Let's back up a moment... I remember watching the planes smashing into the World Trade Center and later wondering why these Arabs hated us so much. I had worked in the oil business and knew that ARAMCO - the Arabian-American Oil Company is one of the most prosperous economic enterprises in the world. At that time the U.S. hadn't gotten directly involved in any Mid East wars and just wanted stability so cheap oil could fill our tanks. I didn't know a Sunni from a Shi'ite and really didn't care to have the need to know.
Later, I came to understand more of the tumultuous Middle East history and studied the rise of radical Islam in Egypt and Palestine. Iran under the Shah seemed to be on the path to modernization but we know how that ended up with a merging of two versions of radical Islam. I watched the devastation of Iraq and then Syria and the rise of ISIS and its barbarism. I watched in horror as they eradicated pre-Islamic Syrian history and dynamited the ancient Buddhist cliff carvings.
Fast forward to October 7 with Hamas brutally attacking Israeli civilians and scurrying back beneath a shield of their own civilians daring Israel to respond knowing the casualties of dense urban warfare. Does the U.S. care for Arab/Iranian lives? The real question is do the radical Islamists care for the lives of their own citizens they so carelessly sacrificed?
I live in liberal California, but I witness very little animosity towards our sizable Muslim community. Nationwide, there are more the 70 Muslims serving in the Biden Administration.
"Muslims also won seats in Texas, Illinois, California, Minnesota, Maine, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These newly elected officials come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, including Somali, Pakistani, Afghan, Indian and Palestinian, but tend to be young and Democratic.
The path to these wins was paved in part by higher-profile Muslim politicians, including Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to serve in Congress, who is now Minnesota attorney general; André Carson, a congressman from Indiana; and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. But Mohamed Gula, national organizing director at Emgage, a Muslim civic engagement non-profit, said the phenomenon was also fueled by the community’s desire “to create social change, to create a culture shift and the systems that are supposed to represent us”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/26/us-midterms-muslim-candidates-elected-politics
My research points back to the Arab invasion of Persia (Iran) over a millennium ago in 654 and the forced conversion from Zoroastrianism to Islam. The current split between the Sunnis and Shia is ancient and deep. It is this vicious holy war within Islam that leads to the visions of bloody jihad perpetrated by radical Islamists. No, it is not the West that doesn't value Muslim lives, it is the division deep within Islam itself that causes the carnage. Most of us in the West would like to walk away from this madness and cruelty and probably would if not for Israel being a bastion of Western liberalism in the region. Sadly, I find the West values Muslims more than they do themselves.
You write as though the ME doesn't include Israel when citing liberal democracies. That's a red herring. All the other local nations need to do is emulate it but, of course, that's not what their leadership ever tolerates (Assad? The Kingdoms?). First recent principles: On October 7 Arabs attacked Jews in the most bestial way (un)imaginable and the Arab 'street' supported both the massacres and Hezbullah's initially unprovoked 9,000 random projectile tosses into Israel's civvy population. Read the headlines.
It's not about 'cheap' Arab lives, it's about bad actors purposely, often welcomely embedded within their own civilian population. How many times this year did Israel warn Hizbullah to back off? How many international ceasefire initiatives did it tolerate for naught? Where's the vaunted UN supposedly enforcing Resolution 1701, intended to keep both populations safe which only Israel honored while Hizbullah turned the zone into an arsenal? Should Israel have sent bouquets instead while some 80,000 innocents resultingly remain homeless for a year? Contrast that with Israel blowing up a single apartment to deliver a reprobate his due, reserving leveling buildings to the truly otherwise impossible targets like Hizbullah's entire command structure huddled deep, deep below. Much of the time it sends advance civilian warnings; certainly not Hamas, Houthi and Hizbullah's livre de jeu.
Sorry but if Arab geopolitical entities want to be treated with respect they must deserve it. Too few clearly have the guts, moral guidance and education to fit the bill. You get the leadership you deserve though at this point, most of that leadership's pushing up daisies.
What if, in an alternate world, all of the muslim countries in the region had made peace with Israel while continuing to peacefully support the struggle of Palestinians for a state? Or, what if the Arabs / Palestinians had accepted the 1947 UN plan for Partition Palestine? I understand the plan was deemed pro-Zionist and therefore unfair to the Arabs. In that scenario, would have the Middle East developed differently?
