United States Involvement in the Middle East

1
United States Involvement in the Middle East
2
Words to Know (Write these vocabulary terms )

• Iraq
• Iran-Iraq War
• Afghanistan
• Persian Gulf War 1 (Operation Desert Storm)
• Persian Gulf War 2 (Operation Iraqi Freedom)
• War in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom)
• Saddam Hussein
• Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Kuwait
• Al-Qaeda

3
U.S. Israel Relations

• Strong American support for Zionism
• Foreign Aid U.S. supports new nation of Israel
• Security (Military)
• Developmental (Economic)
• Historically supportive relationship with few
  major issues

4
U.S. Iran Relations

• Today U.S. and Iran do not have direct diplomatic
  relations. Why?
• Post WWII U.S. interest
• Shared a long border w/U.S.S.R. (cold war rival)
• Oil
• 1953 Mohammed Mossadeq elected Prime Minister
  (Socialist wanted to nationalize oil)
• U.S./Britain help overthrow coup detat
  (CIA-Ajax)
• Support establishment of Shah Reza Pahlavi

5
U.S. Iran Relations

• Shah Pahlavis reign
• Received much U.S. support
• Staunch ally through six Presidents (1953-1978)
• Harsh treatment of citizens
• Secret police (SAVAK)
• Torture
• Iranian Islamic Revolution 1977-Jan. 1979
• Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
• Led revolution from exile in Paris
• Shah flees Iran (health reasons?)

6
The Iranian hostage crisis

• Diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United
  States.
• Islamist students and militants took over the
  American embassy in support of the Iranian
  Revolution. Demanded the U.S. return the Shah to
  face trial
• 53 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from
  November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981
• 6 Americans escaped (Argo)

7

• U.S. President Jimmy Carter
• Negotiations
• Military rescue failed
• Economic Sanctions
• 1980 Presidential Election Issue
• Hostage release Jan. 21, 1981
• Fear of Reagan???
• Negotiations end economic santions.

8
Iraq History
British Mandate

• Post WWI British colony

British Backed Monarchy

• King Faisal chosen by England

Dictatorships

• 1958 Baath Revolution

9
Baath Party

• Secular (non-religious) government
• Uses oil for government projects
• Hussein begins to eliminate opponents
• Arrests/Trials
• Murder
• Consolidates power 1979 (same time Iranian
  Revolution.

10
Iraq-Iran War

• Saddam Hussein sees Iranian Revolution as a
  chance to regain Shatt al-Arab. Invades Iran
  September 22, 1980.
• Sunni (Saddam Hussein) vs Shia (Khomeini) rivalry

11
Iraq-Iran War

• The Iraqi offensive was initially successful,
  capturing the port city of Khorramshahr by the
  end of 1980.
• Iranian resistance proved strong, however, and
  Iraqi troops had withdrawn from the occupied
  portions of Iran by early 1982.

12
Iraq-Iran War

• War stagnates into trench warfare. (like WWI)
• War of attrition
• Horrific losses
• U.S. supports Iraq
• U.S. secretly helps Iran. (Iran Contra Scandal)

13
Iraq-Iran War

• Iraq uses chemical weapons
• Arabs, Soviet Union, Europe support Iraq.
• Syria, Libya, North Korea, China support Iran.
• Finally, in July, 1988, Iran accepts United
  Nationsmandated cease-fire
• Cease fire original borders, nothing gained.
• LOSS OF LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!

14
Persian Gulf War (the 1st one!)

• Iraq claimed the land
• Claimed Kuwait was stealing oil (slant
  drilling)
• owed to other countries for previous Iran-Iraq
  War.
• Hussein thought no one would stop him

15
Claimed Kuwait was stealing oil (slant
drilling)
Iraq claimed the land

• Draw a 3rd copy of this graphic organizer on the
  right side of your notebook.

Hussein thought no one would stop him
Persian Gulf War
owed to other countries for previous Iran-Iraq
War.
16
Interactive Notebook Question (left side)

• Why did Saddam invade Kuwait in 1990?

17
1st Persian Gulf War Starts (Operation Desert
Storm)
Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, under the
direction of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The
Iraqi army took control of Kuwait in a very short
amount of time. The United nations responded to
the Iraqi invasion by demanding that Iraq
withdraw its troops from Kuwait. The United
nations asked other countries to cut off trade to
Iraq (Embargo) in an attempt to force them to
withdraw, that attempt failed. The United States
and thirty other countries formed a coalition and
began sending military troops into Saudi Arabia
over the next few months.
18
(No Transcript)
19

• The united Nations set a date for Iraq to leave
  Kuwait, Iraq rejected the date and refused to
  leave. The U.S. and their allies began attacking
  Iraq through the use of air power then by a
  ground assault. After a devastating battle
  resulting in many Iraqi deaths, the Iraqis were
  driven out of Kuwait.

20

• Although the war was a decisive military victory
  for the coalition, Kuwait and Iraq suffered
  enormous property damage, and Saddam Hussein was
  not removed from power. In fact, Hussein was free
  to turn his attention to suppressing internal
  Shiite and Kurd revolts, which the U.S.-led
  coalition did not support, in part because of
  concerns over the possible breakup of Iraq if the
  revolts were successful. Coalition peace terms
  were agreed to by Iraq, but every effort was made
  by the Iraqis to frustrate implementation of the
  terms, particularly UN weapons inspections.

