Introduction

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Recently there has been a debate over whether the problems the United States faces in the Middle East are the result of misguided policies or the absence of any consistent policy whatsoever. In either case, Americans can point to few clear successes in this region, and there is a growing consensus that our entire approach to the area needs to be reassessed. The influence of the Palestinians and the Libyans, for example, has persevered or expanded despite strong opposition from the United States. More disturbingly, even our "friends" in the area appear unenthusiastic about our initiatives. We cannot seem to get theJordanians to join the Camp David process, or to draw the Saudis into our "strategic consensus," or to restrain the Israeli air force from "creating facts" just as we embark on delicate negotiations. Even our allies in NATO have balked at joining the United States in an embargo of Iran or in measures to punish the Soviets for invading Afghanistan. But the most painful failures of the American approach are in Egypt and Iran. The assassination of Sadat and the revolution against the shah not only deprived America of useful surrogates in the region, they also brought home the message that all of the local regimes through which we have tried to exert influence in the region face grave domestic problems that may limit their support for us. Of course, these failures may be seen as facets of the general deterioration of relations between the United States and the Third World in the 1970s. However, the crisis in the American approach to the Middle East has a special salience because events in this region have such an immediate impact on our quality oflife. Americans need look no farther than their wallets to be reminded of the importance of changes in the price of Libyan crude, or in the volume of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, or in government appropriations for the RDF and its maneuvers in Egypt. We cannot, therefore, be philosophical about political trends in the Middle East. The articles in this issue of the SAIS Review deal with various problems in the Middle East from a broad range of perspectives. Despite their diverse viewpoints 2 SAIS REVIEW and analyses, each of the authors raises certain fundamental questions about the conduct or orientation of U.S. foreign policy in the region. Three of these questions are so pervasive that they deserve the reader's special attention. First, is U.S. policy based on an adequate understanding of the political forces and processes at work in the Middle East? The essay by Farsoun and Wingerter suggests that American efforts to deal with the conflict in Lebanon have been crippled by a failure to comprehend the role that the Palestinians play in that crisis. The article by Wrong also criticizes the prevailing interpretations of the Lebanese civil war, but offers an analysis whose policy implications are radically different. The articles by Keddie and Sale on Iran both argue that the United States failed to recognize the social changes and political groups that eventually would overthrow the shah. But they differ over whether an exaggerated fear of local communism or the neglect of traditional social forces was responsible for this blindness. The contribution by Richardson notes that the United States has not even fully understood how European interests differ from our own in this region, or why the EEC states have kept their distance from the Camp David process. Second, has U.S. policy offered appropriate support for our allies in the Middle East? In his memoriam, Ambassador Battle joins a number of other American diplomats who have argued that Sadat's assassination might have been prevented had the United States provided him with stronger diplomatic support. Sale's article extends this critique a step further by suggesting that, whatever its volume, U.S. aid to Iran may have focused too narrowly on military supplies at the expense of economic aid. This point is reinforced by Zartman and McNamara, who argue (in very different contexts) that the economic development of countries in the region may be as important to their political stability as the security apparatuses of their states. The...