For the forseeable future it is in our—the United States'—interest to have a stable Middle East in which oil can be provided to the world as a commercial commodity. Yes, there are caveats to that statement, but in the general sense it expresses my point of view.
How do we achieve that starting from where we are?
My primary assertion is that it is only in the interests of fundamentalist ideologues to have instability. Notice I don't say "terrorists", and I don't say "fundamentalists". I say "fundamentalist ideologues". Because it is the fundamentalist ideologues of all stripes who are using the cover of chaos to advance their ideology and its objectives ... whether they be Christian Rapturists, Neocons, Zionists, violent jihadists, or skinheads, for that matter.
It is in the interest of most people and their leaders in the region to have some form of stability that allows them to pursue what is for them a normal existence in a secure community.
Therefore, it would seem to me, that the wisest path to negotiating regional and national stability for secure communities to exist for the people, would be to bring all major groups in the region to the table and explain the facts, which are that the major powers of the world cannot afford to let the region descend into the kind of chaos that would interrupt the supply of oil as a commercial commodity—clear and simple. If it comes to that, we will have a world war, and nobody will win then, and some will lose more than others—go figure ... so we had better figure out a solution before that happens.
The problem with this approach, as I see it, is not with the lessor powers in the region, but with the United States. We are not behaving objectively or rationally as the world's superpower. Which is to say that we do not have a set of rules that we ask everyone—including ourselves—to live by. And as long as we treat different parties to the conflict differently, we will never achieve stability in that or any other region. In fact, we have no strategy of carrots and sticks to get everyone on the same page. We have a strategy to keep everyone except ourselves and our allies off our page ... and we do very little to make it benefit the others if they comply. Mostly we have tried to make our strategies work to benefit us.
International engagement does not have to be a zero sum game. Dah!
And escalating the war in Iraq by sending in more U.S. soldiers without initiating a regional peace process is delusional. We will still have too few troops to control the outcome of the civil war now raging, so we don't have a real stick. And our carrots don't feed peace. President Bush is obviously too caught up in an some kind of an oedipal emotional reaction to act rationally.
I mean, we have a war machine thrashing about with no clear objective possible ... and we can't pull the plug?!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment