The US has been involved in the Middle East for the majority of the 20th century up till the present day. The reasons for why the US entered, why it remains so committed, and whether these motivations are internal or external, is one of the toughest and most complex questions in US diplomatic history. Rather than any straightforward list of events, a number of internal and external motivations have become entangled within another, forcing the US to blind itself from any reasonable possibility of exiting the Middle East. The reasons can be boiled down to Oil, Orientalism, Israel, and the Cold war, with Orientalism acting as purely internal and the others being a mix of internal and external issues.
The easiest to start off with would be the idea of American Orientalism, a topic that can be traced back to anthropologist Edward Said. Said's theory was that the west has exoticized the "east", especially that of the "near east" or what we may refer to today as the Middle East. this exotification comes from pop culture, social Darwinism, and generations of superiority. This can best be seen in movies such as Lawrence of Arabia and Aladdin. Lawrence of Arabia was an extremely popular and successful movie in the west, who's plot went along the lines of the British being the heroes of Arabia, freeing them by helping the helpless, courage-less Arabs in conflict. Without the westerners in this film, the Arabs would have no hope for freedom or success. In the second case, Aladdin shows children how barbaric and savage the middle east can be, quoting lyrics saying that Arabs would cut off the ears of someone if they did not like the way that they looked, simply because they were barbaric, backwards people. Both these movies were massive pop culture hits and are still viewed and referenced to this day. What this shows is that Westerners, specifically the US, are a progressive, modern people that have a moral obligation to help the backwards, savage, Arabs progress to modern times as they are not capable of doing so themselves. This idea is evident in the US rationale of aiding/stopping coups and revolutions in the middle east, in order to prop up "free and fair" democracies, or so this is the rationale they give to themselves and the people they are dealing with. The idea of orientalism runs alongside the idea of social Darwinism and the belief that other races are inferior, specifically the Arab race. However, this idea does not necessarily extend to the Jewish people, who for the longest time in history were regarded by both westerners and easterners as the bottom of the social Darwinist rankings. This is mainly due to the holocaust and the atrocities committed by Hitler at concentration camps. National geographic would show the pictures of Arabs in the British mandate of Palestine with swords and slaves, wearing scary face coverings and standing in an imposing figure, whereas for the Jewish people that had migrated to the Palestinian mandate they would show images of them in western clothes, happily planting and living their dream life after suffering from the holocaust. These images thus lead into the next reason for the US middle eastern entrance, the foundation of a Jewish state.
The American people were able to see for themselves just how horrific the Jewish people had suffered during the Holocaust under Hitler and were determined to never let such a thing happen again, as repayment for not doing enough during the holocaust. Presidents such as Harry Truman felt a personal moral obligation in protecting the Jewish people and giving them a safe and secure homeland in order for them to prosper peacefully. However, over time other motivations began to enter the fray as well, the first being domestic politics. The Jewish population of America, especially New York, was large enough and influential enough to swing whole elections, thus when Truman needed the Votes, the Jewish people stated that they could provide them for the establishment of a Jewish nation state in the Middle east. Jewish influence was larger than a single election however, as for decades afterwards, Jewish interest groups would lobby capitol hill extremely hard in order to get several US presidents to sell modern, usually nuclear weapon loading capable arms by getting senators to sign off on letters to the president. There is also the idea that Israel and the US have a special relationship due to their shared values of democracy and freedom. Writers such as Mark Twain described America's foundation as an "American Israel" for decades, and when the time came to set up an actual Israel, America saw itself in Israel's shoes. Being a strong democratic nation in the Middle East is also a good enough reason for the United States to become any state's ally, as the stakes were highest in this region both politically and economically. The US solidarity behind Israel is one of the strongest relationships the United States has, as can be seen through their constant and effective support in the six days war and the Yom Kippur war. Had the US not given Israel its weapons, arms, and intelligence, Israel would have been completely unable to preemptively strike Egypt's air force in the six days war, and absolutely would have been steamrolled by Syrian and Egyptian forces in the Yom Kippur surprise attacks. However, this military and economic aid also goes far beyond the relationship with Israel, but also the US relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The United States main focus throughout the majority of the 20th century was to contain the ideology of communism emanating from the Soviet Union. The Middle East was an area that saw a number of dictators and regimes play both sides, attempting to get the best deal from the US and the Soviet Union. Globally, when the US saw a regime even slightly edge towards the Soviet Union, it signaled to the CIA that something must be done. This is clear from the Iranian intervention in which the CIA, alongside MI6, overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran purely based on the reason that they believed he might be a communist or even a communist sympathizer. This occurred throughout the 20th century, as the US intervened in Lebanon during their Civil war, as they believed that Islamism revolutionaries would be allies of the Soviet Union, which eventually led to the Beirut bombings. This can also be seen in the US bombing of Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, who was one of the strongest Soviet allies. Lastly, this played a role in the US backing of Israel in the Six Days war as the Egyptian leader Nasser was known for pan-Arab nationalism, an idea that was supported heavily by the Soviet Union. Had Nasser been anti soviet, the support of the US would have wavered more than it already had in the first place. However, the fear of communism in the Middle East was greater for the United States than anywhere else in the world for one main reason, oil.
Oil may very well be the first reason for US involvement in the Middle East, as US multinational corporation, many later parts of the group nicknamed the seven sisters, were involved in oil drilling in the Middle East in the 1920s, far earlier than the threat of communism or the occurrence of the Holocaust. The US at first was very laissez faire with the multinational corporations, as they saw huge profits dealing with Middle Eastern states and allowed for the US oil industry to boom domestically as well. Over time however, the US became more and more dependent on Oil revenues and production from the seven sisters, starting with WW2 and the Marshall plan after world war two. Had the seven sisters not been able to pump out middle eastern oil freely, the US would not have been able to produce enough oil for the war effort and would not have been able to afford the billions of dollars of aid that they were granting to Western European states, while keeping the US domestic oil supply high. Thus, the US made sure that middle eastern oil would flow, no matter the costs. Leaders in states such as Syria were overthrown by the CIA simply because they drove too hard a bargain for the multinational corporations and the US could not risk expropriation of the oil pipelines by Arab nations. Although eventually Arab nations were able to nationalize their oil reserves and create the oil cartel OPEC, the US would still stay in the middle east as long as it had to and as forcefully as it had to in order to avoid any oil issues. The US dependency on oil is further shown by the oil embargo following the Yom Kippur war and lasted until 1974 as OPEC retaliation for American airlifting of supplies to Israel. It is also shown by the Gulf war, where President Bush led a UN coalition to Kuwait in order to stop Saddam Hussein from taking over Kuwait and its oil supply, which would have given Iraq a major stake in global oil supply, much larger than the one it already enjoyed.
All these motivations clearly coincide with each other, as Arab nationalists that were Anti-Israel, communist friendly, dictator dominated, oil rich, and backwards and savage people, provided a bullet proof rationale for US involvement throughout the Middle east throughout the 20th century. To this day, the majority of these motivations stay true, as the US finds itself stuck with situations such as Iran, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and a number of other Middle Eastern to this day and the foreseeable future. Simply focusing on one of these internal and external motivations would simply not paint the whole picture of the US government's involvement in the region. As it stands, the US will stay involved in the Middle East for generations to come.
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