21
Afghanistan

• On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacked two
  targets in the U.S. Al-Qaeda is a group of
  Islamic terrorists that were largely based in
  Afghanistan. They hijacked four airplanes and
  intentionally crashed two of them into the World
  Trade Center in new York. The third plane was
  crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia and the
  fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania in route to
  its target, the White House in Washington, D.C.
  The terrorist attacks on that day killed nearly
  3,000 people.

22
Interactive Notebook Question (left side)

• Why did the U.S. invade Afghanistan in 2001?

23
(No Transcript)
24

• Osama bin Laden was blamed for the attacks, U.S.
  President George Bush called on other countries
  to help wage a war on terrorism to crush
  al-Qaeda. In October 2001, U.S., British, and
  Canadian forces invaded Afghanistan in search of
  bin Laden and to destroy al-Qaeda and their
  allies the Taliban (Operation Enduring Freedom).
  Although bin Laden was never found the grip of
  the Taliban and al-Qaeda on Afghanistan was
  broken. The U.S. let forces still struggle to
  control portions of the country.

25
The Iraq War (Persian Gulf War 2, Operation
Iraqi Freedom)

• Saddam Hussein was still president of Iraq at the
  time of the Afghanistan invasion. Officials in
  the U.S government feared connections between
  Hussein and al-Qaeda and the allegations that
  Iraq was building Weapons of Mass Destruction
  (WMDs) in the form of Nuclear, Biological, and
  Chemical weapons. The United Nations sent
  inspectors to Iraq to check for WMDs however
  Iraq failed to allow them to complete their
  inspections. In response the U.S. Congress
  passed an Iraq War Resolution that authorized the
  president to go forward with a war in Iraq.

26

• In march 2003, the U.S. began bombing targets in
  the capital of Baghdad. British, Australian,
  Polish, and American soldiers invaded Iraq and
  defeated the Iraqi army. Saddam Hussein was
  captured, put on trial for crimes against
  humanity by the Iraqis, and later executed.

27

• Weapons of Mass Destruction were never found in
  Iraq. It is difficult to determine how many
  Iraqis have died since the invasion, but as of
  2007, more than 500,000 Iraqis may have died
  according to one study. Many deaths are due to
  sectarian violence. Over 4,000 American soldiers
  have been killed and over 20,000 have been
  wounded in Iraq thus far.

28
Interactive Notebook Question (left side)

• 3-2-1
• List three types of Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Name two wars the U.S. fought against Iraq
• Name the former dictator of Iraq

29
Why is the U.S. interested in the M.E.?

• Oil
• Stop Terrorists
• Spread democracy

30
Al-Qaeda

• The group is wanted by the United States for its
  September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade
  Center and the Pentagon, as well as a host of
  lesser attacks. To escape the post-9/11 U.S.-led
  war in Afghanistan, al-Qaedas central leadership
  is believed to have fled eastward into Pakistan,
  securing a safe haven in loosely governed areas
  there.

31
What is al-Qaeda?

• Al-Qaeda seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it
  sees as the influence of the West and replace
  their governments with fundamentalist Islamic
  regimes. After al-Qaedas September 11, 2001,
  attacks on America, the United States launched a
  war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaedas bases
  there and overthrow the Taliban, the countrys
  Muslim fundamentalist rulers who harbored bin
  Laden and his followers.
• Al-Qaeda is Arabic for The Base.

32
What are al-Qaedas origins?

• Al-Qaeda grew out of the opposition to the 1979
  Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, bin
  Laden and the Palestinian religious scholar
  Abdullah Azzam, recruited, trained, and financed
  thousands of foreign mujahadeen, or holy
  warriors, from more than fifty countries. Bin
  Laden wanted these fighters to continue the "holy
  war" beyond Afghanistan. He formed al-Qaeda
  around 1988.

33
Who are al-Qaedas leaders?

• At the top was bin Laden. He was killed during a
  US Special Forces raid on May 2. 2011 in
  Pakistan.
• Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Egyptian Islamic
  Jihad, was thought to be bin Laden's top
  lieutenant and al-Qaeda's ideological adviser
  killed by a US drone attack.
• Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan who was captured by
  Pakistani authorities in 2002 but managed to
  escape from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in 2005,
  has emerged as the public face of al-Qaeda and
  another top-level leader. Some counterterrorism
  experts consider him a top strategist and a
  theological scholar, arguing that his religious
  scholarship makes him one of the most effective
  promoters of global jihad. This article quotes
  Jarret Brachman, a former analyst for the Central
  Intelligence Agency who is now research director
  of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
  I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama
  bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire
  global jihadist movement.

