Abstract:
Iraq and Syria have been at the heart of US Middle East foreign policy for some time. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were followed by a fundamental shift in US foreign policy that emanated from the neo-conservative powers in the administration of George W. Bush. The ‘Bush Doctrine’ abandoned the prevailing realism of US foreign policy at the time and instituted a muscular Wilsonian approach that valued big-stick diplomacy and unilateral action to safeguard US interests and maintain its unipolar prominence on the world stage, while advocating the merits of spreading democracy and American values in the region. Barack H. Obama inherited the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq and a region destabilized by popular uprisings against autocratic regimes, the most violent of which was in Syria. US foreign policy under Obama diverged significantly from that of his predecessor and shunned ideology in favor of a Jeffersonian approach. In an integration of both realism and idealism, the Obama administration believes democratic reform of authoritarian regimes cannot be imposed extrinsically by overwhelming force, and US military might is not a suitable instrument of regime change. Obama’s foreign policy in Syria is derived from a soft-realist approach that values caution, restraint and multilateral consensus and upholds US strategic interests over all other considerations.
