United States foreign policy in the Middle East

United States foreign policy in the Middle East has its roots as early as the Barbary Wars in the first years of the U.S.'s existence, but became much more expansive after World War II. American policy during the Cold War tried to prevent Soviet Union influence by supporting anti-communist regimes and backing Israel against Soviet-sponsored Arab countries. The U.S. also came to replace the United Kingdom as the main security patron of the Persian Gulf states in the 1960s and 1970s, working to ensure Western access to Gulf oil. Since the 9/11 attacks of 2001, U.S. policy has included an emphasis on counter-terrorism. The U.S. has diplomatic relations with all countries in the Middle East except for Iran, whose 1979 revolution brought to power a staunchly anti-American regime.

Recent priorities of the U.S. government in the Middle East have included resolving the Arab–Israeli conflict and limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction among regional states.

The United States' relationship with the Middle East prior to World War I was limited, although commercial ties existed even in the early 19th century. President Andrew Jackson established formal ties with the Sultan of Muscat and Oman in 1833. (The Sultan saw the U.S. as a potential balance to Britain's overwhelming regional influence.) Commercial relations opened between the U.S. and Persia in 1857, after Britain persuaded the Persian government not to ratify a similar agreement in 1851.

In comparison to European powers such as Britain and France which had managed to colonize almost all of the Middle East region after defeating the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the United States was "popular and respected throughout the Middle East". Indeed, "Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans." American missionaries had brought modern medicine and set up educational institutions all over the Middle East. Moreover, the United States had provided the Middle East with highly skilled petroleum engineers. Thus, there were some connections made between the United States and the Middle East before the Second World War. Other examples of cooperations between the U.S. and the Middle East are the Red Line Agreement signed in 1928 and the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement signed in 1944. Both of these agreements were legally binding and reflected an American interest in control of Middle Eastern energy resources, namely oil, and moreover reflected an American "security imperative to prevent the (re)emergence of a powerful regional rival". The Red Line Agreement had been "part of a network of agreements made in the 1920s to restrict supply of petroleum and ensure that the major [mostly American] companies … could control oil prices on world markets". The Red Line agreement governed the development of Middle East oil for the next two decades. The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement of 1944 was based on negotiations between the United States and Britain over the control of Middle Eastern oil. Below is shown what the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had in mind for to a British Ambassador in 1944:

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