American and Soviet Policies towards Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Cold War - Essay Example

Order 158066 American and Soviet Policies towards Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Cold War Introduction The Second World War ended in the European theater on May 8, 1945. And the Cold War began on that day. The cold war had many dimensions; one was ideological, another was political, a third one was economic, and to all these we may also add the rivalry between America and Russia as to who would ‘rule’ the world. With an uncanny political insight Alexis de Tocqueville had predicted as early as 1835 that “There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. . . Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world”1. It would appear; therefore, that history has destined these two nations to be at each other until a final and decisive victory is achieved by one over the other. But that time has not yet arrived, even though the cold war was declared to have been ended on December 3, 1989 at the conclusion of the Malta summit between George Bush Sr. and Mikhail Gorbachev. The involvement of America and Russia in the Arab-Israeli conflict is considered by many as ‘part and parcel’ of the cold war and being fought in the Middle East theater. We discuss as to what extent this line of argument is a sufficient explanation of ‘the super powers’ involvement in the conflict. The ‘political Vacuum’ With the withdrawal of the colonial powers, Britain and France, from the Middle East after WW II, there was a virtual political vacuum in the region. By 1948 Soviet Union had consolidated its hegemony over Eastern Europe. The ‘Truman doctrine’ put a rein to its further ‘expansion’ into Greece or Turkey. But along with consolidating its domination over the East European nations, Soviet Union was busy trying to build and expand its influence among the ‘Islamic’ nations to its south. The ‘war-weary’ Britain and France left it to the US to counter the Soviet influence2. Israel has been the ‘natural ally’ of US for this purpose. But strenuous efforts have also been made to enlist the support of the Arab nations to contain and if possible, eliminate, the inroads of Soviet influence into their region3. The American stance The US has often been, or at least appeared to have been, an honest broker of peace between the warring Israelis and the Arabs. However, the American stance declared and reiterated often and clearly articulated by Carter has been that: “it is absolutely crucial that no one in our country or around the world ever doubt that our number one commitment in the Middle East is to protect the right of Israel to exist”.4 This commitment has included and comprehensively involved the pledge to promote also “the prosperity of Israel”.5 In regard to the Arabs the American policy has been to use aid as a strategic tool and bring them within the orbit of ‘American-dependency’ syndrome. Egypt first, and later Jordan had been brought within this orbit by 1990. A second objective was “to maintain the arms balance in the Middle East”. The US has been an arms supplier to sundry clients in the region such as the pre-revolutionary Iran, the Saudis, the Israelis and the anti-soviet Afghan guerrillas. In this balancing act, the US was careful to see that the scale had always tipped in favor of its clients. These objectives were corollaries or rather subservient to two other objectives, namely to ‘maintain a steady flow of Iranian and Arab oil to the Western states of the capitalist world’; and to ‘prevent Soviet expansionism’. Edwards and Hinchcliffe say that: “The United States saw it as its objective (especially following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the collapse of the pro-American regime in Iran) to ‘protect’ the independence of the Arab states and to defend their free choice to continue to supply oil to the West unhindered by the Soviet Union or any of its allies in the area.”6 In their skeletal form these were the ‘mainframe’ of Us policy in the Middle East which it was ready to maintain and pursue even with military means, if necessary, as illustrated by the Gulf war of 1991 and the Iraq invasion of 2003. For the US the Gulf adventure has been a resounding economic gain in that in the after the 1991 war, “it has extracted commercial contracts as a quid pro quo for its support for the Gulf monarchies” and after the Iraq war it has granted “contracts for reconstruction projects exclusively to US companies”7 The Russian stance Russian foreign policy refrain throughout the Soviet regime period has been infused with “ant-Americanism”. Its ‘Middle East policy’ did not exhibit any ideological overtones. In 1986, Gorbocheve’s report to the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of Soviet Union contained only a bland statement that they were “in favor of a collective search to solve the conflict situation in the Near and Middle East”8 Herman says that despite their incessant litany of anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism, the Soviets were not reckless to advocate a ‘militant’ policy against US in the Middle East.9 However they had supplied massive quantities of arms to Syria, which however had not been able to match that of Israel. In the closing years of the 1980s Soviet Russia was too much concerned with internal problems of its own that it had not much time to allot to anti- American rhetoric. Post-soviet Russia is not much different from the closing days of the previous regime. If anything, it has become more weakened. It has a sizable number of Muslims within its own borders. And how vulnerable its domestic peace has been was tragically illustrated by what happened in Chechnya in the 1990s. Russia has been accusing Saudi Arabia of supporting separatist Islamic ‘terrorists’ in the former USSR-Transcaucasus and Central Asian regions.10 Russian response to American declarations in the aftermath of 9/11 that the ‘litmus test’ of American policy was complete support to its ‘war on terror’ was restrained, with the insistence that terrorists must be punished, but within the limits of international law.11 Russia, of course, is concerned about the possibilities of Western control over Iraq and Iran. But it is very much conscious of its own weakness to do anything spectacular about it. It is more concerned with safeguarding and promoting its own national interests; and in this its ruling elite is of the view that Israel is to be accommodated as ‘a strategic ally’.12 However, it wants to maintain control over the Caspian Sea oil and its transportation to the West.13 In this scenario, Russian intervention in the Middle East problem, even though not yet a thing of the past, has lost much of its teeth, and may be much of its voice too. And USA, the ‘lone super power’ reigns supreme. References Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1835 quoted in The History Guide: Lecture 14: The Origins of the Cold War at www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture14.html Edwards, Beverly Milton and Peter Hinchcliffe: 2006, Conflicts in the Middle East since 1945, Routledge, London, 2006 Herman, Richard: Soviet Policy and Arab-Israeli Conflict: Actions, Patterns and Interpretations. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 102, No. 3 (Autumn 1987), pp.417-440. Kreutz, Andrej: The Geopolitics of Post-Soviet Russia and the Middle East. ASQ Vol.24. No. 1 (Winter 2002) pp.49-61 Paul-Marie de La Gorce : 1977, Europe and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Survey, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1997, pp.5-16 Read More