America & the Middle East: U.S. involvement in the Mideast goes back 200 years. It's a complicated tale of American idealism, strategic interests, and the uses of military power.

Muslim militants backed by rogue states are attacking vital Western interests, The American President fails to convince Europe to join a coalition to confront the aggressors militarily.

No, this is not President George W. Bush versus Saddam Hussein, but Thomas Jefferson versus the Barbary Pirates of North Africa, who were plundering Western ships and enslaving their crews. When Jefferson proposed creating a multilateral force to stop the pirates, Europe went on bribing the vandals rather than resort to war.

"This is money thrown away," Jefferson concluded, before ordering the Navy into action. On August 1, 1801, the first American shots in the Middle East were fired when the 36gun frigate Enterprise defeated a pirate gunboat near the Mediterranean island of Malta.

"THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI"

As the pirate war continued in 1804, two U.S. naval officers and six marines led a small force of Greeks, Arabs, and others 500 miles across the desert to "the shores of Tripoli" in what is now Libya (an action later immortalized in the Marine Corps hymn). Later, an American armada bombarded Algiers in what is now Algeria before the pirates at last surrendered in 1815. To keep the peace, the U.S. established a permanent Mediterranean squadron--the precursor of today's Sixth Fleet.

The history of American involvement in the Middle East is long and complicated. From colonial times, Americans felt a special attachment to the region, giving biblical names to a thousand towns and calling others Cairo, Mecca, and Baghdad.

Americans came to the Middle East not only with bombs but with books. In 1819, the first American missionaries to the region, Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, arrived with instructions to explore "what good can be done for the Jews, for the Mohammedans [Muslims], for the Christians, for the people of Palestine, Egypt, and Syria." Hundreds more followed, bringing with them printing presses that produced, in addition to Bibles, four mil lion books--science and medical texts, dictionaries, and school primers--in five Middle Eastern languages. By century's end, Americans in Arab lands had established 300 schools, among them the Syrian Protestant College (now known as the American University in Beirut).

The projection of U.S. power and the export of its ideals--the twin themes of America's Middle East interaction--were often intertwined. In 1848, for example, Lt. William Francis Lynch, who described himself as "an earnest Christian and lover of adventure," led a naval expedition the length of the Jordan River. Lynch rejoiced that for the first time "the American flag has been raised in Palestine," not to claim territory but as a symbol of freedom.

The themes of power and idealism continued to be sounded by the U.S. in the Middle East as the 20th century opened. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt sent battleships to rescue an expatriate American kidnapped by a Moroccan warlord. Roosevelt had tried and failed to enlist European help before acting unilaterally.

The pendulum then swung to idealism under President Woodrow Wilson. His famous "Fourteen Points," proposed as a basis for ending World War I and for maintaining peace around the world, promised Middle Easterners "an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development."

American forces returned to North Africa in November 1942 to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies, but also to create the Middle East Supply Center, which furnished the region with roads, ports, and factories, and much-needed food.

The postwar period was marked by the gradual rise of American power in the region--a shift that testified to the increasing importance of oil, the establishment of the state of Israel, and the determination to counter Soviet influence.

In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, offering legitimacy for his government in return for a guaranteed supply of oil. Three years later, President Harry S. Truman, motivated by both domestic politics and moral considerations, ignored State Department warnings of an Arab oil cutoff and supported the creation of Israel.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

Both events changed the tenor of American involvement in the Middle East and how it was perceived. Henceforth, America found itself torn between strategic interests and commitments on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict; its actions were often seen by Arabs as motivated by a determination to control the oil reserves, or to assist Israel.

The region's chronic instability has made maintaining a balance between projecting American power, and upholding its ideals, increasingly difficult.

Critics of President Bill Clinton, for example, have said that his gamble on reaching a final treaty between Israel and the Palestinians led him to neglect the fight against terror. Critics of the first President Bush, on the other hand, say he sidelined American ideals in favor of oil when he liberated Kuwait from Iraq in 1991, only to restore Kuwait's autocratic rulers.

lesson plans

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Why do you believe Americans worked so hard to Spread their values to the Middle East?

* How do you think the Middle East's oil reserves influence U.S. involvement in the region?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand America's long-standing involvement in the Middle East--and some remarkable similarities between today's events in the region and U.S. activity there over the past 200 years.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

CRITICAL THINKING/DISCUSSION: A major focus of the article is the contest between protecting America's strategic interests in the Middle East and projecting American ideals in the region. Ask students how they would define American ideals. (If students need prompting, you might suggest respect for democracy, tolerance of individual differences, and charity as a few examples of American ideals.)

Ask why America might have experienced difficulty in maintaining a balance between such ideals and the projection of its power in the Middle East. Isn't it possible to project American power and American ideals at the same time? (Thomas Jefferson's war against the Barbary Pirates was certainly a projection of military power, but that military action also advanced the nobel ideal of thwarting criminal behavior.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF OIL: Direct attention to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1945 meeting with Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud and the legitimacy-for-oil deal. Explain to students that as a major victor in World War II and one of the world's most powerful countries, U.S. recognition of the Saudi regime gave that country, founded only 13 years earlier, a new legitimacy on the world stage. Students should understand, however, that Saudi Arabia, a country with the world's largest oil reserves, was and still is a strict monarchy with no taste for democracy.

DEBATE: Break students into two groups. Ask one to support this statement: "America's dependence on oil requires that it sometimes must abandon its ideals and work with dictators to gain access to this vital resource." Team two must support this statement: "America should never abandon its ideals in the pursuit of natural resources controlled by dictators."

WEB WATCH: For additional background on the Barbary Pirates, go to www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/barbary.htm.

Upfront QUIZ 2 FILL IN THE BLANK

DIRECTIONS: Circle the letter next to the correct answer.

1. The U.S. wanted to open Japan to two types of shipping, commercial and

a exploration.

b mail.

c travel.

d military.

2. Japan had isolated itself in the 1600s as a result of a perceived threat from

a European explorers.

b China.

c Christian missionaries.

d Asian pirates.

3. One exception to Japan's isolation was carefully controlled trade with the Chinese and the

a Dutch.

b British.

c Russians.

d Vietnamese.

4. President Millard Fillmore identified four goals of U.S. policy regarding Japan: friendship, commerce, coal and provisions supply, and protection for

a shipwreck victims.

b diplomats.

c clergy.

d military officers.

5. A lesson Japanese learned from Perry's visit was that they

a were superior to foreigners.

b must adopt foreign values.

c should ignore threats made by foreigners.

d needed to improve their military.

6. Nearly 90 years after Perry entered Japan, that country launched a surprise attack against U.S.

a bases in the Philippines.

b military facilities in Hawaii.

c ports in southern California.

d ships at sea.

ANSWER KEY

1. (d) military.

2. (c) Christian missionaries.

3. (a) Dutch.

4. (a) shipwreck victims.

5. (d) needed to improve their military.

6. (b) military facilities in Hawaii.

Historian MICHAEL B. OREN is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and the author of Six Days of War (Oxford, 2002).