Richard W. - Challenges for America in the Middle East

To Laird Graeser, a very special friend!

R. W. M.

To my Berry students, who challenge and inspire me every day.

K. L. T.

The Middle East often seems like a special case to students of foreign policy in the United States: especially troubled, especially hard to understand, especially enmeshed in a set of seemingly unique and intractable political, social, and economic issues. While that is in some ways true, it is also possibleand we think quite usefulto approach policy toward the region and the issues it faces the same way we would begin to understand policy toward any other region or set of issues. Such an approach allows us to view challenges in the region as normal problems of foreign policy. Even the most intractable problems have potential solutions, and our ability to manage these challenges is limited by the same factors that constrain U.S. foreign policy in other regions and issues. Our first chapter lays out a framework that articulates the key influences on U.S. foreign-policy formulation and implementation, regardless of issue area. Specific sources of foreign policy relevant to key challenges in the Middle East are discussed in the opening chapter of each of the books four partsthe Arab Spring (). Readers will see these sources at work in the successive chapters that explain the historical development of the challenge and present-day dynamics and U.S. foreign-policy efforts. As we examine the key factors influencing how the United States formulates and implements its foreign policy toward the region, you will discover that these factors are the same ones that influence Americas policy toward other regions. We begin by discussing how the foreign and domestic arenas have become intermingled in a globalized world and then examine the several sources of foreign policy.