Strategic Setbacks: Analysis of Carter Administration's Middle East Policy

Abstract

After World War II, successive U.S. presidents have steadily advanced the U.S. strategic presence in the Middle East, but such efforts were challenged under the Carter administration. At the time of the Carter presidency, he actively promoted the Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation and further reaffirmed his support for Israel, while focusing on addressing the potential risks of oil supply and prices in the Middle East, but many of his Middle East policies did not fundamentally achieve the expected results. Despite the Egyptian-Israeli reconciliation, the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unsettled; the re-emergence of the oil crisis had once again triggered a crisis in the Western world, and the failure of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the Islamic Revolution has destroyed a pillar of the U.S. Middle East strategy. Consequently, Carter’s foreign policy is not without impediments but settles the basis for subsequent U.S. Middle East policy with inveterate impacts and the concepts of peace and democracy.