Israel-Palestine conflict is only one of several factors that have made Middle East so volatile, making it an infertile environment for democracy. Other factors include acquisition of sudden wealth of some, but not all, Middle East nations in the form of Petrodollars that was used to spread Wahhabism to various parts of the muslim world, radicalizing them even more. Egypt was probably the pre-eminent Arab nation after the war, but is now eclipsed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Then there is Shia - Sunni conflict that played out in Iraq and Syria, and then between Iraq and Iran.
US administrations may be guilty of supporting dictators and authoritarian regimes in the middle east, but that was driven by a need for stable and uninterrupted supply of Oil that only dictators were deemed capable of ensuring. That in turn increased unrest among the Arab citizens that in turn forced the leaders to clamp down even more etc.
I think it was Fareed Zakaria who said decades ago that oil has proven to be more of a curse than a benefit. I agree. Without it, the Middle East would probably be a lot more stable, peaceful, and even democratic.
I guess the point I am making is that US policy could have been better in theory, but the challenges in the Middle East are more structural IMHO.
When I was young and stupid, I was involved with Irish Republican politics. The Provisional Irish Republican Army were not nice people. They killed civilians. The role of us supporters was to contextualize after killing - the PIRA always had an excuse (the warning wasn’t delivered, the victim was a reserve police officer and a “legitimate target”). These were frequently argued in bad faith, but the point is PIRA knew it needed to *try* to hit “legitimate targets” because when they killed indiscriminately in the 70s they hemorrhaged support (people underestimate the level of support for the IRA not only in the South but the US and England itself in the early days). And even if everyone knew you killed the guy because he was a Protestant hardliner, you could never, ever, ever admit to sectarianism. The Irish people, and the Irish diaspora, was repulsed by mass deliberate killings.
Judging from the images on social media, however, the Palestinians are absolutely okay with indiscriminate killing on 10-7 or otherwise. The thing that leaves me absolutely cold about the Palestinian national cause is they never seem to have particularly cared about any of that. They were killing Jews in the 30s en masse and have continued to do so when they can. Olympic athletes, kids in an airport, hundreds of youth enjoying a concert dedicated to peace. I’m ashamed of my youthful support of tough guys blowing up chip shops on the off chance the UDA was meeting there, but that is miles away from suicide bombing a bus to the beach when you can see with your own eyes that they are kids and women.
I would suggest maybe people have a dim view towards the Palestinians because the Palestinians have decided to fight a certain way, and that approach makes them morally repulsive to outside observers.
I can say with authority that the rhetoric and self righteous indignation of pro Palestine protestors in the last year has actively repelled me, particularly since so many of them are verging on self parody white sheltered LARPers using hyperbole mixed with recycled Der Sturmer lines.
Thanks, Shadi. I’m only recently discovering how truly rare (maybe even schizophrenic) my combination of opinions on these subjects is. On the one hand, I’m upset Obama and Biden accepted coups in Egypt and Tunisia. On the other hand, I’m utterly thrilled Israel is ripping Hamas and Hezbollah to shreds with American weapons (and, if I’m perfectly honest, the collateral civilian deaths stopped bothering me a while ago, awful though that is).
While the US has power and leverage, and often makes wrong foreign policy decisions, it likely does not have the ability to end complex conflicts in the region on its own. I may be naive, but my guess is that sovereign nations cannot always be instructed to behave certain ways, even by nations that have more power or leverage over them (As you once alluded to, Shadi, nation states usually have agency to make their own decisions, even to de-escalate conflict, or increase it). I have alot to learn in the foreign policy space, that's one of the reasons I subscribe to WoC. It is likely true that wealthy Arab nations are not doing enough to thwart malignant bad actors (terrorist groups) in the Middle East. Ultimately, I trust that the US can help lead the region to peace, but we shouldn't overestimate (nor underestimate) its abilities.
Yes, you make a good point about the U.S. assisting moderate Arab states to join together and police radical Islamist elements in general and by Iran in particular. This is a Muslim problem seeking Muslim solutions. Christians and Jews attempting to "lead the region to peace" will likely add to the polarization and accomplish the opposite. The West gets blamed for "neocolonialism" when attempting to bring some order to the chaos of the region.
The Middle East/N. Africa, MENA, is awash in refugees and displaced, stateless people. A large percentage of these are the result of Muslim on Muslim violence.
"The global refugee population increased by 7 per cent to reach 43.4 million during the year. This includes 31.6 million refugees and people in a refugee-like situation and 5.8 million other people in need of international protection under UNHCR's mandate, as well as 6 million Palestinian refugees under UNRWA's mandate. Compared to a decade ago, the total number of refugees globally has more than tripled.
