"When you look back at the role that Washington has played between the Arabs and the Israelis, it is clear that the United States could end the Arab-Israeli conflict tomorrow, if it so desired"

Résumé du document

The picture taken at the Washington summit right after the Madrid conference just says it all: Rabin and Arafat, the representatives of the two most antagonistic peoples in the modern world, shake hands under Clinton's blessing. Thus it may seem that the American presence and participation is the condition to successful peace negotiations between Arabs and Israelis. But the truth is that the interests at stake in this long-lasting conflict −land and religion, to name but a few− are too linked to both Palestinian and Israeli communities to be solved by an external power. The very notion of "promised land" shows that this is first a matter of attachment to land, something quite irrational or at least not rational enough to be tamed by outside powers. The United States has proved to be able to elaborate solutions that seem workable, but actual implementation is very difficult because old interests and rivalries cast away signs of sensibility.

Extraits

[...] Indeed, the latter was too focused on countering Soviet expansion and had no previous involvement in Iran for it to assume any role in the assertion of Iranian democratic principles. The dual containment policy that has prevailed since the rise of Iran and Iraq as dangerous powers in the Middle East doesn't help change the Iranians' perception of the Great Satan: United States replaced Britain as the object of Iranian nationalists' hatred and xenophobia”[8]. Richard W. Cottam, Iran and the United States: A Cold War Case Study, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988; p Ibid.; p Ibid.; p Ibid.; p H.W. [...]

[...] The radicalism of the 1979 Revolution and the deterioration of US-Iranian relations after that were really a consequence of the disillusionments of the Iranian people at noticing the gap between their expectations toward the American intervention and the United States' self-interested perspectives. The ambivalent image of the United States (both the herald of democratic values and the foreign dominator( puzzled Iranians quite a lot. For instance, Carter's human rights policy had no real implications in Iran, and only increased Iranian people's expectations of an American tutor that would show Iran's officials install democracy in their country. [...]

[...] Brands, Into the Labyrinth: The United States and the Middle East (1945-1993), McGrawHill; p Ibid.; p Richard W. Cottam, Iran and the United States: A Cold War Case Study, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988; p H.W. Brands, Into the Labyrinth: The United States and the Middle East (1945-1993), McGrawHill; p. 44. [...]

[...] But with Britain resigning and Russia's influence growing in the region, the United States decided to step in, with two goals, one geostrategic, the other economic: defeating the USSR and taking advantage of Iran's abundant oil resources. And indeed, right after World War II, the shah's primary objective was to attract official American support. The belief in an efficient American help was reinforced by the impact of the Wilsonian principles in Iran The United States were thus encouraged to assume a greater role in Iran: while the former British presence was seen as an obstacle to the country's development, the Iranians welcomed the American presence on the belief that the former could only benefit from the expertise of the most democratic and wealthiest country in the world. [...]

[...] The shah welcomed the American assistance (Iranians were so used to political interferences that Cottam describes them as “normal political behavior”[1] ( but the problem that degenerated from then on was a misperception of the role that the United States was willing to play: they intended to stand as a protector against Soviet influence in a Cold War context (the trade-off being access to Iran's oil resources( while Iran's officials expected help on internal matters. The breakout of the 1979 revolution showed that the danger did come from the inside and that the Americans had underestimated the impact of such threat over regional and global stability. [...]