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Podcast: Middle East Dossier
Episode: ME101 Lecture #04 Geopolitical Competition in the Middle East | The US and its Allies
Description: The United States became a strategic player in the Middle East only in the second half of the 1950s as its reliance on Persian Gulf oil increased and it realized that it could no longer rely on Britain to protect its interests in the region. This pattern – a combination of interests and balance of power calculations – would shape the evolution of American policies in the Middle East ever since. Even America’s most substantial ties in the region – its relations with Israel – became “special” only after Israel was able to “prove” it was a strategic asset.
Notably, the United States “...