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US Strategy after Cold War

After the collapse of communism America has to reduce its global activities and overseas military presence and avoid becoming involved in international affairs to strengthen its role at home. In this regards, as Richard N. Haass has argued, the theme most central to the minimalist or neo-isolationist perspective, however, was economy. Some US scholars show the reasons like, possible renewed Russia, the emergence of China, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism attacks, drug trafficking, economic globalization and particularly political Islam as the international threats, for which United States should not step back from the global arena. Based on such vision in the framework of "grand strategy" and "enlargement" Washington tried to expand its influence and presence around the world in general and the Islamic World in particular. US policy towards the Muslim countries in the wake of the Cold War has been relatively formulized in the framework of the Huntington’s theory of ‘clash of civilizations’ which has been discussed in another point. In February 1995 the former NATO Secretary General, W. Claes, warned that Islamic fundamentalism is as much a threat to the Western alliance as communism once was. Such views indeed were based on the myth of the ‘necessary enemy’. Hence, in the absence of the Soviet Union the West, particularly the United States, needed to introduce a new enemy to rationalize its military policies and more importantly to ensure the continuity of its political and military unity and hegemony.” Some scholars not only believe that the Cold War has been substituted with a new antagonism between Islam and the West but also question the ‘necessary enemy’. F. Halliday, for instance, has described ‘necessary enemy’ for the West as a big mistake. Of course, as Halliday and some other scholars have discussed the ‘created enemy’ leads the world to international and ideological conflict and that benefits the US arm industries and more significantly it justifies its military invasions and presence all over the world. Consequently, to the USA it is reasonable to organize war against one the poorest nations in the world i.e. Afghanistan. The increase of the political Islam or according to the Western term the Islamic fundamentalism in some of the Islamic countries since the 1970s, the Islamic revolution in Iran and increasing of militant groups and terrorism attacks on the US embassies and buildings, which linked some Islamic countries, led the United States to pursue different policies toward Muslim world. In 1994, then-the Clinton National Security Advisor, A. Lake, made it clear that the United State does not and will not have a unified policy toward the entire Muslim world. Accordingly, while some of the Muslim countries, such as Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya are characterized ‘rogue’, ‘backlash’, ‘the bad sons of the world’ and ‘axis of evil’ by the US leaders and policymakers some other Islamic nations particularly Turkey, Pakistan are viewed as fully 'democratic countries' in the Islamic word. These countries, Saudi Arabia and most of the Middle East countries are described as friend and allies of the United States. The promoter of democracy, United states has been maintaining close strategic cooperation—including massive arms transfers, training and logistics, and a permanent military presence—with these authoritarian states since the end of the world war ll and also after the cold war.From the military point of view, while America has armed some Muslim countries and has made bases in those countries, especially in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey over the past decades, it has bombed Lebanon, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq in order to challenge Islamic radicalism and their governments are viewed as adversative to U.S. interests. Moreover, in terms of Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD), for instance, the USA put pressure upon some specific countries such as Iraq and recently to Iran. In turn Pakistan or even Israel, a non-Muslim country within trajectory of Islam has not even been asked about dismantling their nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Thus, it can be seen two contradictory policies of the United States in the Islamic world even in military aspects.