Regional threats and global management of conflicts in regions: The case of the US in the Middle East

This article addresses the following two questions: First, how does the United States (US) manage regional war and peace, especially in the Middle East (ME)? It will show that the strategies the US has adopted in conflict management in the ME over the last several decades have shown considerable variations, both in the goals of its involvement - between trying to shape the regional balance of power and to reorder the domestic regimes in the regional states, and in the means of involvement - between a unilateral and a multilateral strategy. Second, it seeks to explain these variations in the US regional patterns of involvement.