Introduction Neo-realism focuses on structure, seeking “to

IntroductionThroughout history, intervention byone nation into another nations’ affairs is often driven by interests of theintervener.

Be it a desire to protect an identity, safeguard national security,ensure power, or act on economic interests, varying International Relationstheories can explain such motives. The United States has a long history ofintervening in other state’s domestic affairs. Since the U.S. has massiveglobal influence and power, many events around the world can threaten that heldpower. Neo-realism can provide great insight into the motives of the U.S.

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inthe Middle East over the last two decades, with focus on the Iraqi and Syrianconflicts in 2003 and 2013, respectively. Neo-realism focuses on structure,seeking “to explain international conflict and war in terms of the imperativesimposed on states by an inherently insecure, anarchical environment” (Shimko,1992, p. 293).

The way that this system is structured calls states to act inways to ensure survival. Furthermore, “states seek to maintain or expand theirinfluence because they are forced to do so by the…system” (Shimko, 1992, p.293). Under neo-realist theory, offensive realism best explains why the U.S.acted the way it did in Iraq and Syria. “Offensive realism predicts that aregional hegemon will intervene to prevent other states from achieving regionaldominance” (Elman, 2005, p.

311). This narrative will underlie thedecision-making process for the United States in both the Iraqi and Syrianscenarios. United States intervention in the politics and affairs of othernations is driven by countering threats to its own national security andhegemonic power on the international stage; these factors influenced thedecision on intervention in Iraq in 2003, and the lack of intervention in Syriain 2013.Backgroundof US/Iraqi Relations (1990-2003)Understanding the history of U.

S.and Iraqi relations provides insight on U.S. action in the ensuing years.

During the first Gulf War, Saddam was deemed undeterrable. The U.S. ambassadorto Iraq, April Glaspie, stated attempts to deter Saddam from invading Kuwaitfailed because he “was stupid – he did not believe our clear and repeatedwarnings that we would support our vital interests” (Stein, 1992, p. 155).These initial warnings showed that the United States would support the Gulfnations because of alliances and economics.

Offensive realism can explain Saddam’sproceeding actions to invade Kuwait. He did not care what threats were beingmade. He was motivated by his own interests to be a hegemon in the Middle Eastfor his own power to control the oil market and revitalize the Iraqi economythat had been ravaged by the Iranian/Iraqi War in the previous decade. All to secureregional hegemony.Saddam’s personality was riddledwith narcissism and sociopathic tendencies. Saddam practiced unthinkablebehavior, as he “murdered, tortured, and used poisonous gas against hisown people;” he would not let his power be threatened (Jervis, 2003, p. 319).These practices were not in alignment with the United States’ vision for how theMiddle East should be.

Furthermore,this type of behavior could pose a threat to U.S. ability to make peace andgarner legitimacy in their attempts to act as a safeguarding power againstthose very behaviors.

To make matters worse, Saddam was unpredictable in his decision-makingand this left an uneasy feeling in U.S. leaders.

There was no “guarantee thatSaddam would not use WMD which means that fear cannot be banished” (Jervis,2003, p. 317). Saddam may have known exactly what he was doing even if the U.

S.did not; he was going to gain hegemonic power and be the leader of the MiddleEast. This brought the United States to the table to make attempts to diminishSaddam’s power while simultaneously maintaining their own influence in theMiddle East. The United States could have walked away from Saddam’s bully-liketactics but there was too much at stake. An effort to gain the advantage in thepower dynamic was deemed necessary before the survival of U.

S. hegemony in theMiddle East could be unfixable. Direct MotivesBehind US Intervention in 2003Given the aforementionedcircumstances, there was nothing the United States could do in 2003 but tointerfere. There are three dominating factors to examine that contributed tothe U.

S. decision to intervene.First, the United States was, andstill is, the largest consumer of foreign oil. Estimates placed U.

S.consumption at “about 895.6 million tons of oil which is about25.

5 percent of global oil consumption” (Thomas, 2007, p. 906). Thisled the U.S.

to seek the easiest and cheapest way to maintain their levels ofconsumption. There were attempts to tap into Caspian Sea region oil reservesaround the turn of the century. Negotiations with nations such as Kazakhstanand Afghanistan “for oil pipeline rights…collapsed in mid-2001” (Thomas, 2007,p. 907). This failure to expand U.S. oil intake led to a shift in attentiontoward controlling the Iraqi oil industry since it “was one of the cheapestcountries in the world to extract oil, costing just 55-60 cents a barrel” (Thomas,2007, p.

907). Neo-realism explains this basic characteristic of Americancapitalism. The motive to increase their relative gains of not only oil itselfbut the power that oil would give the U.S. in the region, and the ability tosustain its economy back home mattered if they did not want to jeopardizeregional hegemony.

With more economic interests in the region, the U.S. canrationalize their militaristic presence and efforts to influence state politicsin the region. A lack of U.S. presence in the region would threaten thesustenance of their legitimacy.Second, the relationship betweenthe U.

