NES 2686 - [The U.S. and the Middle East]

(crosslisted) AMST 2686, HIST 2686, JWST 2686
(HA-AS, HST-AS) CU-ITL

Fall. Not offered: 2020-2021. Next offered 2021-2022. 3 credits. Student option grading.

R. Brann.

This seminar examines the history of the United States’ involvement with Middle East beginning with evangelical efforts in the 19th century and President Wilson’s engagement with the colonial powers in the early 20th century during and after WWI. The discovery of vast Middle Eastern oil reserves and the retreat of the colonial powers from the region following WWII drew successive US administrations ever deeper into Middle Eastern politics. In due course, the US became entrenched in the post-colonial political imagination as heir to the British and the French especially as it challenged the Soviet Union for influence in the region during the Cold War. And that only takes the story to the mid-1950s and the Eisenhower administration. Our discussions will be based on secondary readings and primary sources as we interrogate the tension between realist and idealist policies toward the Middle East and trace how these tensions play out in subsequent developments including the origins and trajectory of the US strategic alliances with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey and conflict with Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the two Gulf Wars.