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I was having a really in-depth political discussion with another semi-Jewish friend of mine last night over some Jack D. The convo bounced around quite a bit, but ultimately we realized that things were about to get much worse for America and that we may have exprienced the height of American hemogeny.

First, to state clearly, the exercising of power is not always hemogeny. That is power. The ubiquity of America still exists, however, the influence of that power in any form beside force has decidedly eroded in the past five years.

I posted not even a week ago that the word "civil war" would soon start being dropped. Big surprise, in front of a Congressional committee day before yesterday, Abizaid admitted that Iraq is well on the way unless something is done to prevent it. What, no one can say, beside that "The sunni's and shiite's need to realize they have to get along." Profound, I know.

The British are increasingly believing that partition is the only way towards a sustainable peace in Iraq. Their ambassador said this week (who is retiring) that the only way to keep Iraq from killing itself is to break it up along secretarian lines in order to achieve a separate peace.

Israel, meanwhile, is doing what it does best. How well they can achieve their goal of destroying Hezzbolah is unknown, but I that is largely irrelevent. The King of Jordan (the strongest American ally in the region after Israel, whom we have a free trade agreement with, BTW) said that whether or not Israel destroys Hez. is irrelevent. If they succeed, there will just be a new group springing up in Syria, Jordan, or Egypt and then those states will be placed in similar situations as Lebanon. Popular support for these militia groups prevents the legitimate govt from asserting authority over them. As with Lebanon and Hez. any attempt to dismantle the militia could turn into irreperable popular revolt against the legitimate govt seen as acting as a puppet to the American crusader policy. Jordan and Egypt are especially fearful of this happening, because they essentially are puppets to US policy.

In order for these govts to save themselves they must back away from supporting US policy, start talking like the militias enough to keep their people at bay so they don't find their own outlet, but talk in such a way that people don't feel prompted to actually take action because of them. It's a very delicate balancing act that we should support these govts with as much as possible, as having no public support from a country is a lot better than having to fight a former ally because a brand new militia group is shooting missiles into Israel/Iraq.

The funny thing is, when Hez. originally kidnapped those Israeli soldiers, the Arab countries were pretty outspoken AGAINST Hez. Not that these sunni countries like Hez anyway (being a Shiite militia), but even they didn't see the benifit of provoking Israel and making the whole of the Arab world look bad. However, Israel's response caused a reversal of this. BUT, what really made things bad, is when Rice visited the mid east. The US has been complacent in a lot of ugly actions by Israel because it's been preoccupied. The US was then given crap for not being more attentive, rather than being in league with Israeli policy. Instead, we went out of our way to say how much we supported this action. Thus you have the Arab world backlash that you do now. We have managed to take ownership, but blamed for, and have our name directly linked to entire Israeli bombing situation just by saying we think it should be happening, even though we have absolutely nothing to do with it. Like we need anymore bad press... and other shit.

We have managed within two short weeks to take what % of the Arab populace that we not radicalized and have done so. Arabs are *pissed* and the govts that are semi-pro-US are worried. Syria now, instead of being unstable like when we were supporting the UN investigation into their involvement in the assasination of Lebanon's PM, our support of Israel has re-enforced Syria and brought the populace to rally around al-Asad. Further, we have brought into question the ability of long-time US allies (Jordan recently, Turkey because of Iraq way back), or moderate govts (Lebanon's increasingly worthless govt) to sustain themselves. Radicalism is up, sanity is down.

And things will only get worse. The partition of Iraq, the rumors of Israel wanting to permenently annex the land between the Blue Line and Latani River in Lebanon if they manage to clear out Hez in the south. Iran ready to supply tons of weapons to any shiite who wants them, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the deterioration of Afghanistan (we're sending 11K more troops), Pakistan's disapearance from the international stage while Mushareef attempts to recover from what King Abdullah in Jordan is about to experience. And, to further things, Somolia is back on DC's radar because the militia we've been providing funds/weapons to was just completely wiped out by Islamists.

So, I guess it comes down to a judgement call. Obviously the neo-cons wanted to re-make Iraq and Afghanistan in Germany's post-Marshall Plan image without any of the real work. But now we're talking about further deteriorating states. The benifit to Arabian Peninsula failed states that we didn't have in Afghanistan is that Afghan was pretty stable locally, so it was able to project itself outward. A failed Iraq/Lebanon/Syria/Jordan/Pakistan would result in such tremendous civil war that it may accidentially achieve the largest coup against terrorism yet - making them focus their efforts to killing their enemies at home first, whoever they may be that week.

So, the judgement call is - do we purposefully push the middle east into further chaos, which may ultimately backfire and turn into an Afghanistan situation (likely within 10+ years), or do we try to cool the situation, maintain the status quo and slowly push these states toward reform, or, for once, actually just stay out of it since they really, really hate us now anyway?

