The United States' Foreign Policy and the Impact of the Iranian Nuclear Weapons on the U.S. Interests in the Middle East 1990-2017

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate and identify the United States’ concern with the nuclear armament in Iran and how it would affect U.S. relations in the Middle East area as well as with other nuclear powers such as Russia, China, and North Korea. This work first examines the U.S. foreign relations especially between 1980 to 2003, where the United States had engaged no easy task in dealing with the Middle East issues and in which various countries were seeking nuclear weapons for protection, peaceful purposes or to control the area. In the second stage, I will identify the roots of the Iranian nuclear programme and how this effected the U.S. relations in the Middle East. This will lead me to examine the U.S. manoeuvre to prevent Iran from owning nuclear capacity. Finally, in this dissertation I will tackle the U.S. fear from losing its control over the Middle East area and how the Iranian allies push the U.S. out of the Middle East region. For that, a number of sources are drawn from other universities and books on U.S. foreign relations as well as information from articles, newspapers and speeches. In conclusion, this dissertation argues that the United States’ aim was probably not protecting national security but rather its national interests in the Middle East area.