Welcome to the Political Economy of Israel and Middle East course.

In today’s video we will continue with the Borders areas and nation states in the Middle East and focusing on Political Intervention and Arab League and Conflicts. This is a complex issue that has been present throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries.

We have already seen how volatile the Middle East was, and how foreign countries took control after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

In this video we will be focusing on:

Early 20th century relationship with the US and the commodity of oil

Changes in political relationships with the US

The role of the Soviet Union

Before Word War 1 the United States’ relationship with the Middle East was minimal.

It was popular respected throughout almost all of the Middle East in comparison to the other colonial powers of Europe, such as Britain or France.

Considering the amount of anti-American feeling there is in today’s Middle East, would you believe that many people saw the Americans as ‘good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans?

American missionaries had brought modern medicine and set up educational institutions all over the Middle East and had provided the Middle East with highly skilled petroleum engineers.

Other examples of cooperations between the US and the Middle East are the Red Line Agreement signed in 1928 and the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement signed in 1944.

These reflected the American interest in the Middle East’s energy resources, especially oil, and also their desire to prevent any powerful rivals emerging from the Middle East – as we have seen already, the Middle East could be used as a battle ground for opposing Cold War sides.

The Red Line Agreement essentially made sure that American companies could control the oil prices.

The agreement ruled over the development of the Middle East for the next 20 years.

The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement of 1944 was between the United States and Britain over the control of Middle Eastern oil.

In 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt commented to a British Ambassador:

“Persian oil …is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it’s ours.”

The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement was signed on 8th of August 1944 dividing Middle Eastern oil between the United States and Britain.

This bolstered the US position on the Arab peninsula, they had changed from a position of net exporter of petroleum to one of net importer.

By the end of the Second World War, the United States had come recognize the Middle East as the most strategically important area of the world and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.

It is from this point on that we will see a lot more involvement in the Middle East from Uncle Sam.

At this time the whole region of the Middle East was going through huge social, economic and political changes.

Let’s face it, they were in such a state of turmoil!

Nationalistic politics was becoming increasingly popular and the colonial powers of Britain and France were losing control of power.

Now, it is at this point when the US relationship with the Middle East changes, in what many people describe as a great divide.

There were three main interests that the Americans had, that would also come to be the cause of several future conflicts. Do you think you could guess any of them?  Think about the history of second half of the 20th Century, what was the main concerns that dominated global politics?  If you said the battle between Coke and Pepsi… then go back to sleep.

Access to oil, the foundation of Israel and the relationship with the Soviet Union.

These three interests would prove to be reasoning for a great deal of American interventions in the Middle East.

So, let us now take a quick look at the other Superpower involved in the Middle East- the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union played a significant role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and as such it formed a major part of the Cold War.

Officially, the Russians condemned the Zionist movement on ideological grounds.

If you don’t know what Zionism is, it is a form of Jewish nationalism.

Zionism was condemned by Lenin as a “socially regressive”.

We will be looking more closely at the Arab- Israel conflict in Unit 3 of this course.

With all the tension and issues surrounding the involvement of the USA and the Soviet Union in the Middle East, we haven’t actually looked at what the Middle Eastern countries were themselves involved.

So, let’s take a look at the League of Arab States.

The League of Arab States, or the Arab League as it is more commonly known, is a coalition of Arab countries from North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Southwest Asia.  Founded in Cairo on the 22nd of March 1945, the league then had six members: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Yemen joined not long after the formation.

Present day, the Arab League has 22 member, but due to the ongoing conflict since November 2011, Syria have been suspended.

The League’s aim is to “draw closer the relations between member States and co-ordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries”.

The Arab League facilitates political, economic, cultural, scientific and social programs designed to promote the interests of the Arab world.

They also consider matters such as deliberating on matters of common concern, settling some Arab disputes, and to limiting conflicts.

As we have seen, there has be a lot of wrangling involving the Middle East.

Its precious natural source of oil has been its savior and its downfall.

In the next video we are going to examine the role of oil in more detail.