A Study Of The Reagan's Middle East Policy During The Lebanon War

The Reagan Administration is a vital phase of the relationship between America and the Middle East in the history, during which the policies of the Reagan Administration still has an important influence to the Middle East affairs nowadays. Taking the Lebanon War as the cut-in point, this paper analyses the changes of Reagan Administration in the middle east and attempt to reveal the factors contributing to such changes, concluding that Reagan wasn't unwilling to solve the Arab-Israel question. During the war, Reagan connected the Lebanon problem with the Palestine problem and took a series of positive measure to deal with Arab-Israel problem completely. However, such endeavour was destructed by Soviet and its allies, America had to protect the security of Israel by itself through the establishment of the strategic cooperation system between America and Israel, which also laid a foundation of Reagan Administration's policy in the Middle East. The two-sided policies hadn't relieved the complicated security dilemma existing in the area, and the affirmation of strategic cooperation system had further broken the balance of power in the Middle East, where there are still full of violence and conflict today. Finally, this paper try to rethink and explore at the theoretical level by making use of the constructivism which have risen from 1990s in the historical development of international relationship theories. It is concluded that the constructivism have provided us a brand-new reference to the peace process of the Middle East.