ABSTRACT
At a symposium held on the Atlantic coast in Abidjan and attended by prominent members of the international political and cultural communities, participants engaged in a lively debate on how US foreign policy is impacting on the rest of the world. The debate centred on trying to find a rational explanation for the support the United States has been extending since the end of World War II up to the present day to a large number of corrupt regimes in the Third World, with often disastrous consequences. Indeed, it was thanks to American backing that many otherwise defunct regimes survived as long as they did, including those of several banana republics in South America, the Shah of Iran and other unpopular rulers. In addition to consistently placing its bets on the losing side, the United States pursued a policy throughout the Cold War of supporting fundamentalist - theocratic – political movements in the belief that they could serve as a bulwark against the spread of communism.
