The Study On "Iraq-gate"

Since the 1990s, the America's policy toward Iraq has become a hot issue in the academic circles after the Gulf war: One reason is that Iraq's petroleum resource is the important link of the west, especially of the U.S. energy strategy as a major petroleum export nation in the Persian Gulf. To approach and control the petroleum of Iraq has been the focus of U.S.–Iraq foreign policy and U.S. global strategy. Another reason is that the nature of Iraq government and policy-making have the profound influence on the steadiness and balance of Persian Gulf, it is directly concerned with the America's national security in the Gulf. Since the end of the 1970s, the importance of Iraq has been recognized, and the America's policy-makers has begun to restore U.S.-Iraq relationship and made tilt policy to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Under the guide of the policy, the U.S. established the trade-export policy, the policy had the features of aid and cooperation. During the whole 1980s, as the two clues both overt and covert, the U.S. foreign policy towards Iraq and active trade-export policy complement each other, all serve for the whole strategic aims of U.S. which include containing the Soviet Union and ensuring the security of petroleum supply and competing for the Iraq market. At the same time,"Iraq-gate"scandal of 1989 led to the judicial review of U.S.-Iraq policy, we can conclude the characteristics and nature of U.S. foreign policy to Iraq in the 1980s through the researches on the process of making, implementing and reviewing the policy.This dissertation consists of five parts as follows:Introduction:In this part, a survey of the studies of U.S. middle east policy and U.S.-Iraq policy has been performed. It has been pointed out that there is a profound research on U.S.-Iraq policy in foreign academic circles, but with contradictory theories; in domestic academic circles, most studies pay attention to the macro-frame of U.S. middle-east policy, U.S.-Iraq policy is often studied as a branch of middle-east policy with no detailed and unclassified documents, especially in the 1980s. The grounds for the topic selection of the thesis are accounted for, and the problem of concepts and the realistic significance of the topic are also discussed.Chapter I, U.S. Foreign policy towards Iraq from the 1950s-1980s.This chapter is concerned with U.S. Persian gulf policy and Iraq policy by tracing back the history of the development, emphasis is placed on the development of U.S. financial aid policy and military aid policy. The key aim is focused on the background of U.S. export policy. Through the analysis of the unclassified documents, the details of"tilt policy"and"two-track policy"making can be uncovered. Finally the main reasons can be found out about why America took the trade-export policy as the main body of foreign policy to Iraq, through the politics and economy, it stems from the need of cold war and market competition.Chapter II, U.S. trade-export policy towards Iraq in the 1980s.In this chapter, a survey of the context of U.S. trade-export policy to Iraq has been carried out, including export aid and cooperation program,Commodity Credit Corporation Export Credit Guarantee Program and export policy of biological-chemical materials. According to the development of program and policy, U.S. trade-export policy had been kept adjusting with the evolution of U.S.-Iraq foreign relationship because of the flexible export principle, the adjusted policy had a profound effect on U.S.-Iraq foreign relationship conversely. During the process of trade-export policy making, conflict between"bottom-up policy"of the congress and"tilt policy"of State Department penetrated the whole process.Chapter III,"Iraq-gate"and review of U.S. trade-export policy.This chapter begins from"Iraq-gate"of 1989, it landed U.S. into policy dilemma. So the analyses of the relationship between U.S. government policy and secret policy, and studies on how U.S. government"resolve policy crisis by review"will be performed. And then we can draw the conclusion why U.S.-Iraq policy had been adjusted during the 1990s. In the last section"Iraq-gate"is compared with"Intelligence-gate"(the second"Iraq-gate").Conclusion:The conclusion is a brief summary over the influence of"Iraq-gate", and characteristics of U.S. export policy and nature of its foreign policy towards Iraq.