U.S. Foreign Policy
No one country or nation in the history of the world has ever held as much power, influence, and control as the United States does now in our present day. Within the last century that has passed us by, our country has accumulated so much of its wealth, knowledge, and power because of the simple fact that we have such a melting pot of people. This massive potpourri of ideas from all over the world has lead to such a quick progression in all aspects of our nation: the economy, government, and culture. However, we did not always have such a strong effect on other countries. During the youth of our nation, much time was spent practicing isolationism mainly because of our inability and lack of power to have much authority throughout the rest of the world. Through time, as immigrants arrived from all over the globe, the United States gained prosperity and power. It would be impossible for us to remain isolated from the rest of the globe especially with the great amount of influence that had been accumulated. One of the first instances where we began to involve ourselves in foreign affairs was during the First World War. With no desire to enter the war in Europe, we attempted to remain merely an outside observer. Even though w
A telling example of where short-term gains, otherwise known as desire, were placed ahead of necessity is in the Iran and Iraq conflict of the eighties. Prior to the Iranian Revolution, the United States government played the Shah of Iran like a puppet. However, Ayatollah Khomeini led the revolution in nineteen seventy-nine which overthrew the government (Muhlberger). Iran then became rebellious and the Soviet Union moved in to help them. This sudden change of events made the United States nervous about the communist threat to the Middle East. Our government made the mistake of supporting Saddam Hussein even though we knew he was somewhat of a military dictator as well. When we sent help to the Iraqis to keep Saddam in power while ending the communist threat of Iran, the short-term gain was successful, but we did not look ahead to the long-term implications. Now, at our present day, our government has a volatile situation with Iraq with indications of a possible war. We now regret the encouragement of those short-term desires where we supported Hussein (Shalom). e eventually entered the war later on, while the Allies were fighting, we actually supplied them with different types of equipment such as food and ammunition. This type of involvement is somewhat strange merely because of the initial stance of neutrality that the United States took. Was it right for America to support the Allies? That question is somewhat difficult to answer. Some might say that helping our European counterparts was the right way to proceed, but this type of decision making recently has gotten us into some quandaries. If the United States wants to help the world, then in doing so, we should attempt to treat each situation equally. Any sort of favoritism toward one particular group or side is an absolute mistake in foreign policy, especially when a vow of neutrality is taken. How can we claim neutrality yet still send weapons and ammunition to England and France? Of course the opposing side should feel the need to sink
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Approximate Word count = 1365
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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