The Failure of US Foreign Policy.

The recent upheaval in the Middle East recently that saw protests in that region especially Tunisia and Egypt are in part either partly caused and/or damaging to the US. The reason for that fact can be traced in US foreign policy towards nations in that region and the rest of the world.

Whether rightly or so, US world image has been further tarnished due to the protests as some people especially in that region have perceived that US somehow was involved in the streghtening of the unpopular dictators there like Egypt President Hosni Mubarak despite them being a contradiction to US values like freedom, democracy and so on.

The Middle East is obviously an important region to the US and the rest of the world. There lies most of the oil fields that if disrupted, can cause major economic unrest. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran being the world top oil producers( Saudi is no1 followed by Iraq at no2 ) are only a few nations in the Middle East being major oil producers.

Besides that, the major trading route, The Suez canal( no1 trading route) is also located there. Any disruption there will lead to a standstill in international trade causing also economic unrest.

Finally, the nation of Israel which is influential and important to the US due to the strenght of Jewish lobbyists is also located there. So it isn't surprising for world powers to meddle and have leaders in that region being subservient to their demands as their interests lie on the region being stable despite the leaders poor humanitarian records.

The US, the British and the French and others have had a hand in the region affairs while nicely closing one eye or even supporting the brutality of the regimes there so that they can continue to have leaders who are supportive of them and can take care of their interests.

This approach to foreign policy while pragmatic, is always damaging in the end as the unpopular regime will further inflame anti-American sentiments among the people and give rise to an alternative that is hostile to the US( case in point Cuba, closer to the Middle East is Iran) and its values.

Human rights, democracy and other US imports are deemed as the evil western ideologies that must be fought against despite its advantage in uplifting the individuals in that country. Anti-American sentiments trumps these important people empowering values as it's advocated by the US even though the action that created the ill-feeling is actually is in direct contradiction to the values.

The result will be the rise of extremism and violence( Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah being the example) and the creation of nation-states that uphold such beliefs( Cuba can be used as an example with its many political prisoners, and the popular support garnered by assertive leaders advocating war and terror like Benjamin Netanyahu and his party in Isreal, Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, whether the call is justified or not) which will bring the region on a state of turmoil eventually thus creating the economic unrest the US and the west feared so much.

So, the US must now change its foreign policy from the pragmatic one to the one base on it's values so that there is a consistency and clear representation of what and why there are trying to persuade the world to follow their lead. The US must stop supporting dictators just because the dictators supported them and their interests.

Rather, US must influence and persuade the nations there to follow the values they are advocating and US must respect the outcome of such move.( US decision not to support Hamas and Hezbollah despite those two movement through the practice of democracy are representing a large section of the population will only benefit undemocratic leaders and the exremists) If US are not happy about certain outcome, their only way to redress is to have a dialog with the democratically elected leaders.

Another way is to support and give the right amount of power to international bodies like the UN, WTO and so on to be either mediator or arbitrator to the problems between nations be it US or others.The US must not use violence and regime change to benefit their interests as these will lead to oppression and the US and her people will eventually be the target of the people's anger. The fight for important values against extremists like the fight for human rights and democracy that can benefit everybody will also be negatively affected as they are seen as the US or the west ideology.

Finally, it is time for the US to learn and respect other people's beliefs in how the should be governed as long as it is done through the democratic process and are not harmful to its citizens as the govern is legitimate due to the attainment of the mandate from the people and disrespecting it will mean challenging the sovereignty of the country and her people( The government of Iran is a great example).

The US should engage with different groups like the Islamist movement and the Oriental movement and hopefully through the engagement both sides can benefit from one another either through exchanges of practices and value systems or simply through understanding how the different groups can work together despite their differences for the benefit of all parties.

That is what plurality and diversity truly means. The US and west and should advocate such dialog as they believe in plurality and diversity, unless that is another of their many values and actions contradictions where they disguise hegemony as plurality. If that is the case, the one at the losing end is the US and all the people that stand to benefit from its values. It is worth nothing that the end of cold war where US is the only world superpower is over. The US will do well to note that if they want to continue to lead the world or if they will lose that position to China. Only time will tell.