Abstract
Abstract : The Middle East is now the focus for a major portion of US strategic thinking. American concerns for assuring the continued flow of oil to the industrial West and Japan, resolving the Arab-Israeli problems, forestalling increased Soviet influence, preserving the national independence of area states, and maintaining regional stability indicate the importance and complexity of US involvement in the region. Events in the late 1970s altered the strategic environment drastically, causing the United States to make a searching reappraisal of its interests and objectives in the region. These events included the disintegration of the Central Treaty Organization, the oil price spiral, the declaration of a Marxist state in South Yemen, the overthrow of the Shah in Iran and the assumption of power by a militant Islamic Republic, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Singly each event might have proven manageable, but in concert they pointed clearly to the overall deterioration of the US position throughout the region. These developments set a disquieting tone for the strategic environment facing the United States in the Mideast in the 1980s.
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