Dual containment
Dual containment was an official
It represented a continuation of US foreign policy toward Iran and Iraq during the Cold War and Bill Clinton's attempt to revise a Persian Gulf strategy after the Gulf War.
Rationale
The
Clinton wanted to make the
Although the US had planned in the 1980s to balance Iraq and Iran against each other directly, that had become untenable and unnecessary by the early 1990s. Both countries had been exhausted militarily and financially from the Iran–Iraq War. Also, the Soviet Union was no longer around to be a security benefactor for either country.[6]
Clinton tasked his national security advisor,
Policy vision and implementation
Iraq
The
Lake rejected giving the CIA immediate authority to begin exploring options of a potential officer-led
Clinton authorized the use of punitive military force against Saddam's regime as part of this strategy, such as in 1993, when it was discovered that the Iraqi leader had plotted to assassinate
Iran
Clinton's team saw Iran as a "rogue state" that was fundamentally opposed to American interests in the Middle East.[11]
Overthrow was not a viable policy option because of the lack of organized opposition or American intelligence assets on the ground. Positive inducement to behavioral changes was also dismissed because of the Iranian regime's deep distrust of the US. Finally, punitive military action was ruled out on the grounds that Iran's retaliatory capabilities were considered too great, and the benefits of the strikes were too uncertain. Thus, it was decided to continue American efforts to prevent Iran's acquisition of ballistic missiles and access to international finance.
That approach, known as "active containment," was designed to convince the Iranian elite to pursue rapprochement with the West over time.[12]
On May 6, 1995, Clinton signed an executive order to bolster the Iranian containment. It banned arms sales to Iran, such as
Reception
According to Indyk,
However, the United Arab Emirates by the late 1990s told US officials that they thought that Saddam was meeting his international obligations and that containment of Iraq was no longer necessary.[15] The policy became increasingly unpopular internationally, and the sanctions had weakened significantly by 2000.[16]
Daniel Pipes supported the policy in a testimony to the US Congress in March 1995 and gave praise for its strategy and policy but criticized the tactics of its implementation. He said that US policy should not be forced to engage Iran or Iraq unless either acted responsibly.[17]
Articles in Foreign Affairs[18] and for the Cato Institute[19] in 1994 criticized dual containment as "shot through with logical flaws and practical inconsistencies and is based on faulty geopolitical premises" and one that required "a prolonged U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region."
Resemblance to Kennan's containment of Soviet Union
The idea was inspired by George F. Kennan's ideas of containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but critics have argued[1] that it did not respect Kennan's key demand for containment to succeed: the principle of power-balancing.
According to Kennan, the United States and the Soviet Union should respect the other's spheres of interest. That way the two could get along, build themselves up, and develop their societies. However, they must under no circumstances go to war with each other. To be sure, with two diametrically opposed systems, relations would never be warm, or even co-operative. However, as long as neither tried to destroy each other, catastrophe could be avoided.
What Kennan was expressing was the concept of balancing, the idea that in the world of international politics, a proper balance could be struck between potential adversaries, which would produce a stable situation that could be prolonged indefinitely.
In the case of Iraq and Iran in the 1990s, US policymakers confronted them with what amounted to a diktat since both had to remake themselves according to US desires, or the US would simply keep up the sanctions until they did.
Consequences
As a consequence of the policy, the U.S. had to station large number of troops nearby. Troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia, an area that many in the region regard as "holy soil," which offended many locals and is cited by Osama bin Laden as one reason for his hatred against the United States policies and part of his motivation for the September 11 attacks.
Traditional American policies had been not to engage with troops on the ground in the Middle East, but to stay "over the horizon", ready to move in at short notice. The only time the U.S. had deviated from this policy was during its intervention in the
By the mid-1990s there was considerable dissatisfaction with dual containment, because it made the United States the mortal enemy of two countries that hated each other, and forced Washington to bear the burden of containing both. Pressed by the
The sanctions against Iraq came to be criticized domestically in the United States and in other countries because of the humanitarian toll that they took on civilian Iraqis.[21] The figure of 500,000 child deaths was for a long period widely cited, but recent research has shown that that figure was the result of survey data manipulated by the Saddam Hussein regime and that "there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions."[22][23]
End
By the late 1990s, however,
See also
- Axis of evil
- Iran–United States relations
- Iraq–United States relations
- United States sanctions against Iran
- United States foreign policy in the Middle East
References
- ^ US Army War College, November 1999
- ^ America's Misguided Policy of Dual Containment in the Persian Gulf - Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 33, by Barbara Convay, Cato Institute, November 10, 1994
- ^ Indyk, pp. 32–33.
- ISBN 9781416597254. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
- ^ Indyk, p. 32.
- ^ Indyk, pp. 33–36.
- ^ Indyk, pp. 36–37.
- ^ Indyk, p. 38.
- ^ David Von Drehle & R. Jeffrey Smith (27 June 1993). "U.S. Strikes Iraq for Plot to Kill Bush". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
- ^ "Transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike". CNN. 16 December 1998. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
- ^ Indyk, p. 39.
- ^ Indyk pp. 39–41.
- ^ BAHGAT, GAWDAT (1997). "Beyond Containment: US–Iranian Relations at a Crossroads". Security Dialogue. 28 (4): 454 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Indyk, pp. 56–57.
- ^ Mirhosseini, p. 37.
- Common Dreams NewsCenter. Archived from the originalon 28 June 2012. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
- ^ Daniel Pipes (2 March 1995). "Two Cheers for Dual Containment". Retrieved 22 December 2013.
- doi:10.2307/20045919.
- ^ Barbara Conry (10 November 1994). "America's Misguided Policy of Dual Containment in the Persian Gulf". Cato Foreign Policy Briefing. 33. Cato Institute.
- ^ a b c The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy - by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, London Review of Books, 23 March 2006
- ^ Crossette, Barbara (1 December 1995). "Iraq Sanctions Kill Children, U.N. Reports". The New York Times. p. 9. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
- PMID 29225933.
- ^ Sly, Liz (2017-08-04). "Saddam Hussein said sanctions killed 500,000 children. That was 'a spectacular lie.'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
External links
- America's Misguided Policy of Dual Containment in the Persian Gulf - Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 33, by Barbara Convay, Cato Institute, November 10, 1994