What's the West missing in the whole Middle East picture?
The advance of Saudi-funded ISIS in Iraq is increasing the sense of an impending chaos in the Middle East. Yep, you heard me. Saudi Arabia is triggering the destabilization in Iraq behind USA's back, and ironically, Iran is offering its help to stop that. Curious, huh? Meanwhile in Libya, the government has become hostage to uncontrollable paramilitary formations; Syria in the best case will fall apart, and in the worst will continue to be the battlefield of a brutal civil war for years to come; Yemen is at the top of the list of failed states; etc, etc.
Other countries may follow: tiny Lebanon has accepted about a million Syrian refugees, which, similarly to Jordan, is a serious threat to social peace there. Lebanon is also unwillingly involved in the Syrian civil war, because Hezbollah is fighting partly on Syrian, partly on Lebanese territory. Various terrorists in Algeria and other countries in the Maghreb are getting weapons from Libya, including those in Egypt, whose government believes it could hold its polarized society together through repression. And things were looking so bright and promising a few years ago with the advance of the Arab Spring!
That this violence will not be confined just around Europe's borders became clear in May, when a jihadist who had just come back from Syria performed a bloody terror act in the Jewish museum in Brussels. The German secret services estimate that there are over 300 German Islamists fighting in the Syrian civil war. Most of those who come back home from that conflict already have a significant fighting experience, and are as radicalized as ever. There are British Islamists fighting in Syria as well. Those will come back home at some point, too. The picture is not looking good at all.
Those who are eager to reach out to the most obvious approach and are calling for military intervention in Iraq (and Syria, to that matter), obviously have a very short memory. Because all this chaos in the region is a direct consequence of such rash intervention: the Western strategists must have somehow imagined that military strikes could democratize Libya, that some minor half-assed support to the rebels against Assad would put a swift end to the bloody Syrian regime, and that sending American troops to Iraq in 2003 would turn the country into democracy, and encourage other countries to follow the example. It didn't work that way, did it?
Even if the Iraqi government forces manage to stabilize the country, with or without Western aid, that still won't remove the two main problems: a prime minister whose sectarian policies are putting the Sunni against the central authorities; and the civil war in neighboring Syria, where ISIS is an active player. The former problem is probably solvable: if Nouri al-Maliki resigns and allows the creation of a real government of national unity. The latter problem though, namely pacifying Syria, seems unsolvable for the time being.
So what's the solution? Well, perhaps we should acknowledge, as painful as it is, that there's no quick and satisfactory solution. It would be a real success even if no further destabilization of the region is allowed. For instance, by stronger support for Syria's neighbors in solving their refugee problems. Or, why not, by not turning a blind eye to attempts for military coup like that in Egypt, but instead looking for options for political decision. Or by stopping the sales of tanks and other weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia, which in turn delivers them right into the hands of jihadists wreaking havoc for the sake of furthering the Saudi geopolitical agenda - or directly uses them to suppress popular democratic attempts in neighboring sovereign countries; the West remaining silent about it all the while and doing business as usual, while still arrogantly barking lectures about freedom and democracy.
If the chance is missed to prevent the destabilization of yet another country in the region, we shouldn't be expecting a solution to somehow magically pop up from outside, like deus ex machina. Such a solution has to come from within the main participants themselves, first and foremost. In order to see some success in that respect, first they'll have to be supported by the international community, and find themselves in a stable and favorable surrounding. Not amidst a bunch of neighboring countries where more and more centers of tension occur. But of courss a stable and prosperous Middle East is in no one's interests, is it? It'd make it more assertive of its interests, and oil wouldn't flow so cheaply as it does right now. Right? Besides, we might pretend to care about what's happening over there, but in reality, we don't. After all, it's all just a story that's happening thousands of miles away from our TVs. Now pass me the remote, there's American Idol starting in a minute!
...Until the next jihadist blows themselves up in a museum downtown. THEN we'll show 'em!
Other countries may follow: tiny Lebanon has accepted about a million Syrian refugees, which, similarly to Jordan, is a serious threat to social peace there. Lebanon is also unwillingly involved in the Syrian civil war, because Hezbollah is fighting partly on Syrian, partly on Lebanese territory. Various terrorists in Algeria and other countries in the Maghreb are getting weapons from Libya, including those in Egypt, whose government believes it could hold its polarized society together through repression. And things were looking so bright and promising a few years ago with the advance of the Arab Spring!
That this violence will not be confined just around Europe's borders became clear in May, when a jihadist who had just come back from Syria performed a bloody terror act in the Jewish museum in Brussels. The German secret services estimate that there are over 300 German Islamists fighting in the Syrian civil war. Most of those who come back home from that conflict already have a significant fighting experience, and are as radicalized as ever. There are British Islamists fighting in Syria as well. Those will come back home at some point, too. The picture is not looking good at all.
Those who are eager to reach out to the most obvious approach and are calling for military intervention in Iraq (and Syria, to that matter), obviously have a very short memory. Because all this chaos in the region is a direct consequence of such rash intervention: the Western strategists must have somehow imagined that military strikes could democratize Libya, that some minor half-assed support to the rebels against Assad would put a swift end to the bloody Syrian regime, and that sending American troops to Iraq in 2003 would turn the country into democracy, and encourage other countries to follow the example. It didn't work that way, did it?
Even if the Iraqi government forces manage to stabilize the country, with or without Western aid, that still won't remove the two main problems: a prime minister whose sectarian policies are putting the Sunni against the central authorities; and the civil war in neighboring Syria, where ISIS is an active player. The former problem is probably solvable: if Nouri al-Maliki resigns and allows the creation of a real government of national unity. The latter problem though, namely pacifying Syria, seems unsolvable for the time being.
So what's the solution? Well, perhaps we should acknowledge, as painful as it is, that there's no quick and satisfactory solution. It would be a real success even if no further destabilization of the region is allowed. For instance, by stronger support for Syria's neighbors in solving their refugee problems. Or, why not, by not turning a blind eye to attempts for military coup like that in Egypt, but instead looking for options for political decision. Or by stopping the sales of tanks and other weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia, which in turn delivers them right into the hands of jihadists wreaking havoc for the sake of furthering the Saudi geopolitical agenda - or directly uses them to suppress popular democratic attempts in neighboring sovereign countries; the West remaining silent about it all the while and doing business as usual, while still arrogantly barking lectures about freedom and democracy.
If the chance is missed to prevent the destabilization of yet another country in the region, we shouldn't be expecting a solution to somehow magically pop up from outside, like deus ex machina. Such a solution has to come from within the main participants themselves, first and foremost. In order to see some success in that respect, first they'll have to be supported by the international community, and find themselves in a stable and favorable surrounding. Not amidst a bunch of neighboring countries where more and more centers of tension occur. But of courss a stable and prosperous Middle East is in no one's interests, is it? It'd make it more assertive of its interests, and oil wouldn't flow so cheaply as it does right now. Right? Besides, we might pretend to care about what's happening over there, but in reality, we don't. After all, it's all just a story that's happening thousands of miles away from our TVs. Now pass me the remote, there's American Idol starting in a minute!
...Until the next jihadist blows themselves up in a museum downtown. THEN we'll show 'em!