How appropriate!  It snowed in the Middle East.  If that’s not symbolic of the Arab spring turning to the Arab winter, I don’t know what is.  Even if we don’t have confidence in nuclear power, solar energy, or natural gas (especially fracking), it’s imperative that the U.S. become energy independent in order to avoid all the turmoil in that part of the world.  The longer I live, the more I believe that the Middle East is a hopeless case, a patient who is terminally ill and better off dead.  If R.I.P. has a political meaning, we should apply it to these troubled lands.  The world needs to move on.

Ben Ghazi showed that Libyans can’t control their own people—or al Qaeda has corrupted the political process.  We now find out that Mohamed Morsi, current President of Egypt and wannabe dictator, is on record saying three years ago that Israelis are “blood-suckers, who attack Palestinians” and “warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.”  Maybe he was just playing to his Islamic fundamentalist base, but this doesn’t bode well for future peace between Egypt and Israel.

Syria’s civil war is out of hand.  It’s clear that Assad is a monster.  What’s not clear is who will fill the vacuum of power.  The “freedom fighters” there span many groups.  Some of them are rabid fundamentalists.  There is a definite danger that the fighting will spill over into Jordan and Lebanon.  There’s also a definite danger that Assad, in his desperation, will wage chemical warfare on his own people.  The U.S. has threatened to step in if that happens.  That would be a mistake.

Iraq’s violence is increasing.  There is no Iraqi nation—VP Biden was correct in saying the country needed to be three countries.  At least three.  The Shi’ite-dominated government is not well liked by Sunnis or Kurds and not only because of its corruption.  Karzai’s government is probably leading the region in its corruption level, largely determined by the opium trade.  The Taliban are ready to move in as soon as the U.S. leaves.  Neither country has achieved peace in spite of State Department claims.

Israel has more to worry about from Iran than Egypt.  The Iranians spend a lot of time saber rattling, only their war of words with the U.S. and Israel turns the sabers into nukes.  Maybe their rockets are inaccurate toys, but it doesn’t take much to reach Tel Aviv or Jerusalem from Iran.  Estimates about how far they are away from operational nukes vary all over the place.  How long will Israel wait?  Should we also intervene?  In what way?  Advising patience to Israel or threatening to turn Tehran into nuclear slag?  Maybe the best thing is to allow the saber rattlers on both sides to fight their UFC bout and get far enough away that the blood spatters don’t hit us.

Of course, when Iran achieves operational nukes is a moot point if we consider the ones already in Pakistan.  The Pakistani intelligence service is anti-U.S.—they were like that even before we took out bin Laden.  Now the Pakistani Supreme Court wants to arrest the Prime Minister, something Pakistani leadership sees as “unconstitutional” (it’s debatable whether constitutions have any meaning in these countries, even in Israel).  Certainly, if Pakistan falls to fundamentalists (there are others in addition to al Qaeda and the Taliban) and power hungry mafiosos, these radical elements will have nukes.  The preferred targets might be cities in India, but Israeli cities will probably be on the list.  I foresee a pact between Israel and India.

Historically, many Western countries contributed to this mess—Britain and the U.S. are the worst culprits, but we can’t forget France, Italy, and Russia.  Since the heyday of the Roman Empire and even before, armies have vied for ownership of the Middle East.  It’s logical that there are bitter feelings toward colonial powers there.  But these feelings have gone far beyond anti-colonialism to reach a feverish level of fanaticism—an attitude that if this is not the land of Allah, it will be no one’s land.

As often happens, only a few fundamentalist fruitcakes are driving the discourse in the region.  Your average family in the Middle East just wants what all families want—a decent lifestyle, where they have access to healthy food, safe water, a decent education, good jobs, and a prosperous economy.  The fundamentalists stand in the way, from the presidents of Iran and Israel right down to the old washed-up Egyptian who runs al Qaeda.  The Arabs and the Persians (Iran) are their own worst enemies.  They must learn to control their radical elements.  The Israelis have to learn to do the same.  We can’t bypass this educational process in the Middle East by forcing recalcitrant and belligerent populations to toe the line.  That just doesn’t work!

And so it goes….

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2013 at 4:00 am and is filed under Fundamentalism, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.