Alwaght – The West Asia is considered a unique region in terms of its authoritarian governments. According to ‘Freedom House’ in 2002, seventy-five percent of the world's countries are free or partly free. But only 28% of countries in the West Asia can be described as free or partly free. In comparison, more than 60 percent of African countries could be described as free or partly free. This situation reveals the causes of the popular uprisings in the West Asia. With the advent of globalization and increased tele-communication technologies, there is a much higher demand for freedom and democracy in this part of the world. A request that led to collapse of many regional governments and challenged many others. Nevertheless, these popular uprisings against the ruling regimes and their collapse have had a profound effect on the objectives, influence and strategies of the United States in the region and have made the United States review its foreign policy toward the West Asia.
The history of the US approach to the West Asia, we found that after the Cold War and the emergence of the US as a superpower in international relations, its support for Sunni Arabs in the West Asia have been the dominant and undeniable facts of the US foreign policy. Obviously, over the decades at the domestic level, Washington has granted support for Sunni Arabs in Iraq and later in Bahrain and Yemen against Shiites. At the regional level, support from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab states opposed to Iran has been the unassailable principles of the US doctrine determined by the US presidents. In the meantime, to be a democratic governments in the West Asia had no role in the policies of the US Department of State because the majority of the Sunni countries in the West Asia have been administered under monarchies, which are categorized as dictatorships based on the theories of political science.
But the incidents of eleventh of September in 2001 and then the issue of the US-led combat against global terrorism have given rise to a new issue for the country's leading politicians. Most Jihadists that had joined the radical Islamic forces (al-Qaeda), were from the US-backed Sunni states, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, etc. It was in those years that "the interactions of the US with the countries of the West Asia, which practically supplied the al-Qaeda forces and indirectly support them received special attention. They wondered whether the US should continue its support for Sunni Arab dictator rulers in the West Asia. The US response to 9/11 attacks were embodied in military attacks against Afghanistan and Iraq, and it was mainly characterized by a strategy known as “the Great Middle East Project” which was followed by "The Greater Middle East Project". The Projects were based on three principles: (1) to form democratic governments in the West Asia (2) to establish a neoliberal cultural system among the populations in the West Asia (3) to divide some West Asian countries into smaller territorial units based on religious and ethnic differences. The Greater West Asia Project provoked many discussions, but it was never pursued.
In line with these developments, the rise of the ISIS terrorist group in the West Asia and their so called Islamic State has created a new and more complex equations for the US Department of State. Currently, in a much broader level, the Sunni countries backed by the US, on the one hand provided the largest number of the jihadist in the West Asia for the ISIS terrorist group; and on the other hand, the key to survival of the Islamic State has been the indirect support of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, two permanent ally of the US in the West Asia. But this is not the whole equation, the US has currently been facing a wave of new events in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and entire the West Asia and needs to adopt specific strategic policies. The wave of new developments have two main characteristics: the first one is the radical Islamism and the other one is domination of militarism and the mingling of the political issues with security matters between the countries of the West Asia. At a time when the United States should have had serious reactions to these remarkable events, in mid-2015, when a year passed from the emergence of the ISIS, President Barack Obama declared in his speech: "So far, we have adopted no clear strategy to deal with the ISIS." Accordingly, it should be noted that in recent years, after the start of a wave of popular revolutions and the rise of terrorist groups in the West Asia, the US Department of State has not defined a clear strategy for crisis management in current situation. Now, three old strategies of the United in the West Asia are facing serious challenges which include: to protect energy supplies and maintain the security of the transportation paths and their transmission, to protect the security of Israel, to keep and protect the traditional and strategic allies.
In general, given the commitment and the role of the United States in the West Asia, the failure of the Obama’s administration in Iraq and its withdrawal from Iraq, and its indirect intervention in Libya, and to make use of the NATO and to recklessly abandon its allies, particularly Mubarak, undermined the US credibility in the region. The increased role of the Muslim Brotherhood and the positive effects of Islamic awakening thoughts on the region and opposition of the Arab and Muslim World to any kind of intervention and infiltration of any foreign government into their country made it difficult for the West and the US to play a stronger role in such countries. On the other hand, as the ISIS issue and Syrian crisis became more complex, they have become important factors to terminate the political hegemony of Washington in the West Asia, which have made the politicians in the White House adopt conflicting policies towards political equations and actors in the West Asia. The most important signs representing the end of the US hegemony in the West Asia and the dual behavior of the US foreign policy makers in recent years could be summarized as follows:
• The rise of Islamism and the growth of Islamic parties opposing the Israeli regime, and their participation in elections and the support of the United States from liberal and secular parties, while for a period of time, the United States sought to support the Islamist forces in Libya and Egypt.
• To give more attention to public opinions of the Arab and Muslim nations of the region with regard to democracy and the double standards policies of the United States in the framework of support and repression.
• Increasing growth of the anti-Zionism and opposition to the US, especially in Egypt and Bahrain.
• The opportunities created for regional and trans-regional powers, the US failed attempts to prevent these powers from playing a significant role in such developments, through highlighting the Iranian nuclear issue and emphasizing the Islamic model of Turkey for states in the region to reduce the influence of the Islamic Revolution model of Iran in the West Asia and North Africa. The failure of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, and Russia's entry into the Syrian civil war as well as the increased influence of Iran on the region are all representations of the issue.
• To lose old trusted allies of the US and the spread of these revolutions to other allies including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and the US double Standards about regional governments.
• Change in secular structures and other structures which advocate the US and the West, and the United States’ attempts to keep these structures through selecting the remaining candidates from the former regimes.
• Fully popular and local nature of developments, and bewilderment of the States United in predicting these events.
• Obscurity in security of the Israeli regime and requiring the regional governments to adhere to their treaties and agreements with Israel even if their regime are overthrown.
• Obscurity in security of Energy exports to the West and the Israeli regime, the explosion in gas transmission pipe lines from Egypt to Israel is one of such cases.
• Reinforcement of the Shiite Axis of Resistance in the region, the US failure to overthrow the Syrian government, and its wrong strategy in supporting Assad's opponents, to the extent that the officials of the US Department of State recently, after Russia's entry into the Syrian civil war, declared that their policies in support of the Free Syrian Army were just a failure.