34
Who are al-Qaedas leaders?

• Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, an Egyptian, was an
  original member of al-Qaeda's leadership council
  and had been a trusted adviser to bin Laden for
  more than a decade. He served time in prison in
  the early 1980s with deputy leader al-Zawahiri
  for their role as conspirators in the 1981
  assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
  He was killed June 1, 2010.
• Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian, who is believed to be
  under house arrest in Iran along with some other
  top leaders of the organization. He remains one
  of the FBIs most wanted terrorists.
• Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian and
  financial officer of al-Qaeda
• Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Ladens son and
  possible successor, believed killed by a missile
  attack in 2009.
• Adel and Abdullah are wanted for their role in
  the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya
  and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people.

35
Who are al-Qaedas leaders?

• The Jordanian radical Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who
  established the Sunni Muslim extremist group
  al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and directed a series of
  deadly terror attacks in Iraqincluding the
  beheadings of kidnapped foreignerswas also
  associated with al-Qaeda. Zarqawi pledged his
  allegiance to bin Laden in October 2004, and bin
  Laden praised Zarqawi as "the prince of al-Qaeda
  in Iraq." Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike
  near Baghdad in 2006.
• Abu Ayyub al-Masri, one of al-Zawahiris
  disciples since joining the Egyptian Islamic
  Jihad in 1982, succeeded Zarqawi as AQ 1 leader
  until he was killed on April 18th, 2010

36

• U.S. officials say several top al-Qaeda leaders
  are in their custody. These include a senior
  lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in
  Pakistan in March 2002, and Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi,
  a senior commander in Afghanistan. In March 2003,
  the alleged mastermind of the September 11
  attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and al-Qaeda's
  treasurer, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, were also
  captured in Pakistan. They, along with four
  others detained at Guantanamo Bay, were charged
  with murder, terrorism, and violating rules of
  war in February 2008.

37
Who are al-Qaedas leaders?

• Besides being detained, several senior leaders in
  the network have died or have been killed in the
  U.S.-led war against terrorists.
• A senior al-Qaeda commander, Muhammad Atef, died
  in the U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan.
• Media reports said Abu Obaidah al-Masri, a senior
  al-Qaeda leader believed to be involved in the
  2005 London subway and bus bombings and in
  planning attacks in Afghanistan, died of
  hepatitis in Pakistan in April 2008.  
• In April 2006, Abdul Rahman al-Muhajir and Abu
  Bakr al-Suri, two of al-Qaeda's top bomb makers,
  were killed in Pakistan. 
• In January 2008, Abu Laith al-Libi, al-Qaedas
  senior military commander and a key link between
  the group and its affiliates in North Africa, was
  killed in Pakistans tribal areas in a secret
  U.S. missile strike.

38
Interactive Notebook Question (left side)

• What event led Osama bin Laden to form Al-Qaeda
  in 1988?

39
Where does al-Qaeda operate?

• There is no single headquarters. From 1991 to
  1996, al-Qaeda worked out of Pakistan along the
  Afghan border, or inside Pakistani cities.
  Al-Qaeda has autonomous underground cells in some
  100 countries, including the United States. Law
  enforcement has broken up al-Qaeda cells in the
  United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, France,
  Spain, Germany, Albania, Uganda, and elsewhere.
• To escape the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan,
  al-Qaedas leadership once again sought refuge in
  Pakistans tribal areas after September 11, 2001.
  Bin Laden, along with some other members of the
  organization, is thought to be hiding in Pakistan
  along the Afghan border.

40
Where does al-Qaeda operate?
41
How big is al-Qaeda?

• Its impossible to say precisely, because
  al-Qaeda is decentralized. Estimates range from
  several hundred to several thousand members.

42
Is al-Qaeda connected to other terrorist
organizations?

• Egyptian Islamic Jihad
• The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
• Islamic Army of Aden (Yemen)
• Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad (Iraq)
• Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad (Kashmir)
• Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Algeria)
  (formerly Salafist Group for Call and Combat)
• Armed Islamic Group (Algeria)
• Abu Sayyaf Group (Malaysia, Philippines)
• Jemaah Islamiya (Southeast Asia)

43
What major attacks has al-Qaeda been responsible
for?

• The group has targeted American and other Western
  interests as well as Jewish targets and Muslim
  governments it sees as corrupt or impiousabove
  all, the Saudi monarchy. Al-Qaeda linked attacks
  include
• The February 2006 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum
  processing facility, the largest such facility in
  the world, in Saudi Arabia.
• The July 2005 bombings of the London public
  transportation system.
• The March 2004 bomb attacks on Madrid commuter
  trains, which killed nearly 200 people and left
  more than 1,800 injured.
• The May 2003 car bomb attacks on three
  residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• The November 2002 car bomb attack and a failed
  attempt to shoot down an Israeli jetliner with
  shoulder-fired missiles, both in Mombasa, Kenya.
• The October 2002 attack on a French tanker off
  the coast of Yemen.
• Several spring 2002 bombings in Pakistan.
• The April 2002 explosion of a fuel tanker outside
  a synagogue in Tunisia.
• The September 11, 2001, hijacking attacks on four
  U.S. airplanes, two of which crashed into the
  World Trade Center, and a third of which crashed
  into the Pentagon.
• The October 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing.
• The August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in
  Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

44
Bibliography

• Council for Foreign Relations. http//www.cfr.org/
  publication/9126/
• Retrieved May 13, 2009