Clean Break - A New Approach to Peace?(Middle East)

we can make a clean break from the middle east because we don't need their oil.

from today's paper

 

On Oil: Many states in the ME don't have oil (Israel, Jordan, Lenanon, Syria, Egypt, Turkey -- natural gas but not much oil). There's a lot more to politics and western interest in the Middle east than oil. Besides, even if the US was completely self-sufficient energy-wise it wouldn't have much of an effect on the global price of oil, or the political influence that oil-producing states have due to demand, or the power OPEC has if they decide to stop pumping.


On A Clean Break: It's WAY out of date.

When it was written, Saddam was in power in Iraq, the elder (and far more competent) Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria, Arafat was in control of the Palestinians, Gaza wasn't under Hamas control (and was still occupied by Israel), Israel had yet to leave from southern Lebanon, and the First and Second intifadas had yet to happen.

And that's to say nothing of America's wars, the war in Chechnya, the rise of Putin, or the fact that Israel has attacked Syria by air on several occasions since and at will (or at least buzzed Assad by F-16 to taunt him).

I'm not sure when in 1996 this was written, but it was an election year for Clinton, and Rabin was dead only a year, and the peace movement was still very big in Israel. And all of that is ANCIENT history at that...the world has moved on. No one authoring that document would recognize the Middle East 17 years later.

This is pure neo-con wishful thinking to pull away from all of that and without saying so explictedly, basically sustain the status quo for Israel's occupation under the banner of "Western Values."

The only thing that is telling is that Congress voted a year or two later, if my memory is right, to out Saddam in principle. I only remember because after the WMDs weren't found in Iraq, it was Christopher Hitchen's retconned defense of the Second Iraq War on the pundit circuit, that Congress, under Clinton had already voted for forceful removal of Saddam four years before.

I'm too lazy to play researcher, but I'm guessing you might find some connection between that resolution from the Gingrich era of the House and the names associated with this work of fantasy.

 

This was the true push behind the war in Iraq. I've said it many times but people have glossed over time and again. The WMD were just a simple-to-understand-for-average-Joe pretext (although the intel did indicate that they were there, but it was of course wrong), the real goal of going into Iraq was to attempt to transform the ME by injecting Western ideals into the region and seeing if it had a positive effect. The idea was that Iraq was relatively secular, and that Iraqis might respond well to an open political system and economic liberalization. The hope was that if democracy and free markets took root in Iraq then they would spread to neighboring countries; Iraq has always been the center of the Arab world, and a nation that other Arab states looked up to, alongside Egypt.

We gave the Iraqis freedom, and they have squandered it. They have allowed tribal and sectarian disputes to color their national identity and r****d their development. Are they better off now than they were under Saddam? Yes, unquestionably. But there are different risks lurking now. Of course, Iran took advantage of our weakness and our mistakes and used the situation to extend their influence. And Iraq, which has always been an artificial state, is always a few missteps away from descending into civil war and fracturing into several distinct entities.

Of course, what we did in Iraq did eventually ripple throughout the ME. Do you think other Arabs did not notice those purple fingers and want the same freedom for themselves? THAT is what sparked the Arab Spring. It started in Lebanon, then it happened in Iran, and then it took off like wildfire across the ME. But just as we misunderstood how Iraqis would receive it, we underestimated the destructive power it would have as it spread across the ME. Being Westerners, we failed to take into consideration what a fusion of Islam and political freedom would bring. The two are really incompatible and will not produce Western style systems when merged. The Arab world wants the political freedom to choose leadership that we have, and they want some of the things that we have, but they also want Islam and they want a different style of government than we envisioned.

The true purpose of going into Iraq was always to spread democracy across the Arab world. Even Bush talked about it openly on many occasions, but it was of course overshadowed by WMDs and terrorism. But the calculation was that the only way to prevent future 9/11s was to change the culture. Well, we're doing it. But the results are not going to be as predicted; in fact, I defy anyone to make a solid prediction as to how this will all turn out. There is FAR too much uncertainty.

What are the alternatives? Leave the ME to its own devices, return to the pre-9/11 status quo? Leave their peoples under dictatorships, with AQ types on the fringe? Or allow them freedom, and hope that they choose not to elevate AQ types to leadership positions? Look at what they did in Egypt; they put the MB in charge and it was a disaster. In Palestine they put Hamas in charge and it hasn't exactly worked out swimmingly for them.

On the one hand everyone wants them to be free. But on the other hand when given freedom the results have proved disastrous nearly every time. When you figure out the answer please let our leadership know, because I don;t think anyone has a clue how to solve this one.

 

One thing I don't get about this reasoning is that if Obama has been dedicated to this policy as you are suggesting why has it taken him so long to do anything in Syria? Why didn't he do something in his first term, or when fighting first broke out two years ago, and why is he now delaying action to have a debate and vote in Congress?

 

Sometimes I just feel like saying something like this:

It is hopeless. They treat women like dogs. And they can't get along with each other just because they are different faction of a exceptionally peaceful religion.

I see zero hope. And once the world is done with oil what will happen then? It will only get worse at that point.

 

The industrialized and information-based world will never be done with oil. And developed countries will always have both factions that curtail pollution and drilling, and state resource boards that restrict excessively rapid local depletion; so midstream marketers and downstream retailers will always need to be on the lookout for cheap product from commodity-dependent economies. We will probably find a way to recolonize Africa before we become energy independent.

 

At a certain point whenever that may be it will all be gone. They will have to make plastic and everything else a different way. Building a skyscraper with a crane, a different way.

There is nothing out there that is energy dense as oil. And even with trillions and trillions of barrels it is still finite. But I suppose like a lot of problems that society faces I will be long gone by that point

 

Following this strategy why dont we just nuke the region? it worked in wwii. seriously as long as war is an option we will create enemies. we have to let the process of them becoming democracies on their own play out