US Isolationist Foreign Policy Stance under Trump
An Interrogation of Themes, Perspectives and Implications for the Future of US Overriding Strategic Interest and Influence in the Middle East Region
Abstract
This study on US Isolationist Foreign Policy Stance: An Interrogation of Themes, Perspectives and Implications for the Future of US Overriding Strategic Interest and Influence in the Middle East Region addressed four objectives; examined major themes and perspectives that has guided US foreign policy in the Middle East; appraised the US Foreign Policy Vis a Vis Isolationism as an Option; reviewed implications of the isolationist policy on US overriding strategic interest and Influence in the Middle East; and exposed other measures or options pursuant to US strategic interest in the Middle East. The methodology employed was qualitative in which secondary materials were collected and reviewed to extract relevant data and draw conclusions. Isolationism strictly speaking was perceived as impossible in the world that has become a global village characterized by information and communication technology, internet, easy travel, and miniature means of mass destruction. Nevertheless despite the America First policy, the need to strike a balance on the assumed traditional role of the US as world police must not be undermined in the case of the Middle East neither by the Trump administration nor any successive one at that. It is recommended that the US should constructively engage other major state actors in finding lasting solution to the security challenges resulting from the quest to control the political economy of the various Middle East states. There is need to identify and promptly deal with intransigent states in the Middle East should be vigorously pursued to bring them to conformity; and the US should also rethink and redefine the limits of its isolationist policy stance in the Middle East and to continue to play its traditional stabilizing role in the region to prevent the region from reclining into a theater war, crises and terrorism.
