Soviet manoeuvres in the Turkish Straits, and communist rebellion in neighbouring Greece in 1947, triggered America's first containment strategy that garnered bipartisan support in Congress, amidst relief and military package worth $400 million, to governments in Ankara and Athens.
This policy under President Harry S. Truman, became an impetus for both countries joining NATO in 1952, and the spontaneous foundation of Washington's unsurpassed hegemonic seal, in modern history.
Ironically, at the 1936 Montreux Convention regarding the Regime of Turkey's Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits together with the Sea of Marmara, the U.S. which is not a signatory to the Convention and isolationist then, did not send an observer.
Even today, the Turkish straits' political and economic importance internationally, puts Ankara's sinewy beyond geopolitical spectrum along with the inconsistent and unpredictable foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Straits bragging of the only access between the Black Sea and Aegean Sea, saw Turkey early this year blocking Bosporus passage to Ukraine, of two UK mine-hunter ships, the Royal Navy Sandown-class.
From the Lebanon triumph in the country's political and religious crisis of 1958, to an integral and costly Middle Eastern policy known as the Twin Pillars, America's vast geopolitical and geoeconomic portfolio, is currently facing unprecedented vicissitudes alongside rare multi-polar forces at home and abroad.
The October 7 tragedy in Israel and its aftermath, has unearthed a number of challenges and dangers the U.S. is yet to navigate, in order to retain the already sagging position in the Middle East.
America's demographic change and stark ideological differences, are ironically the main guarantor of Washington's foreign policy initiatives in the geostrategic region, against ethno- nationalist Russia and Iran alongside China, which is dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
And indeed, the polarisation has roots in the seismic political and social transformation that was revolutionised by the corporate media during the 2008 presidential campaign, amid the economic recession and disastrous spillover of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Writing in The Economist, international relations scholar and author of The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama, bemoaned America's internal problems notably its "bitter fight over cultural identity".
Now, as heightened tensions remain as a result of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the negative implications on U.S. global standing, are more existential than those seen during the Vietnam War, when anti-war protesters buoyed by the revolutionary ideology of the New Left, triumphed on Western streets.
Israel, an inalienable U.S. sphere in a complex geostrategic region, is observing with trepidation a now fiercely pro-Palestine United States, amid historic antisemitic incidents on public spaces and campuses among others, while Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, is voicing support for these actions.
Gone are the days when U.S. strategists monitored every Middle Eastern policy with relative conviction, alongside an overwhelmingly all-American audience, that cared less about minor threats at home.
Today, America's conspicuous rivals hot on its heels, and psychologically aggressive as well as resolutely intriguing whilst watching the country's political and social terrain with glee and derision, differ considerably with ideologically inclined 20th-century Soviet Union, its Middle Eastern client states and Gamal Abdel Nasser's Pan-Arabism.
China, a formidable economic powerhouse that has embraced multilateralism in every effective form, and transcended ideological realms, has seen Washington policymakers and strategists scrambling for the immediate goalposts, particularly over its multifaceted alignment with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its diversionary foreign policy.
Tehran, now a dominant power in the Middle East and vaunting of anti-US proxy militias in eight countries among them Afghanistan's Fatemiyoun Brigade, and considers itself the guardian of the Persian Gulf, became a key target of America's contemporary containment strategy during the devastating Syrian War, that began in 2011. Together with Russia, which helped to expel Western troops in West Africa this year, ruthlessly saved the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Post Article Comment and Rate This Article
