Dual containment (original) (raw)

Dual containment was an official US foreign policy aimed at containing Ba'athist Iraq and Revolutionary Iran. The term was first officially used in May 1993 by Martin Indyk at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and officially announced on February 24, 1994 at a symposium of the Middle East Policy Council by Indyk, who was the senior director for Middle East Affairs of the National Security Council (NSC). It represented a continuation of US foreign policy toward Iran and Iraq during the Cold War and Bill Clinton's attempt to revise a Persian Gulf strategy after the Gulf War.