Middle East Fatigue

Though what prompted me to start this so-called blog was the entrance of Sarah Palin into the national political arena, it’s been a while since I’ve ranted and raved about political issues.  Not because there hasn’t been a mountain of things to rant and rave about since; but because I ceased to derive pleasure from doing so.  This “Syria thing” however has stirred my bile some, and I find myself screaming at the radio, and at the TV, and at my mother when she says, “You have to do something against this monster.”  Frankly, I have Middle East fatigue.

Whether we have to do something or not, very much depends on what our goal is.  And though no politician ever states it, whenever we get embroiled in that Middle Eastern viper’s nest (which is always) it is primarily to keep the export of oil flowing smoothly.  Any humanitarian aspect to our involvement is incidental and secondary; even though, as Americans, we want to believe that it is primary. 

Stated or not, and although the goal of keeping oil flowing smoothly sounds straightforward enough, choosing the right game to play (using human lives) to keep it that way, in an enormous and diverse region full of warring factions and tribes functioning with a Middle Ages mentality (and I don’t exclude Israel from the bunch as long as they have Hassidim dictating their land policy), is all but impossible.  That, Mr. President, is why you should keep your big mouth shut, and try to refrain from aggrandizing yourself until you actually use, for perhaps the first time ever, your brain to think about the consequences of your un-tele-prompted words.

Over the past many days, I’ve heard a lot of theories about why we have to get involved once more in what has become an even more complicated game than it ever was.  Yesterday, I heard a guy tell me (on the radio) that if we had attacked Saddam Hussein in the 80’s, when he did indeed use chemical weapons against the Iranians and against the Kurds (and against whomever he wanted to), the landscape would be much different today.  No shit Sherlock, but different how?   We did eventually get tired of Saddam for straying from behavior that used to serve our purposes; and we did invade, though too late according to yesterday’s report.  But who’s to say what difference it would have made had we attacked early; plus in the eighties, he was serving our purposes of balancing the power in the region by keeping Iran at bay. 

The wishful thinking behind our recent invasion of Iraq was way more complicated than slapping Saddam on the hand, like we did the first time around in the 90's at the tune of $60 billion, and like Obama wants to ineffectually do to Assad.  It was overtly about regime change.  I’m not sure what the Bush Administration advisers were snorting at the time, but the thinking was that we would present, as in the verb “gift”, democracy to a country which, because of its relatively stable economy and educated populace, would embrace it with open arms.  Once the Iraqis tasted the freedom that comes with western style democracy, said democracy would spread over the entire Middle East; we would disengage militarily, sing Kumbaya together, have a meeting of the hearts and minds, and oil would with gusto ejaculate from the ground and flow freely our way forever after….    

Despite what they were snorting (and I must have picked up on their fumes because I bought what they were selling at the time- a mistake I will not be making again), you gotta hand it to Bush’s advisors; the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam did indeed prompt people all over the Middle East to develop a taste for “democracy”, and to rebel and depose their dictators in what the media have dubbed as the “Arab Spring”.  Though if April showers bring May flowers, I’ve yet to see them.  And relations between the West and the Middle East continue to be as circuitous as ever, if not more.  Enter the Syria problem.

The best analysis I heard was from a guy at the ChristianScience Monitor reminding those who might forget that Syria is being propped up by Iran.  Any war we start in Syria will be a proxy war with Iran (our “real” “enemy” from way back when Saddam used to be our foil against them); which is what McCain and his cronies are hoping for.  McCain and Co. must be snorting some of the left over Bush administration shit.   Even if they actually believe in democracy for the people of Syria, did the short lived experiment with democracy in Egypt (like Syria, a relatively developed country that, by all western logic, should have been able to put together a working democracy that was representative of all its people) not teach these clowns anything?!!!  We don’t even really know who these rebels are who plan to run the country once they hang Assad, and intelligence has it that they are riddled with Al-Qaeda.  How can getting embroiled in this mess sound like a good plan?   That must be some very good shit they are snorting in parts of Capitol Hill. 

The report from the Christian Science Monitor also points out that Iran is spread very thinly trying to support the Assad regime, and that this is becoming an “Iranian war”.  They are hoping Obama gets involved so it can become the “Obama War” and they can divest themselves from it a little in order to keep fomenting trouble elsewhere.  Letting Iran spread itself thin sounds like a great strategy to me. It is time we let those people deal with each other.  Yes, oil might sky-rocket for a while, and there will be hell to pay here if it does; it will probably make the recent recession look like child’s play.  But the status quo, that is, our starting wars with no goals or end, cannot hold.  The American people no longer support such action; like me, they seem fatigued.  Maybe we are stupid, but we are not seeing the benefits from the past 12 years of  military engagement.  And forget the costs of our big heavy duty engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan; look at what our “light support” in Libya wrought: can you say Benghazi?

So, Mr. President, before you start speaking without thinking again, and before you make this thing in Syria your legacy, stop and cogitate.  Find yourself a brilliant chess player, preferably one from the Middle East, to help you navigate through this troubled zone.  Lobbing a few missiles is simply not the answer; but, Mr. McCain, neither is Regime Change à la Americaine.   Mr. President, this is a lot more complicated than your little community organizing mind seems capable of working out, not to mention that We the Community are sick and tired of war. ...But as surely as I sit here typing, we are moving in that direction "one more again"... let the games continue.