Islamism and U.S. Foreign Policy : The Gulf between Two Agendas

In early 2004, the Presidential study group, - a bipartisan commission of statesmen, diplomats, legislators, scholars, and experts - was conveyed to examine the state of the Middle East and the effectiveness of U.S. policy in advancing U.S. interests in that region. According to the report it has published , the United States is facing an extraordinary moment of challenge in the Middle East, one that demands an integrated U.S. strategy built on a set of three pillars: security, reform, and peace. The security agenda is the most pressing, but it alone is not sufficient. If the United States wants not just to combat the threats it faces in the region but also to change the regional dynamic which produces such threats, the administration should also pursue political, social, and economic reform in Middle East countries and the promotion of a secure Arab-Israeli peace. We can recognize the great lines of concern of the Bush administration in the linkage between these three pillars... With hindsight, we may today try to answer the question: how much of this program has been accomplished?