POLI 341 Lecture : poli 341 lecture 2.docx

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 341
• Professor: Julie Norman

Document Summary

In the middle east, it wasn"t clear-cut about who was manipulating who. Egypt was able to work the superpowers off each other to their own advantage. Cold war wasn"t static in terms of its alliances. Soviet influence over syria, iraq, libya and egypt. Western influence over iran, israel, saudi arabia, jordan and turkey. Us was very cautious of how much arms it gave them. France and britain saying they would not sell large amounts of arms to the arab states but it fell apart when france supplied arms to israel and us to egypt. Tail wagging the dog phenomenon: when a lower power manipulates the higher power, reverse manipulation by playing the superpowers off each other. Lost democratic potential in the region: influenced development of domestic politics, military-backed regimes common, political polarization, stunted growth of democratic institutions. Because superpowers stayed involved, even though they weren"t colonial states anymore, they had an influence on how far domestic politics could go.