Politics of the Contemporary Middle East Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Politics of the Contemporary Middle East - Essay Example According to the research findings it can therefore be said that amongst the most important elements relative to international relations in the Middle East region following the Gulf War of 1991 was the peace process between the Arabs and Israel that was sponsored by America. The two main parties in the Arab Israeli conflict were Israel and Palestine. The main developments of the peace process were the Oslo Peace Accord, its implementation, the summit at Camp David and the re-escalation of violence. It is evident that the Oslo Peace Process was slated to fail from the beginning because under Likud’s leadership, Israel went back on its words relative to implementing its own obligations emanating from the deal. Upon reading the details of the accord it becomes clear that the Oslo Declarations of Principles never represented a strong foundation for peace between Israel and the PLO. It is widely believed that this happened because preferential treatment was given to Israel in the t reaty. The US is said to have avoided playing an effective and impartial role in brokering the peace agreements. The Soviet Union was an ally of the Palestinians but it was a declining power during the period. The enormous support provided to Israel by the US makes it clearly evident that there was an imbalance of power that served as an obstacle in making the treaty and agreements successful. The paper also presents the main theoretical assumptions of neorealism.... optimize security by maximizing their own military, diplomatic and economic capabilities Peace and order is achieved after states are able to achieve balance of power by effecting deterrence and stable alliances The presence of a dominating state can lead to stability if that state is hegemonic in terms of identifying its self interests with the interests of the larger region or global system The modernization theory originated through the concept of functionalist sociology. It holds that all societies developed from traditional to modern conditions, in terms of transforming from simplistic, narrow and theocratic circumstances to complicated, public and secular forms of organization. It is known that societies undergo different stages of socio economic transformation whereby some manage to modernize faster in view of their interactions and association with modern societies of the west. The theory is applicable to the Middle East region in the context of some states being in a transit ional stage towards modernism. The Postcolonial criticism approach is recent in having its origin in cultural studies. In fact it grew from analysis of the Middle East region as carried out by Edward Said (1978) through his influential work Orientalism, which related to the ways in which a distorted image was created about the Arabs by Europeans in justifying their colonial occupation in the region. This theory holds that politics in the Middle East Region was first characterized by struggle for power control by colonists, then by the super powers during the Cold War and subsequent to 1989, by the US alone. The arguments are based on the belief that nations in the Middle East are dependent or client states that act as agents of Western hegemony or national liberation groups striving to