US, Alliances Politics of ME

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

America, Alliances, and the Politics of the Middle East. This course will review U.S. Middle East policy. In particular, the course will examine the history of America's relationship with autocratic allies. This course will be taught by Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Beginning in 1956, the United States became the defender of a regional order in the Middle East that advanced its interests and those of its allies. In so doing, it built a series of regional partnerships with monarchies, dictatorships, and at least one democracy. Global powers often rely on regional partners to help secure their interests in far-flung places, and these partnerships are often complicated by differences in preferences and priorities – especially in the case of autocratic allies. This seminar will examine the modern history of U.S. Middle East policy through the lens of alliances with states of different regime types. Students will integrate comparative politics and international relations knowledge with regional study to produce a richer understanding of the modern Middle East. As policymakers debate the American role in the Middle East where regional order has broken down in part over the failure of autocratic governments, we will examine the legacy of these complex alliances for the region and for U.S. policy.