Middle East Meddling

The Brits, Belgians, French and other old colonial powers had a habit of giving the guns and the power to the weaker party, tribe or ethnic group. 



That is how the Hutus came to dominate the Tutsis, which then led to the horrible slaughter in Rwanda.  It's also how the minority Sunnis ended up running Iraq, and all kinds of crackpot borders came into being.  These lines on maps roped together strange and unnatural agglomerations of disparate peoples, while splitting apart kin and tribes of natural affinity.

I'm not saying the old colonial powers are responsible for the on-going troubles of Africa and Southwest Asia, but all their good intentions haven't appeared to accomplish much outside a few rich Gulf States and India.

Intervention Means Picking Sides

When Britain left Palestine after the Balfour declaration but before Israel became a state, they turned over all their forts, magazines and armament to the Arabs there, not the Jews.  It could be interpreted as a spiteful move.  The Jews lived up to their Biblical reputation as a stiff-necked people, spitting in the master's eye at every opportunity, while the Palestinians had perfected the art of kowtowing and currying favor.  But that's not it.  The Brits knew that the ragtag Palestinians stood no chance against the hardy and stubborn Jews.  Giving the Arabs all the arms salved the retreating empire's conscience and at least gave the Palestinians a fighting chance.

Shia vs. Sunni
Being the biggest guy on the block has its disadvantages.   People are constantly seeking help in advancing their cause, almost always at the expense of a rival group.  Hossein Askari steps in a writes a cogent defense of the Shia, offering evidence for why the west should weigh in on their side in that simmering Middle Eastern rivalry.

Far be it from me to take sides in the Sunni-Shia debate (and the US should not either), but based upon my experience, this article rings true, as far as a generality can. We had an influx of Iranians into the US after the fall of the Shah, and don’t recall ever hearing a negative news story about even one of them. They went to work becoming Americans and serving their new communities as doctors, restauranteurs, business owners, and military officers.

While the article rings true, it's main purpose is propaganda, to shame us into action, lest the Shia of the Middle East come to hate us (as if they don't already):

US duplicity has begun to enrage Shia throughout the Middle East. Chants in Bahrain already confirm it: protesters shouting death to the Al-Khalifas and Al-Sauds are also asking whether their rights are less important than those of people marching in the streets in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

If the US does not adopt an evenhanded approach to upholding basic human rights in the region, the disenfranchised Shia will start including Washington on their list of oppressors. It is high time for the US to recognize how closely aligned its national interests are with those of the Shia communities in the area that is at the heart of the Middle East. (The Myth of Sunni Power – Hossein Askari)

If a Son of a Bitch Falls in the Middle East…

I don’t doubt what he is saying, but it smacks of more propagandistic manipulation designed to lure us into kicking the ass of the propagandists’ tormenters, ending in another expensive disaster for the US that empowers a new enemy.

All the more reason to take a principled stand and stop playing favorites. When a Son of a Bitch regime begins to fall in the Middle East, and we are afraid of the crash, that is a sure sign we’ve been dirty dealing in somebody else’s back yard.  The world is a dangerous place, and dirty deals sometimes must be reluctantly made, but can't the Ivy League "best and brightest" who infest our government come up with something better than this? 

We need to stop taking sides and instead take it as it comes and judge each extended hand based on its fruits. The Saudis are nasty people spreading a nasty, poisonous ideology. But this Shia’s article, although well-reasoned, nonetheless is laced with Shia bigotry against Sunni. These are deep issues fraught with cultural biases and historical perspectives we in the West do not understand, and it's not our place to sort it out.  We need to stand aside and offer assistance only when it clearly advances our national interests.

Slouching Towards Disorder

Peter Beinart puts a charitable face on Obama’s Libya dithering...

"...it’s a reasonable bet that had Barack Obama not been able to promise that it would be a mostly European affair, Gates would now be a military analyst on Fox News.

He gives the president too much credit.   Obama staggered in to this, pulled this way and that by France and his own Valkyries.  Regardless, I agree with the president that it’s a good thing for others to lead this latest foreign adventure.

It’s not the 1990s anymore. The American public’s appetite for humanitarian war has always been meager. And now the American government’s capacity for waging it is meager, too.

But in a strange twist, Europe’s appetite has grown. The continent’s military capacity is still tiny compared to America’s, and it still lacks unity, but the shame of European inaction in Bosnia lingers in British, French, Italian, and German minds. (Peter Beinart – The Daily Beast)

It's Time for Europe and the Middle East to Grow Up

Arabs and Europeans need to grow up and take care of their own problems. We should always be faithful to our global friends, but we can do so by playing a supporting role instead of full out fighting their battles for them.  Europe is much closer than we are to Iran, The Middle East and North Africa .

This is only the beginning of the "unraveling of the Middle East"

We learned of the Sunni-Shia blood rivalry during the early years of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Look for it to explode across the wider region, says respected scholar and foreign policy expert Robert Kaplan.  Add to this the anger spilling over in the Muslim street, financial crises in the west, and the fact that we're already tied up in two wars, and for what? 

China is not a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, as we proclaim it should be; it is a free rider. We are at war in Afghanistan to make it a safe place for China to extract minerals and metals. We have liberated Iraq so that Chinese firms can extract its oil. (Robert Kaplan - Beyond Libya)

Events are sliding sideways, and each country is fracturing in its own way.  This Arab revolution began with a humiliating slap, has included virginity checks, rapes, twitter feeds and Facebook posts, and no one can predict how it will all end, or if it will end at all.  We should not be picking sides between rotten murderous dictators and rotten murderous Islamists.  I know, they're not all America-hating terrorists, but we've proven woefully inept a sorting the friends from the enemies.  Better to stay out of it.

Globally and domestically, things will get worse before they get better.  Instead of dropping million-dollar packages from 50,000 feet, we should be marshaling our forces here at home.