The largest proportion of refugees globally were from Afghanistan and Syria, both with 6.4 million each, and together equivalent to one-third of all refugees under UNHCR’s mandate."
The addition of Gaza and now Lebanese refugees will swell the ranks. (Yes, non-state Hamas and Hezbollah essentially attacked their own civilian populations. The horrors in Sudan have a Muslim origin.) A whole generation of children living in camps will suffer from the lack of education and be unable to competitively join the modern tech-driven world. The West funds much of the relief efforts, but only the moderate Muslim nations can stem the violence and chaos fueling this tragedy.
Shadi, maybe Democracy isn't inherently good at all. If our democracy demeans Arab and Muslim lives, and Arab/Muslim majority democratic nations would be (and are) inherently Antisemitic, or Anti-Israel, perhaps the only good thing about democracies is that they elevate the kind of compromise that might make for peace agreement in the Middle East, were it not for these states being at each-other's throats.
To be clear, Zionism exists because of American and European Antisemitism, (we feel bad, so here's a country for you over there). Maybe that makes the West is the worst of all.
I was worried about the comment section when you decided to do a provocation, and now I see my fears were correct. Never gets old reading the "wisdom of crowds"...
"There needs to be sufficient freedom of association and expression for elections to be both competitive and meaningful."
How can you ensure, by guaranteeing freedom of association, that elections are competitive? I live in New York City, where competitive elections are vanishingly rare. That's annoying to me, in general elections I usually vote for the Republican to thumb my nose at the Democrats (even though I'm a registered Democrat and vote in the primaries). But I wouldn't go so far as to claim that freedom of association and expression are suppressed, or that the election results are not meaningful.
Rather, we just live in a one-party state. Also, please add one vote in favor of the unwritten column about not having kids.
Great stuff as always Shadi :) I was wondering what do you think a coherent policy would look like now in the region looking at it from a philosophically realist lens i.e., what do you think the US can do which is likely or possible as a course of action. Obviously tensions need to be lessened but outside of that immediate need what would you like to see?
Let's back up a moment... I remember watching the planes smashing into the World Trade Center and later wondering why these Arabs hated us so much. I had worked in the oil business and knew that ARAMCO - the Arabian-American Oil Company is one of the most prosperous economic enterprises in the world. At that time the U.S. hadn't gotten directly involved in any Mid East wars and just wanted stability so cheap oil could fill our tanks. I didn't know a Sunni from a Shi'ite and really didn't care to have the need to know.
Later, I came to understand more of the tumultuous Middle East history and studied the rise of radical Islam in Egypt and Palestine. Iran under the Shah seemed to be on the path to modernization but we know how that ended up with a merging of two versions of radical Islam. I watched the devastation of Iraq and then Syria and the rise of ISIS and its barbarism. I watched in horror as they eradicated pre-Islamic Syrian history and dynamited the ancient Buddhist cliff carvings.
Fast forward to October 7 with Hamas brutally attacking Israeli civilians and scurrying back beneath a shield of their own civilians daring Israel to respond knowing the casualties of dense urban warfare. Does the U.S. care for Arab/Iranian lives? The real question is do the radical Islamists care for the lives of their own citizens they so carelessly sacrificed?
I live in liberal California, but I witness very little animosity towards our sizable Muslim community. Nationwide, there are more the 70 Muslims serving in the Biden Administration.
"Muslims also won seats in Texas, Illinois, California, Minnesota, Maine, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These newly elected officials come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, including Somali, Pakistani, Afghan, Indian and Palestinian, but tend to be young and Democratic.
The path to these wins was paved in part by higher-profile Muslim politicians, including Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to serve in Congress, who is now Minnesota attorney general; André Carson, a congressman from Indiana; and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. But Mohamed Gula, national organizing director at Emgage, a Muslim civic engagement non-profit, said the phenomenon was also fueled by the community’s desire “to create social change, to create a culture shift and the systems that are supposed to represent us”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/26/us-midterms-muslim-candidates-elected-politics
My research points back to the Arab invasion of Persia (Iran) over a millennium ago in 654 and the forced conversion from Zoroastrianism to Islam. The current split between the Sunnis and Shia is ancient and deep. It is this vicious holy war within Islam that leads to the visions of bloody jihad perpetrated by radical Islamists. No, it is not the West that doesn't value Muslim lives, it is the division deep within Islam itself that causes the carnage. Most of us in the West would like to walk away from this madness and cruelty and probably would if not for Israel being a bastion of Western liberalism in the region. Sadly, I find the West values Muslims more than they do themselves.
