US Foreign Policy Values Democracy for the People in the Middle East

Historically we"ve undermined democracy whenever it suited our national interests in the middle east. Former US Defense Secretary William Cohen stated that "We have to balance our ideals and also our strategic interests" a balance that I"ll argue nearly always favors strategic interests over ideals. -In 1953 the CIA worked covertly to help overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran. The overthrow was in favor of a military authoritarian government led by the Shah. The cause was Iranian parliament's decision in 1951 to nationalize Iran"s oil industry, an industry controlled by the British Anglo-Iranian Oil company, now known as BP 1 -Saddam Hussein, the brutal Iraqi dictator was originally a CIA asset and was the recipient of US aid during the Iran-Iraq conflict. 2 Regime change only became desirable when he invaded the oil rich nation of Kuwait and threatened oil mecca (pardon the pun) Saudi Arabia. Kuwait at the time and today remains a monarchy as we, at no point in the first gulf war, insisted Kuwait become a Democracy. -The US supported through foreign aid and weapons the taliban rule over Afghanistan. A democratically elected government wasn"t as important to the US as preventing expansion of Soviet Russia into Afghanistan. 3 -For 30 years the US supported the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship, so long as he played nice to Israel he received billion in foreign aid from the United States. The US only changed course and came in support of a Democratic Egypt when Mubarak looked to be losing his grip in the midst of a widespread Arab spring. 4 Currently we do not actively endorse Democratic governments in many middle eastern nations: Most notably Saudi Arabia, with the largest oil reserves in the world Saudi Arabia is an important strategic interest to the United States and stability is of the most vital importance. Saudi Arabia is ruled by civil rights abusing, authoritarian Royal Family. 5 A royal family that lives a lavish lifestyle and squanders vast amounts of it"s countries oil money. 6 Other countries who lack Democracy yet do not warrant strong American support for democracy include Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen, and the UAE to name a few. When we do support democratic governments in the middle east it"s only in service of the main US goal, that is stability and security of regional resources. Not any kind of altruism towards the peoples of said countries. Iraq is the most prominent and recent example of the US spreading Democracy. While for over a decade regime change was the goal in Iraq, only after 911 was there an excuse to actually invade and install a democracy. Of course the vast natural resources of Iraq were also now available to outside companies, once restricted from doing business there. 7 Now while the Iraqi people were voting on their next leaders, the US was busy building the largest embassy ever. Laying to rest any ideas that the US wouldn"t remain extensively involved in the governing of Iraq, in as far as keeping natural resources open to companies. Sources 1 http://news.bbc.co.uk... 2http://www.upi.com... 3http://news.bbc.co.uk... 4http://www.cnn.com... 5http://www.hrw.org... 6http://www.reuters.com... 7http://www.vice.com...