U.S. Policy toward Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia: An Integrated Analysis, 1981–2004

This project is an integrated quantitative and qualitative examination of the influences on U.S. foreign policy toward a sample of Middle East states (Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia) over the last quarter century. Examinations of general trends in the relationships between these dyads, regression analyses, and brief case studies look at a number of factors contributing to the construction of these relationships, what these relationships look like, and how they have changed over time. The findings show that both policy reciprocation and U.S. executive play key roles in determining U.S. foreign policy outcomes. Also discussed is the utility of a broad-based research approach including the integration of qualitative and quantitative work, the examination of individual-level, state-level, and structure-level influences in an inclusive framework, as well as the taking interactive trends over time and the various degrees of conflict within these trends (‘‘high,’’ ‘‘low,’’ and ‘‘middle’’) into account