S. and Israel was considered. Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, feltparticularly threatened by Iraq. Sharon went on to “describe Iraq as thegreatest danger facing Israel” and accusing Saddam of using “the years sinceDecember 1998, when inspections were suspended, to further develop andeffectively hide non-conventional weapons” (Muralidharan, 2004, p.

4519).Sharon was under the impression that Saddam took advantage of ousting weaponinspectors, enlisted by the UN in 1998, to prepare weaponry to threaten Israeland to garner more regional power. The United States would not have this.Israel received the most U.S. foreign aid out of any other country from 1985 upuntil a year after the Iraq War began (Sharp, 2016, p. 37). The U.

S. had reasonto protect Israel, providing them with such substantial aid. Israel served as awatchdog for the U.S. in monitoring Middle Eastern activity, particularlyterrorism that could threaten the U.S.

state security. This is why the U.S.took Israel’s warning of the threat of WMD as a reason to mobilize. Even if theclaim is now baseless, this concern was pertinent at the time to U.

S. powersustenance. Additionally, there was “enormous power of the Jewish lobbies composedof the Jewish Congressmen ,…journalists, and the pro-Israel bureaucrats in theDepartments of Defense, Foreign Affairs and White House” (Naidu, 2002, p. 5).The U.S. owed it to Israel as their regional protector to intervene and preventSaddam from abusing power in the Middle East.

It was less about saving Israelfor Israel’s sake, and as explained through offensive realism, more aboutensuring the interests of the U.S. for their national security and power overtheir allies and enemies in the region.

In order to ensure this, Israel was themode to achieve their hegemonic goal. Any weakening of U.S. allies in theregion would weaken the U.

S. power and influence as well. Third, since terrorism out of theMiddle East had directly wreaked havoc on U.S.

soil during the terroristattacks of 9/11, the U.S. needed to show that it would neither be takenadvantage of nor allow terror groups to gain power over them. Applying anoffensive realism perspective to the war on terror in Iraq, Bush claimed that”American national security is in danger…because…Iraq was involved inal-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks on the US” (Naidu, 2002, p.

10). There was a fearof continued attacks on U.S. soil and the inability of the U.S. to protectitself from outside threats could lessen their power and endanger its survival.The Bush administration took a hard-ball approach toward terrorism, essentiallyclumping all Middle Eastern threats and conflict along with terrorism (Gompert,Binnendijk, and Lin, 2014, p 163). Public concern regarding WMD and al Qaedaoffered the public support for the Bush administration to go at terrorism evenif the beliefs did not align with reality.

Moreover, Israel used the fear thatthe US had toward terrorism to their advantage. Bush “launched a war onIslamic terrorism in Afghanistan,” and “Sharon and Netanyahu had been waginga war on Palestinian terrorism “(Naidu, 2002, p. 5). Given the apparentdedication by Israel to address terrorism, Bush was prepared to launcha war on terrorism in Iraq since he had regional support. From an offensiverealism perspective, Bush felt that the U.S. interests of national security andsurvival were in grave danger when faced with the Iraq issue.

Since Saddam was undeterrable,intervention in Iraq was the only solution to gain an advantage. This advantagewould serve as a shield to protect U.S. influence and divert any securityissues on American soil, back to an on the ground war in Iraq.Backgroundof U.S.

/Syrian Relations The underlying theme over the lasthalf-century of U.S./Syrian relations has been centered around Syrian responsesto U.S.

influence in the Middle East. The failure to destroy the Jewish Stateduring the Six-Day War and the persistent U.S. support of Israeli effortscreated skepticism on behalf of Syria. The U.S.

had initially stated that”Israel will not stand alone” on the issue of border disputes “unless it tookunilateral military actions” (Bass, 2015, p. 17). Israel did just that andalthough the U.S. was not supportive of that decision, the constant counsel ofthe U.S. to Israel over the subsequent years led to Syrian distrust of the U.S.

Once a disengagement agreement was signed in 1974 between Syria and Israel tolighten the border dispute, Syrian ties with the U.S. were reconnected and thefollowing decades remained relatively cooperative. This may be attributed tothe fact that Syria faced issues with Israel and insecurity in Iraq (Darwich,2016, p. 152). Consequently, Syria took the side of Iran to balance the threatsin its immediate border neighbors, “as Syria had limited options to ensure itsphysical security, the regime identity narrative was adjusted to accommodatethe regime’s physical security needs” (Darwich, 2016, p. 152).

This explanationsheds light on Syria’s cooperation with the United States in an effort not to’stir the pot’ with a powerful actor in the region, putting their identitiesaside and focusing on survival of the state. Syria ultimately cooperated withthe U.S. during the Gulf War and the peace talks of the 1990’s “because theGulf War and Soviet decline had shifted the balance of power against the Arabs,he Assad had no alternative to U.S. sponsored diplomacy” (Hinnebusch, 1996,p.

48). Neo-realism explains that it was the rational decision of Syrian interestnot to make enemies with the U.S., taking preemptive steps to survive in theinternational system through cooperation along rational lines.

