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The Arab-israeli Conflict And United States Geo-strategic And Economic Interests In The Middle-east
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Morgenthau
in his work, “Politics among Nations†also elaborated on the realist
perspectives of international relations. For Morgenthau, international
politics is a struggle for power whether at the individual, state, or
international level.
The exercise of power involves an attempt by one
party to get an individual or state to act in a manner contrary to
pre-conceived wishes or interests.
Karl Marx’s (1818 – 1883) radical
concept – Marxism is a historical analysis which centred on class
struggle. He stratified society in two basic social groups, that is the
ruling class and a subject class. He theorized that the ruling class
owns and controls the means of production and therefore derived its
power through this process, which it perpetually exercises over the
subject class.5 Marx alluded to the evolution of Western Society
through four stages. These are the phase of:
primitive communism,
ancient society,
feudal society, and
capitalist society.
Pre-historic society epitomizes primitive communism which basically was
a classless society. From here society evolved into the master and
slaves in ancient society, lords and serfs in feudal society, and
capitalist society which involves the bourgeoisie and the wage earners –
the labourers6.
In the Communist Manifesto jointly
co-authored with his bosom friend and confidant – Friedrich Engels in
1848, Marx stated that his taxonomy of society is not a functional class
in terms of income, but an economic class in terms of its economic
interests.7 He maintained that such economic classes are not fixed in
society but that, they are the result of the production relations that
society has adopted. He was of the view that capitalism as an economic
system is exploitative and that an enduring capitalist formation will
perpetually keep the working class subjugated to the whims and caprices
of the bourgeoisie. His theoretical advocacy was to have a revolutionary
reconstruction of society through the incentivization of the
proletariat to seize the ownership and means of production from the
State in order to enhance their well-being by replacing capitalism with
socialism.8 In the Marxist normative and activist thinking, this would
help to ameliorate inequalities and reduce dependency relationship that
exists in class rule. In the course of this work we shall highlight the
Leninist variant of Marxism, and how the various theories enumerated
above played out in the Middle-East crisis.
Secondly, our
methodology shall also examine the events of Post World War II which
heralded the emergence of two Super-powers – the United States of
America and the Soviet Union as “primary actors in the international
systemâ€9. The Cold-War imperatives occasioned by Soviet Marxist
political expansionism (Sovietization) orchestrated to bring countries
of Eastern Europe – Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania
and parts of Eastern Germany into Soviet Orbit (as they were farcically
referred to as “Peoples Democraciesâ€) and also the Subterranean designs
to extend same to parts of Western Europe, accounted for United States
inexorable commitment to the Truman Doctrine of 1947 which came up with
the policy framework of containment to check Soviet Communist aggression
in any part of the world.10
In President Truman’s
declaration, he asserted “I believe it must be the policy of the United
States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation
by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must
assist free peoples to work their own destinies in their own wayâ€. This
policy thrust based on United States geostrategic interest became the
fundamental doctrine of American foreign policy during the bi-polar
years which played out in a series of proxy confrontations as a Balance
of Power mechanism between the superpowers in the Middle-East. The
United States traditional support for Israel and Soviet’s backing for
moderate Arab States such as Egypt, Syria and Iraq became visible in the
numerous wars fought in that region.11 This will be expatiated upon in
the course of this work.
Thirdly, the divisiveness
within the Arab community has also exacerbated hostilities in the
Middle-East. Then, finally, Arab response or revisionist movements
against the State of Israel and her imperial collaborators, as well as
the preponderance of bilateral or multilateral diplomacy at resolving
the conflict shall form the concluding portion of this work.
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