THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 99, April 24, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE MIDDLE EAST MESS
By Alan Caruba
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD THE ISLAMIC WORLD: LACK OF ANY KIND OF
COHESIVE POLICY TOWARD THE MIDDLE EAST, REFLECTING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S ABYSMAL IGNORANCE OF
THAT REGION OF THE WORLD & THE FORCES AT WORK WITHIN IT -- WHAT AMERICA SHOULD DO TO EXTRICATE ITSELF
FROM THE MIDDLE EASTERN MESS
FULL STORY:
Anyone such as myself who lived through the long years of the Vietnam quagmire knows that the United States is repeating
the same errors in the Middle East that we did with Vietnam and the Far East. We seem incapable of recognizing a civil war
when we see one and incapable of not inserting ourselves in the midst of it.
I speak specifically of Libya and the inchoate decisions and measures taken by the Obama administration. To suggest that
the present White House and State Department have a Middle East “policy” is to vastly overstate and misunderstand their
ignorance of that region of the world and the forces at work within it.
The United States has been militarily involved in Afghanistan since 2001, shortly after 9/11. What should have been a short
sortie to inflict punishment on al-Qa'ida and the Taliban has turned into a classic “quagmire.” The invasion of Iraq in 2003
reflects this as well.
Like many, I thought that the application of U.S. military intervention would somehow drag the Middle East into the
Twenty-first Century, but clearly the region remains subject to the Seventh Century religion of Islam and its schism between
the majority Sunnis and the minority Shiites. Islam, plus a tribalism that reaches back millennia, renders the Middle East
intractable to the West’s efforts.
Billions have been squandered in Afghanistan and Iraq, while the real enemy, Iran, has been allowed to go unscathed in its
pursuit of regional hegemony and its pursuit of nuclear parity with its “neighbors,” Pakistan, India, and Russia.
As this is written, Saudi Arabia has concluded that the United States will take no action to stop the Iranian nuclear program
and is seeking to pull together a Gulf State coalition to end the expansionist ambitions of the Iranian Ayatollahs. The Saudis
have also consulted with Israel.
Forty years seems to be the limit that Middle Eastern populations will tolerate the various despots that have controlled
Islamic nation-states. In Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria, those in charge have found themselves under siege
and, in some cases, removed.
In two cases, Libya and Egypt, the Obama administration has openly sided with the rebels. At the same time, it has
incomprehensibly offered a weak defense of Syria’s dictator, Bashar el-Assad, Iran’s strongest ally in the region. Sensing a
shift in power, even Egypt’s new ruling body has reached out to Iran to thaw decades of antipathy.
The only consistent Middle Eastern policy of the Obama administration has been its hostility to Israel, the region’s only
constitutional democracy and America’s traditional ally since its founding just over sixty years ago. For all the caterwauling
about the Palestinians, they have long since been abandoned by the Arab nations and are now well within the Iranian orbit
of influence and support.
The Palestinians could have had a separate state decades ago, but have always pursued an all-or-nothing policy aimed at
the destruction of Israel. It is widely believed that they will initiate a new war as Iran’s proxies, from Lebanon in the north
and Gaza in the south.
The Palestinians, in fact, have a sovereign nation -- an Arab nation-state, officially called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Jordon lost the West Bank, part of ancient Israel, to the modern State of Israel, after attacking it in 1947-1948 and 1967.
Iraq has made it clear to the United States that it wants to see American troops withdrawn, as agreed, by the end of the year.
Its Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, recently ordered an attack on Camp Ashraf, home to 3,500 Iranian dissidents for the past
twenty-six years. That should tell even the casual observer that Iraq is now in the Iranian orbit. This is true, as well, of
Lebanon, first occupied by Syria for decades and now in the grip of the Palestinian Hezbollah.
As to the Iranian people, the Obama administration made it clear they have been abandoned after protests against Mamoud
Ahmadinejad’s stolen election last year received no support whatever by the U.S.A.
America has severely weakened itself since 9/11 with ill-advised military excursions that, like the Vietnam debacle, have
proven costly in treasure and lives sacrificed in an area that is resentful of our unwanted incursions, coupled with our
addled “nation building” schemes.
There is a massive realignment occurring as the result of the popular uprisings against despots across the North African
Maghreb and the heart of Middle Eastern national and multinational states, several of which were the artificial creations of
Western interests. Resentments against the tyrannies of former despots will likely give way to new despots, not to
constitutional democratic reform.
There is no end to the resentment against America and the West.
Lacking any kind of cohesive policy toward Arab nations, except for the oil they provide, the only sensible policy America
should pursue would be to drill for our own extensive oil reserves to prevent a severe shock to our economy and security.
So long as Obama is President, this will not happen.
There is no perceivable policy in place to stand against Iran, and has not been since the Carter administration abandoned
the Pahlavi regime in 1979. The fall of Tunisia’s Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Syria’s Bashar
al-Assad, and the resistance to Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, along with unrest in Yemen and Bahrain, will be seen, in
retrospect, as inevitable.
What remains is a Maghreb and Middle East in a volatile struggle to determine whether it embraces an Islamism
reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire or moves toward an enlightened embrace of Western values.
There is little reason to hope for a good outcome.
----------------------------------------
© Alan Caruba, 2011
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Tunisia, Islamic North Africa, & the Arab World
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Asia -- Central & South Asia:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, & Their Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, commentator and business and science writer,
he is the Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven "scare campaigns" designed
to influence public opinion and public policy.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity