Feb. 27 Notes

U.S. and the Middle East

The Interwar Era

27 February 2008

I. The United States, the Middle East, and World War I

1. Nature of War (Turkish war aims, Gallipoli campaign, Armenian genocide)

2. The United States and the Armenian Genocide (Wilson concerns, role of Morgenthau)

3. Wilson, the Middle East, and the War (Ottoman Empire in 14 Points; Zionist movement; Wilsonian rhetoric—ideals and reality: Egypt, Armenia, mandates)

II. Aftermath of War

1. The Rise & Fall of the Sèvres System (Wilson’s political and personal collapse—Versailles debate, “Swing around the circle,” stroke and incapacitation; path to Sèvres: tension between self-determination and aggrandizement, Greek and Italian demands; treaty and Turkish reaction—Armenian and Greek wars, role of Ataturk, reaching out to USSR; Lausanne and quiet US support for Turks—population exchanges, fates of Kurds and Armenians; long-term effects)

2. The Origins of Oil Diplomacy (strategic effects of World War I: tanks and planes; Iraq and development of Red Line Agreement—Hoover and BFDC: oil access as part of international agenda; British reaction—strategic realities and imperial pretensions, development of Western cartel?)

3. Beyond the Red Line Agreement (exclusion of Iran, emergence of Saudi Arabia: Ibn Saud and postwar world; isolationism and 1920s approach; significance of Depression; reaching out to US; Standard Oil, ARAMCO, and origins of US-Saudi alliance)

III. Road to World War II

1. Origins of War (flashpoints: Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey; Hitler and the Middle East—strategic: opening to Iraq, interest in Egypt; racial—Grand Mufti, Jewish/Arab tensions; British retreat from Balfour Declaration; Turkish neutrality; significance of Iran)

2. US and the Run-up to War (FDR strategic vision; domestic non-interventionism—isolationists, labor and immigration; strategic realities—“quarantine” speech, Welles mission, hostility of Chamberlain and negotiation of Munich agreement; the US and the Jewish question: USOC and Nazi Olympics, Jewish refugees—Morganthau, Ickes, and Eleanor Roosevelt vs. labor, State Department, FDR search for compromise—Alaska solution?, Dominican Republic idea; suspicion of Jewish leaders)

3. Middle East and Start of World War II (Nazi-Soviet Pact and invasion of Poland; fall of France and rise of Churchill; Italian entrance into war; Mussolini vision of new Roman Empire—Ethiopian, Albanian, Greek campaigns—pulling Germany into Balkans)