Welcome to your policy group. You will be expected to post ideas, bibliographic references (which may include electronic files as well as traditional books and articles), and relevant electronic files to your group, so that you can exchange ideas about US foreign policy in this issue area. You will want to learn what the current US policy is and you will try to evaluate it. Can you think of better alternative policies?

 Before we get into the specifics of your policy area, let us discuss policy in general. Any policy presumably has some goal or set of goals and objectives which you need to identify. Are the goals consistent? In the real world of foreign policy we may have conflicting objectives. A good policy will try to reconcile conflicting goals and objectives as best one can. What are the priorities? Usually in politics people disagree about priorities. The various groups and organizations involved in the US foreign policy process may have different assessments of goals and priorities. You will need to examine them critically in your policy area.

 Once the goals and objectives have been critically discussed and clarified, the policy maker will try to devise a strategy to meet the goals. Strategies are just means to ends. Getting down to the practice of politics, you will also be interested in tactics consistent with implementing the strategy. A foreign policy, if it is well thought out, will include strategy and tactics.

 A strategy may be good in theory but how practical is it? What are the means needed to implement it? What are the resources that the policy maker can call upon? These resources may be military, economic, political, commercial, and sometimes moral as well. They all boil down to power, but power takes many forms in the international arena. A major criterion for evaluating a given policy is whether it can be implemented, i.e. are the resources (including political support from important groups and actors) available to carry out the policy? Can they somehow be mobilized? Is the political will available? The task of political leadership is not only to devise wise policies but also to mobilize support for them.

 Who are the critical actors in the policy-making process in your policy area? Which groups and agencies are critical to the successful implementation of the policy? How important is congress and its committees? Pressure groups? The general American public? Finally, last but not least, how effectively does the policy address the problem under discussion? The relevant actors and political realities in the Middle East also have to be considered.

 Please don't be overwhelmed by all these questions. In the coming four weeks or so you will pull it all together in discussions with your friends even if you know nothing at the outset about the Middle East. Most of our “real” policy makers don't have the foggiest idea about the region. Watch out for the mass media, too! We will try to help you grow out of their stereotypes about the Middle East.