DirectMotives Behind a Lack of US Intervention in 2013The relationship between the U.S.and Syria was diplomatic in nature over the last decade. In 2011, the Syrianprotests were one of many events of the Arab Spring that rippled across theMiddle East, causing conflict in regimes such as Libya, Egypt, and of course,Syria. These domestic conflicts, particularly in Syria, never actually posed athreat to U.S. security enough to call for intervention. The lack of U.

S.intervention in Syria in 2013 can be attributed to two dominant factors.First, the chemical weapon threatin Syria did not impact the legitimacy of the United States on theinternational level. The Obama administration wanted to airstrike Syrianchemical weaponry to send a message of intolerance (Horner, 2013, p. 30). In2013, U.

S. Congress had flipped to a conservative majority, and they werehell-bent on not supporting Obama’s proposals, so the airstrike never happened.The Obama administration was, however, able to negotiate with Russia for aprogram to remove the chemical weapons from Syria; which was successfulthroughout the subsequent few years (Zanders and Trapp, 2013, p. 8). Any basisfor the U.

S. to intervene was eliminated through this Russian negotiation. It’sunclear if the airstrikes in 2013 would have led to more U.S. involvement onthe ground in Syria or not since “the airstrikes would most certainly not havedegraded Syria’s chemical weapons capacity to the point it would have becomeuseless” and perhaps in order to finalize that aggressive move, a ‘boots on theground’ mentality may have ultimately been utilized (Zanders and Trapp, 2013,p.

8). Considering the negotiation with Russia to remove dangerous weapons fromSyria, the U.S. was able to have a hand on influencing any ill-intended motivesout of Syria in a directly non-militaristic manner. Additionally, the lack of athreat to U.S. national security or hegemonic survival from Syrian attacks ontheir own people, did not offer a formidable base to launch a war.

Second, militaristic action itself may have posed athreat to U.S. power. Russia supported and continues to support the Assadregime as Syria is “its only remaining foothold in the Middle East…affordingRussia its only port in the Mediterranean” (Martini, York, and Young, 2013, p.2). An economic interest in the Middle East was enough to move Russia toaction, and protecting this interest is clearly important to them.

Additionally, Russia maintains their own state security by suppressing internalrevolutions. Supporting a strongman leader like Assad and pledging theirallegiance to the regime in Syria further affirms their position. This wouldset an example within their own borders as to their flexibility with oppositionto the regime (Martini, York, and Young, 2013, p. 2). Russia is aligned withIran in their support for Assad.

Iran gives weapons to Hezbollah and essentiallyto Assad forces, to combat revolutionaries. Iran has their own agenda to avoidtotal isolation in the region, and holding on to their only ally in Syria isvital to prevent further isolation and damage to their state survival (Martini,York, and Young, 2013, p. 2). If the US intervened in affairs that Russia wasdirectly involved in, that may have harmed relations between the U.S. andRussia. One possible outcome of that could have led down a path to Cold War; adangerous scenario for the U.S.

security and survival. Furthermore, any abilityof Iran to strengthen through a potential alliance with Russia to help Assadstay in power could have led to an increase in Iranian influence in the region.An increase in Iranian influence in the region would pose a threat to thelegitimacy of U.S. presence in the region because if Iran was irked enough byU.

S. intervention, it is entirely possible they may have turned to continuepursuing nuclear weapons. If Russia got involved in pro-Iranian nucleardevelopment, dangerous implications would arise, offer a massive threat to U.

S.state security. Avoiding intervention directly was the smartest move for theUnited States to avoid damaging any relations with Russia and Iran that, if theyhad allied, could have caused harm to the U.S. state and global power.

ConclusionA decision by the United States tointervene in international conflicts is dependent on how impactful therepercussions of not interveningcould be on influence and power over a region or state. Neorealism, focusing onoffensive realism, sheds light on why the US acted to preserve its power inIraq in 2003 and in Syria in 2013 but in different manners. United Statesintervention in the politics and affairs of other nations is driven bycountering threats to its own national security and hegemonic power on theinternational stage; these factors influence the decision on intervention inIraq in 2003, and the lack of intervention in Syria in 2013. The U.S. chose tointervene in Iraq to protect its hegemony by taking an offensive approach tocounter terrorism. Saddam’s maniacal tendencies that could have affect U.S.

nationalsecurity, and threats to its regional power and influence over other nationswere deeply considered. A need to create survival strategies in the face ofthreats and being unsure of the Iraqi intentions were motivators for the U.S.to intervene.

Conversely, the absence of intervention in Syria by the U.S. washighlighted by the lack of a threat that chemical weapons posed to U.

S.hegemony and security. Additionally, the potential of irritating Russia andIran in the Syrian conflict was an important factor.

U.S. hegemony could havebeen threatened through an alliance between the Iranians and Russians onpotential nuclear weapon development. This larger threat explains the lack of interventionin Syria in 2013. When U.

S. power and security are directly threatened, theyhave always, and will continue to act in their own interest to retain thehegemony they have spent centuries establishing. 

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