s did not suit the strategic interests of the U. S. in the region. The tyran thus remained in power and Irak was submitted to an embargo that only weighs on the civilian population, who is furthermore exposed to the impunity of a clannish governement, unable to act as a regional power, but very capable of plundering society and the country's revenues. Double standards are used as to the inforcement of the U. N. resolutions. On the one hand, Irak is strictly required to comply with them. Whereas, Israel can go on ignoring them with respect to the rights of the Palestinians, while its strategic interests in the region are respected and its views followed as who is or is not a terrorist.
At the end of the Gulf War, the Arab countries were more divided than ever, while the dominant position of the U. S. in the region had never been stronger, partly because most countries in the area depend from the U. SA, at economic and military level, but also because Europe does not, in the least, represent a political challenge for the U. S. un the region, in spite of its commercial competitiveness, and Russia prefers to compete with the U. S. over Caucase and Central Asia, that has been rising since the end of the XXth century as a main producer of energy sources, competing at strategic level with the Middle East.
In fact, the result of the American views and action in the Middle East, with respect to security and stability, has been to block all attempts aiming at setting up multilateral institutions, that could have given a better positioning to the region as a whole. As a consequence, it opted for the creation of strategic axes and bilateral alliances. Irak and Iran being declared rogue states, a policy of penalty (embargo and sanctions) and "double contention "as of 1993 was applied. This meant that Iran has been artificially separated from the Gulf States and that all attempts that could have lead to a rapprochement in the perspective of a regional forum to set up a dialogue among all the neighbour countries, including the ostrascised ones, were frustated. As a result Irak still is ostracised, which has given rise to large scaled smuggling networks with Jordan, and even more so with Turkey. At the same time, the reformist sector in Iran, that promotes economics and political liberalization, and defends a diplomatic normalization with its Middle East neighbours as well as with the Western world, does not find enough support abroad that would enable it so solve the socio-economic crisis and to get a stronger position within the government vis a vis the "old revolutionnary guard ".
The influence of Israel's views on the stability of the region and its obvious refusal to be integrated in the Middle East geographic environment, as well as its role as inconditional ally of the U. S., explain for the most part these contradictions, and which is worse, is greatly responsible for the unending fragmentation of th...
