Tutorial Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tutorial Paper - Essay Example In addition to the direct economic costs associated with terrorism and the threat of further terrorism, 9/11 also had important international ramifications. Seeking to strengthen its ties with allies in the Middle East region following the attacks the United States sought to immediately solidify its relationships with its major allies in the region. (Orr, Bram & Rappaport, 2002) Accordingly, support for dictatorships in the Middle East emphatically demonstrates that cold, hard geopolitical factors influence American state behavior and supersede any concern the United States may have for other factors such as Middle Eastern democracy or the promotion of human rights. Human rights abuses are routinely ignored in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has resisted calls for democratic reform and remains President of the Egyptian Republic since the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat in 1981. Saudi Arabia is a notorious oppressor of human rights and commits rights violations against women and religious and sexual minorities on a near daily basis. Since Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, the United States has turned a blind eye to human rights violations and has helped propped up the theocratic Saudi monarchy since the days of Ibn Saud. Both countries, either overtly or tacitly, supported the US invasion of Iraq (Mor ag, 2006). The US invasion of Iraq of 2003, codenamed â€Å"Operation Iraqi Freedom† curiously was not undertaken following Saddam Hussein’s genocide of the Kurdish minority in Halabja in 1988, nor after the violent suppression of a Shi’a insurgency following the First Gulf War. Instead US interests lie in securing the availability and continued flow of oil from one of the world’s most important producers of this important natural resource. Although cloaked in rhetoric concerning the freedom of the Iraqi people, the