Dual containment

Dual containment was an official United States foreign policy aimed at containing Iraq and Iran, Israel's and the United States' two most important strategic adversaries in the Middle East. It was first outlined in May 1993 by Martin Indyk at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and officially announced on February 24, 1994 at a symposium of the Middle East Policy Council by Indyk, then the senior director for Middle East Affairs of the National Security Council (NSC). It represented Bill Clinton's attempt to formulate a Persian Gulf strategy after the end of the Cold War and America's eviction of Iraq from Kuwait.

The United States had a long-standing strategic doctrine in the Middle East not to let any one country become so powerful that they could control the entire Gulf region's oil supply. For this reason, the U.S. looked to both Saudi Arabia and Iran under the Shah as "twin pillars" of regional security. (See offshore balancing.)

Clinton wanted to make the Israeli–Palestinian peace process a major priority in his foreign policy, and he wanted to ensure Iraq and Iran would not be in a position to interfere with that agenda. Iraq was already under containment by the U.S. and its allies in the form of the Iraqi no-fly zones. Iran had been cut off from the U.S. ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Although Clinton held out hope for eventual changes in regime policy from these countries, containment seemed like the only viable option in the near term.

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