January 30, 2003
IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE (WHITE) HOUSE?:
The Wrong Words: To the Arabs, it seems that the major force behind instability in the Middle East is the United States itself. (Abdel Monem Said, 1/30/03, NY Times)The historical bond between the United States and the moderate Arab states and mainstream Arabs in general contributed to the stability of the Middle East. For half a century, the bond worked well--to thwart Communist expansion in the cold war, to contain the waves of Iranian Islamic revolution and to end in 1991 Saddam Hussein's radical and regional ambitions. Now, it seems for the Arabs, the major force for instability in the region is the United States itself, which is moving militarily to Iraq, ignoring the Arab-Israeli peace process, giving Ariel Sharon a free hand in Israel, and insinuating a radical program for change in the region without building strategic understanding for it.
Who would even argue with this? The United States, since its own Revolution, has been the most destabilizing force in human history (except
perhaps for Christianity itself), to the great benefit of mankind. Having shucked off the imperial hand of England at its birth it has gone on to annihilate slavery and apartheid within its own borders, tossed other imperial forces out of the Western Hemisphere (from buying out Napoleon to backing the Contras against the Soviet clients in Nicaragua), defeated the Spanish Empire, the Kaiser, and fascism in battle and communism in Cold War. It has played a key role in "imposing" democracy from Tierra del Fuego to St. Petersburg to Johannesburg to Kabul. There's hardly a democracy that doesn't owe the U.S. some debt for either installing, preserving, or restoring it.
Mr. Said seems oblivious to one of the key points he's making. When communism was the primary threat to world peace the United States sought stability in the Middle East while it worked to destabilize the Soviet Empire. Stability was a subsidiary purpose of a policy that sought instability on a massive scale. But now the old communist states are by and large stable democracies and allies and it's the Islamicists who are the greatest threat to world peace. Who would wish a state like Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, or even Saudi Arabia to be stable? A temporarily stable patient with a malignant tumor is still terminal. It requires a surgeon to radically and invasively destabilize that patient if he's to be restored to some semblance of health.
MORE:
Stability, America's Enemy (Ralph Peters, Winter 2001, Parameters)
To borrow a phrase from Steven Den Beste
:
"Destabilization of the Middle East" isn't a bug -- it's a feature!
rrrighhtt, i remember the tyrannical british, didn't those pesky colonials pay up to 1% taxes or something?
Posted by: xavier at January 30, 2003 12:33 PMxavier:
Note I said imperial hand not "tyrannical" hand. I think independence was unnecessary.
Here, once again, this President Bush is much more like Reagan than his father (this piece brings back memories of elder Bush's "Chicken Kiev" speech, one of many forgettable moments in that administration). Still, I wonder about the relationships forged over the years between the Elder Bushies and Arabs -- and if that won't still come into play, at least a little.
Posted by: Kevin Whited at January 30, 2003 2:25 PMAll this talk about "destabilizing" is going to fade real quick once we get tens of thousands of occupation troops in Iraq. We can't have all those dear boys and girls getting butchered in cross border clashes during an election year.
Add on to this the problems of teaching the benighted Iraqis about the subtelties of democracy (that is staying together as a whole country), and we're going to need very quiet borders.
Independence wasn't necessary; but thank heavens the founders obtained it and created a form of governance that enlightened and destabilized the world politically. I share Tom Paine's opinion on the monarchy and am thankful we have none of it here.
Posted by: Genecis at January 31, 2003 5:01 PMDerek:
Why keep it one country? The Kurds, like the Palestinians, are going to have their own nation sooner or later.
Genecis:
Had America instead opted for relative autonomy from Parliamnent but submission to the Crown and continued Union, we might well have avoided the Civil War, WWI and WWII. British pressure would have forced an end to slavery and the prospect of having to fight both Britain and America would have daunted the Krauts.
OJ:
You're indulging in fantasy on that one; but I do agree with you on the Kurd's, although that may be fantasy on my part.