Abstract :
The main purpose of this paper is to bring an eclectic approach to understand American
foreign policy toward the Middle East. I have two constitutive variables for this purpose:
power and identity. How do these two elements influence American policy toward the
region, or in other words, how do and/or can power and identity help explain the
formulation of America’s ‘national interests’ in the Middle East? This study does not take
‘national interest’ as an independent variable here, rather it is taken as dependent variable
that is constituted by power and identity. On the other hand, power and identity are also
in dynamic interaction with each other. It is especially clear when one talks about the use
of American power in correspondence to America’s democratic and liberal identity.