You write as though the ME doesn't include Israel when citing liberal democracies. That's a red herring. All the other local nations need to do is emulate it but, of course, that's not what their leadership ever tolerates (Assad? The Kingdoms?). First recent principles: On October 7 Arabs attacked Jews in the most bestial way (un)imaginable and the Arab 'street' supported both the massacres and Hezbullah's initially unprovoked 9,000 random projectile tosses into Israel's civvy population. Read the headlines.
It's not about 'cheap' Arab lives, it's about bad actors purposely, often welcomely embedded within their own civilian population. How many times this year did Israel warn Hizbullah to back off? How many international ceasefire initiatives did it tolerate for naught? Where's the vaunted UN supposedly enforcing Resolution 1701, intended to keep both populations safe which only Israel honored while Hizbullah turned the zone into an arsenal? Should Israel have sent bouquets instead while some 80,000 innocents resultingly remain homeless for a year? Contrast that with Israel blowing up a single apartment to deliver a reprobate his due, reserving leveling buildings to the truly otherwise impossible targets like Hizbullah's entire command structure huddled deep, deep below. Much of the time it sends advance civilian warnings; certainly not Hamas, Houthi and Hizbullah's livre de jeu.
Sorry but if Arab geopolitical entities want to be treated with respect they must deserve it. Too few clearly have the guts, moral guidance and education to fit the bill. You get the leadership you deserve though at this point, most of that leadership's pushing up daisies.
What if, in an alternate world, all of the muslim countries in the region had made peace with Israel while continuing to peacefully support the struggle of Palestinians for a state? Or, what if the Arabs / Palestinians had accepted the 1947 UN plan for Partition Palestine? I understand the plan was deemed pro-Zionist and therefore unfair to the Arabs. In that scenario, would have the Middle East developed differently?
Israel-Palestine conflict is only one of several factors that have made Middle East so volatile, making it an infertile environment for democracy. Other factors include acquisition of sudden wealth of some, but not all, Middle East nations in the form of Petrodollars that was used to spread Wahhabism to various parts of the muslim world, radicalizing them even more. Egypt was probably the pre-eminent Arab nation after the war, but is now eclipsed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Then there is Shia - Sunni conflict that played out in Iraq and Syria, and then between Iraq and Iran.
US administrations may be guilty of supporting dictators and authoritarian regimes in the middle east, but that was driven by a need for stable and uninterrupted supply of Oil that only dictators were deemed capable of ensuring. That in turn increased unrest among the Arab citizens that in turn forced the leaders to clamp down even more etc.
I think it was Fareed Zakaria who said decades ago that oil has proven to be more of a curse than a benefit. I agree. Without it, the Middle East would probably be a lot more stable, peaceful, and even democratic.
I guess the point I am making is that US policy could have been better in theory, but the challenges in the Middle East are more structural IMHO.
When I was young and stupid, I was involved with Irish Republican politics. The Provisional Irish Republican Army were not nice people. They killed civilians. The role of us supporters was to contextualize after killing - the PIRA always had an excuse (the warning wasn’t delivered, the victim was a reserve police officer and a “legitimate target”). These were frequently argued in bad faith, but the point is PIRA knew it needed to *try* to hit “legitimate targets” because when they killed indiscriminately in the 70s they hemorrhaged support (people underestimate the level of support for the IRA not only in the South but the US and England itself in the early days). And even if everyone knew you killed the guy because he was a Protestant hardliner, you could never, ever, ever admit to sectarianism. The Irish people, and the Irish diaspora, was repulsed by mass deliberate killings.
Judging from the images on social media, however, the Palestinians are absolutely okay with indiscriminate killing on 10-7 or otherwise. The thing that leaves me absolutely cold about the Palestinian national cause is they never seem to have particularly cared about any of that. They were killing Jews in the 30s en masse and have continued to do so when they can. Olympic athletes, kids in an airport, hundreds of youth enjoying a concert dedicated to peace. I’m ashamed of my youthful support of tough guys blowing up chip shops on the off chance the UDA was meeting there, but that is miles away from suicide bombing a bus to the beach when you can see with your own eyes that they are kids and women.
I would suggest maybe people have a dim view towards the Palestinians because the Palestinians have decided to fight a certain way, and that approach makes them morally repulsive to outside observers.
