ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes America's Middle Eastern policies through the lens of its cold war rivalry with the Soviet Union. It focuses on the US leaders' support of conservative Islam, such as that practiced in Saudi Arabia, as an ideological counter to communism and Arab nationalism, and thus as a key barrier to Soviet penetration in the region. The chapter examines America's and the Soviet Union's evolving relations with Israel as a component of their cold war hostilities. Immediately after its Soviet rival disappeared in 1990–1991, the United States confidently asserted its unrivaled power in the Middle East by leading a coalition against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the first Gulf War, and in convening the 1991 Madrid Arab-Israeli Peace Conference. As the cold war penetrated the Middle East and as the United States gradually replaced Britain and France as the dominant Western power in the region, the US-Saudi connection continued to be important.