This is a much easier decision for non-Americans because clearly the latter is superior. Americans go "Well, fuck them, let them kill each other." Americans also seem to have a complete lack of regard for the future in these situations. The idea that the entire mid east could turn into a terrorism projecting area in 10+ years doesn't really click with many. Plus, if you have an area so radicalized, how are you supposed to moderate these people so they can form a stable, rational state? In 50 years we'll be dealing with the same problems we have now.

So, I believe that dis-engagement is the best policy. Give Iraq 6 months and I bet partition will seem like a decent idea. Balkinization has the potential to fix a lot of problems - just like it did in the Balkins.

What we do need to do is remove a common enemy if they are ever to move forward and moderate - us. The US presence will always be salt on a very large wound. Until they can focus inward without having large cultural barriers alienating and creating local enemies they will never be able to look forward. The Palestinians have a lot of internal power stuggle, as to be expected, but none of it secretarian in nature. It is purely political. We need to remove the religious/ethnic influences on politics, and let hemogenous populations fight out a power structure amongst themselves. Once they establish their own stability, they can attempt to move forward and hopefully better themselves. Yes, there is a very real chance they could then turn towards projecting themselves outwards like Afghanistan did, but at least this method offers the opprotunity for sustainable peace if they so choose.

The key to eventually cooling down the middle east is a lack of US engagement in any public fashion. The US has worked for years behind the scenes, but every Pres. is a glory and wants a legacy now. Self-serving policies are the largest threat to a sustained peace of the middle east. As we've already seen in the past five years speaking loudly and carrying a big stick doesn't really achieve anything.

Adam

In addition the US is pretty universally disliked by most of the rest of the world as well. Even the British, America’s biggest ally through all this mess, are chastising Blair for being Bush's puppet. I don’t think American’s realize how fed up most of the world is with them. And as you say, all for what? A president’s legacy?

core beliefs: an individual should rule himself...

should also apply to national policies.

fine, saddam broke international law and was hauled to geneva and executed...wait whoops no he wasnt...

and im not exactly sure of the proper method of taking care of a nation after nuking its leadership, but i know this much: a nation must be able to rule itself without feeling like it is under the hand of another nation.

why not LET them devolve into civil war? it is THIER choice.....

civil war is in our own past even... and for sunni vs shiite, perhaps inevitable for them. in the very least, they will be jihading on each other and not us...

First of all, what is this talk about how other nations see USA?

USA should only care for itself, and defend itself when needed. Europeans have always acted like they do now. Just take a look back 150 years - how Europe and USA handled pirates in the sea. It was Europe who paid with money, and USA who took down the pirates.

And now it repeats again. Except now, USA acts like Europe mostly.


Second, USA should not be in the Middle East to resolve their problems. If something flies out of there and bites, USA needs to do whatever is necessary to make sure nothing again bites again. That is it. Whatever they do to each other is none of American concern.


Third, USA should not play "chicken game" with Arabs states, as Iranian president has correctly identified. USA should have one interest - USA security, which is to achieved by punishing gov't of states that attack and support those attacks on USA.

All nations act in self interest. While it may be true that EU nations might dabble in philanthropy as well, I believe the vast majority of its charitable spending not without purpose.

Secondly, your reference to the Barbary Pirates is inaccurate. First, remember the time period - The Napoleonic Wars. Europe was in no position to deal with the surge in pirate activity in the Med. In fact, it was Napoleon who (for zero reason) destroyed the infrastructure and civilian groups who had kept the North African tribes/pirates at bay since the Crusades. Until then, Europe had them under control by force.

Once American shipping stopped being under protection of the French (upon independence) the pirates began to attack it. The French had the naval might to defend their shipping. A lack of Naval power primarily, along with domestic issues, made Congress support tribute (even though most of the Founding Fathers vocally disagreed). The French recommended the US not pay tribute as it would make the situation even worse. In fact, when Jefferson took office, one of his first acts was to stop tribute payments.

We fought two Barbary Wars, the first temporarily ended hostilities, was poorly managed (we paid them ransom for return for our prisoners and an to end the war, even though we were in a position to destroy their cities), and it settled nothing. Soon afterward the pirates took advantage of the War of 1812 to begin attacking American shipping again. Once the US was allowed back in the Med again after the war (the British blocaded US ships from it during the war) shipping was again attacked and the US set out to stop it by force. This was again poorly managed and once the war was ended the pirates, emboldened, restarted their behavior, this time against European shipping as well. Ultimately the British and Dutch tired of them, razed their strongholds, and left them for European colonization (by the French).

So, what was that about how the Americans and the Europeans deal with things?