THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 79, March 23, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
UNDERSTANDING ARABS
By Alan Caruba
ARABS & WESTERNERS: THE VAST CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ARABS & WESTERNERS -- ARAB CULTURE:
THE ENDEMIC HATRED OF JEWS THAT REFLECTS THE MUSLIM ARAB MINDSET -- THE FAILURE OF ARABS TO EXIST
PEACEFULLY WITH ONE ANOTHER, DUE TO THEOLOGICAL SCHISMS -- THE ARABS' FAMILY & TRIBAL MENTALITY -- THE
ANTI-WESTERN ATTITUDES OF ARABS THAT LITERALLY DATE BACK TO THE CRUSADES -- ISLAM AS AN
AUTHORITARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM, EXISTING TO ASSERT ABSOLUTE & TYRANNICAL CONTROL OVER TERRITORY &
PEOPLES --THE CONFLUENCE OF OIL & RELIGION, MAKING THE ISLAMIC WORLD A TREACHEROUS PLACE, BUT ONE WHERE
THE WEST HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO INTERVENE & EVEN IMPOSE ITS WILL BY FORCE OF ARMS
FULL STORY:
Seven years past 9/11 and five years past the invasion of Iraq, Americans are still trying to figure out what makes Arabs
behave the way they do. There is a vast cultural difference between those in the West and those in an Arab world that fills
the Middle East and stretches across the northern tier of Africa. Indeed, U.S. military conflict with Arabs goes back to the
days of Thomas Jefferson.
In writing about Arabs, it must be acknowledged that one must use generalizations. No group is unanimous in all respects.
All have their conservatives, their moderates, and starry-eyed liberals. Every group, however, has widely shared cultural
and religious views, and, as history, teaches us, it is the silence of good people that permits the bad actors among them to
dominate events.
In her new book, Sandra Mackey uses the calamity that is Lebanon to provide some useful insights to the Arab world she
knows well. Mirror of the Arab World is well worth reading with the caveat that Mackey has bought into the view
that Israel does not have any right to exist. For her, it is always “Zionist” Israel in much the same way Arab news media
always refers to “occupied Jerusalem.”
Even with her sympathy for Arabs, she does a pretty good job of showing them at their worst. Granted, this does not take
a lot of effort. Is there a day that goes by when the civil war in Iraq does not produce more Shia and Sunni dead bodies?
The Kurds, isolated and armed to the teeth, have managed to keep other Iraqis from destroying their hold on a significant
portion of that nation’s oil.
In fact, one eventually comes to see the problems of the Middle East as stemming from a Seventh Century schism that
occurred shortly after the death of Mohammad. Fourteen centuries later, the Shias, or Shiites, are still held in contempt by
the majority Sunnis. You can find a majority population of Shias in two nations, Iraq and in Iran.
The Iranians, descended from Persians, are not Arabs. While the Iranians may be linked by religion to the Arabs, the former
reportedly take a dim view of the latter. You might feel the same way if Saddam Hussein had made war on your nation for
eight years or if Pakistan and Afghanistan were neighbors.
Lebanon’s problems reflect the Arab world because its population has always been sharply divided between the Christian
Maronites and the Muslims, the including both the Druze sect and the Shias, whose population has been growing due to
the influx of Palestinians. The latter is the result of failed wars against Israel as well as those driven out of Jordan after they
attempted to overthrow the monarchy there.
The result has been the rise of Hezbollah, an armed militia of Palestinians, backed by Syria and Iran, who intend to rule
Lebanon for the purpose of continuing their war against Israel. By destroying the delicate balance of power between
Lebanon’s confessional groups, the Palestinians precipitated a fifteen-year civil war in Lebanon. From 1975 to 1990, the war
destroyed the nation and left what remained under the control of Syria.
The 2006 conflict with Israel precipitated by Hezbollah saw vast portions of Beirut leveled to rubble by the Israelis, who do
not take kindly to having their soldiers kidnapped and their cities rocketed.
