A Return to the Middle Eastern Great Game (Part One)

posted on: Feb 19, 2015

There is no place in the world today where chaos is more prevalent and the reestablishment of order more critical than the Middle East. The “great game” between rival great powers may have originated in Central Asia but it found its most intense expression at the “crossroads of empire” in the Middle East. As long as American interests are still engaged the United States cannot desist from playing it.

The United States used to have a strategy for the Middle East. It was known as the “pillars” strategy, and it was based on working with the regional powers that were committed to maintaining the status quo—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey. The challenge was to contain the revisionist powers—Egypt, Iraq, and Syria—who were backed by the Soviet Union. Over time, the United States lost the Iranian pillar but gained an Egyptian one, reinforcing the Sunni Arab order, but now confronting a Shia revolutionary power in the Gulf.

In 1992, the United States became the dominant power in the region in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eviction of Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait. After that, Bush ’41 and Clinton ’42 adopted a clear, common strategy for preserving stability that involved three components:

Source: www.brookings.edu