I can say with authority that the rhetoric and self righteous indignation of pro Palestine protestors in the last year has actively repelled me, particularly since so many of them are verging on self parody white sheltered LARPers using hyperbole mixed with recycled Der Sturmer lines.
Thanks, Shadi. I’m only recently discovering how truly rare (maybe even schizophrenic) my combination of opinions on these subjects is. On the one hand, I’m upset Obama and Biden accepted coups in Egypt and Tunisia. On the other hand, I’m utterly thrilled Israel is ripping Hamas and Hezbollah to shreds with American weapons (and, if I’m perfectly honest, the collateral civilian deaths stopped bothering me a while ago, awful though that is).
While the US has power and leverage, and often makes wrong foreign policy decisions, it likely does not have the ability to end complex conflicts in the region on its own. I may be naive, but my guess is that sovereign nations cannot always be instructed to behave certain ways, even by nations that have more power or leverage over them (As you once alluded to, Shadi, nation states usually have agency to make their own decisions, even to de-escalate conflict, or increase it). I have alot to learn in the foreign policy space, that's one of the reasons I subscribe to WoC. It is likely true that wealthy Arab nations are not doing enough to thwart malignant bad actors (terrorist groups) in the Middle East. Ultimately, I trust that the US can help lead the region to peace, but we shouldn't overestimate (nor underestimate) its abilities.
Yes, you make a good point about the U.S. assisting moderate Arab states to join together and police radical Islamist elements in general and by Iran in particular. This is a Muslim problem seeking Muslim solutions. Christians and Jews attempting to "lead the region to peace" will likely add to the polarization and accomplish the opposite. The West gets blamed for "neocolonialism" when attempting to bring some order to the chaos of the region.
The Middle East/N. Africa, MENA, is awash in refugees and displaced, stateless people. A large percentage of these are the result of Muslim on Muslim violence.
"The global refugee population increased by 7 per cent to reach 43.4 million during the year. This includes 31.6 million refugees and people in a refugee-like situation and 5.8 million other people in need of international protection under UNHCR's mandate, as well as 6 million Palestinian refugees under UNRWA's mandate. Compared to a decade ago, the total number of refugees globally has more than tripled.
The largest proportion of refugees globally were from Afghanistan and Syria, both with 6.4 million each, and together equivalent to one-third of all refugees under UNHCR’s mandate."
https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends#:~:text=The%20increase%20to%20117.3%20million,population%2C%20is%20now%20forcibly%20displaced.
The addition of Gaza and now Lebanese refugees will swell the ranks. (Yes, non-state Hamas and Hezbollah essentially attacked their own civilian populations. The horrors in Sudan have a Muslim origin.) A whole generation of children living in camps will suffer from the lack of education and be unable to competitively join the modern tech-driven world. The West funds much of the relief efforts, but only the moderate Muslim nations can stem the violence and chaos fueling this tragedy.
Shadi, maybe Democracy isn't inherently good at all. If our democracy demeans Arab and Muslim lives, and Arab/Muslim majority democratic nations would be (and are) inherently Antisemitic, or Anti-Israel, perhaps the only good thing about democracies is that they elevate the kind of compromise that might make for peace agreement in the Middle East, were it not for these states being at each-other's throats.
To be clear, Zionism exists because of American and European Antisemitism, (we feel bad, so here's a country for you over there). Maybe that makes the West is the worst of all.
Democracy empowers people. And people often have hateful, shitty conceptions about each other, and use that power to hurt each other.
I was worried about the comment section when you decided to do a provocation, and now I see my fears were correct. Never gets old reading the "wisdom of crowds"...
A question about this sentence:
"There needs to be sufficient freedom of association and expression for elections to be both competitive and meaningful."
How can you ensure, by guaranteeing freedom of association, that elections are competitive? I live in New York City, where competitive elections are vanishingly rare. That's annoying to me, in general elections I usually vote for the Republican to thumb my nose at the Democrats (even though I'm a registered Democrat and vote in the primaries). But I wouldn't go so far as to claim that freedom of association and expression are suppressed, or that the election results are not meaningful.
Rather, we just live in a one-party state. Also, please add one vote in favor of the unwritten column about not having kids.
Great stuff as always Shadi :) I was wondering what do you think a coherent policy would look like now in the region looking at it from a philosophically realist lens i.e., what do you think the US can do which is likely or possible as a course of action. Obviously tensions need to be lessened but outside of that immediate need what would you like to see?