If Arabs stopped making war on Israel, the whole region could begin to modernize, make peace with the West, and begin to
enjoy improved lives. The presence of Hezbollah in Lebanon and, in Gaza, Hamas, makes that impossible. Even the quiet
diplomatic efforts of the Saudis have failed to bring about any reduction in bloodshed.
The problems of the Middle East, sitting atop one of the world’s greatest concentration of oil, have required military
intervention by the United States of America for the strategic reason that the West depends on the free flow of oil. It is the
reason the United States has not only had to invest blood and treasure there, but the reason the cost of oil has increased.
Since the days of World War II, the United States has been the guarantor of the flow of oil from there to the rest of the world.
One might be tempted to blame Lebanon’s problems on the existence of Israel since recognition of its right to exist, first by
the British and later by U.S. support since 1948, but what it reveals is (1) the endemic hatred of Jews that reflects the Muslim
Arab mindset, (2) the failure of Arabs to exist peacefully with one another due to theological schisms, (3) their family and
tribal mentality, and (4) the anti-Western attitudes of Arabs that literally date back centuries to the Crusades.
As Mackey puts it:
“Spasms of change grip every Arab society. Long-festering
wounds on the inside and new influences invading from the
outside are eating away at ageless certainties, time-honored
traditions, and venerable relationships within families, clans,
and tribes.”
If there is one thing Arabs have fought against, it has been change, and, in the last century, they had a lot of change thrust
upon them. At the end of World War I, the Ottomans who had ruled for centuries had their empire divided and colonized by
the British and the French. They drew lines on the map of the Middle East to create what can only be called imaginary
nations.
One of them was Lebanon that was ceded to the French. The other was Iraq that became the property of the British, along
with a protectorate called Palestine. No “nation” of Palestine has ever existed. There were no “Palestinian” people until the
late Yassir Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, invented them.
Syria, which had always regarded Lebanon as part of “Greater Syria,” resented then and now having the Levant that
bordered the Mediterranean taken from them. Finally, the British drew lines to create Jordan as a sop to the Arabs who had
fought with them against the Turks.
What few in the West have understood is that Islam is a political entity. It may have the trappings of religion, but it existed
from the beginning to assert absolute control over territory and peoples, to function as an authoritarian system of
government. This is most obvious in Iran, where all decisions are made by a small band of ayatollahs, men learned in the
Sharia, or Muslim law. It can be seen as well in Saudi Arabia where a pact between its founder and the Wahabi sect of Islam
created that desert nation-state.
A massive poll of Muslims, not just in the Middle East, but worldwide, where there are more than a billion people, reveals that
about seven percent, some 100 million, have a hostile view of the West. Muslims in general see the West as a threatening and
dominating force. Among those polled, however, the vast majority expressed a desire for real democratic reform. This is called
progress, but it takes time. Lots of time.
This is why, five years after invading Iraq allegedly to bring democracy, its rival sects still do not appear to be able to fashion
any kind of functioning government. The invasion was, in part, about oil and the need to protect Saudi Arabia against
Saddam’s ambitions. It was invaded, as well, to create the trap for al-Qa'ida and a lure to those Islamists who would try to take
advantage of the occupation.
Lebanon is the perfect example of a place where power was divided between clans based entirely on one’s religious confession.
Oddly, this jerry rigged system produced a highly successful nation that winked at the strictures of Islam to become the most
Western of nations in the Middle East, a banking capitol, but also a place where any rupture in the system could lead to the
slaughter of opposing groups.
As Mackey notes:
“Those who identify themselves as Arab place themselves
in a mystical whole composed of time, religion, language,
culture, and tradition.”
“In this sense, the Arab world reflects a mighty nation aligned
against all who would seek to humble it. But this same world
resonates with its own rivalrous discord as Arab states duel
with each other over national interests…. Arabs are trapped
between their intense sense of unity as a people and tangible
conflicts arising from competing parochial and national
interests. This duality has rendered the Arab world treacherous
territory for outsiders.”
For this new century, the confluence of oil and religion will make the Middle East and other Islamic nations a treacherous
place, but one where the West has no choice but to intervene and even impose its will by force of arms.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
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
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2008
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity