with the world’s hegemonic power. Accordingly, relations with the US and Saudi Arabia remain positive six years later (Bloom, 2005). ...Download file to see next pages Read More