HAARETZ The great American withdrawal
The disillusioned U.S. has commenced on a journey of withdrawal from the tormented Middle-East and its politics of chaos, a move that bodes ill for the region's downtrodden.
The disillusioned U.S. has commenced on a journey of withdrawal from the tormented Middle-East and its politics of chaos, a move that bodes ill for the region's downtrodden.
By Ari Shavit | May.30, 2013
The most important city in the Middle East is Washington.
As we are now learning day by day, the region we live in is diseased and stricken. Arab national identity failed to crystalize into a confident, modern identity that is true to itself and able to live at peace with itself. The Arab nation states have never become properly-run states that are able to uphold democracy, respect human rights and grant equality to minorities.
Arab politics was and remains the politics of tyranny or chaos. Even in the 21st century, you cannot find a single enlightened Arab state between the Atlantic Ocean and the Persian Gulf, one that gives its citizens what states like Poland or South Korea or Brazil have learned to give their citizens. While most of the human world is progressing, the Arab world is regressing.
Thus the American empire is the only agent that can moderate and stabilize the Middle East to some extent. Washington is the one city to which the oppressed and threatened in the Arab world still lift their eyes.
But Washington is fed up with the Middle East. It has its reasons. In the 1990s it tried to generate a peace revolution in the region, and it failed. In the 2000s, it tried to generate a democratic revolution in the region, and it failed. In the spring of 2011, it tried to believe in the Arab Spring, and found it to be an illusion.
In the course of all this, it invested two trillion dollars in pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also invested a considerable portion of its political capital in various attempts to turn residents of the Middle East into what they refuse to be.
So now Washington has very good reasons to stand aside as the Iranians become a nuclear power and as the Syrians butcher each other and as Egypt, Iraq and Libya implode.
Washington’s state of mind these days is one of withdrawal. After the rash withdrawal from Iraq and the rash withdrawal taking place from Afghanistan, now it is the turn of the rash withdrawal from the war on terror. Time and again the Americans declare victory, leave behind violent disorder and go away.
All these dangerous withdrawals reflect a new, deep and understandable American wish − to get out. To be done with it. To turn its back on the Middle East and not hear about it any more. To erase the Middle East from consciousness.
Perhaps from its own point of view, America is right. Perhaps the unilateral American withdrawals will not undermine America’s national security the way the unilateral Israeli withdrawals undermined Israel’s national security. It’s also possible that its approaching energy independence will enable the United States to shift its focus from the sinking Near East to the rising Far East.
The two oceans that protect it may allow the superpower to adopt President Barack Obama’s version of the Monroe Doctrine. After having scrambled the eggs in the Middle East, it is now trying to flee from the omelet that is going up in flames.
But for anyone living in the Arab world or near it, the winds of withdrawal now blowing over the Potomac bode ill. The Middle East, after losing all previous hope, is now losing the hope of Washington as well. If the wildest region in the world finds itself outside the sphere of protection and interest of the world’s capital, may Allah have mercy on it.
FUENTE: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-great-american-withdrawal.premium-1.526716?utm_source=Media+Roundup&utm_campaign=e85b6b0d3c-MR_053013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0eddedb016-e85b6b0d3c-62942265#
The most important city in the Middle East is Washington.
As we are now learning day by day, the region we live in is diseased and stricken. Arab national identity failed to crystalize into a confident, modern identity that is true to itself and able to live at peace with itself. The Arab nation states have never become properly-run states that are able to uphold democracy, respect human rights and grant equality to minorities.
Arab politics was and remains the politics of tyranny or chaos. Even in the 21st century, you cannot find a single enlightened Arab state between the Atlantic Ocean and the Persian Gulf, one that gives its citizens what states like Poland or South Korea or Brazil have learned to give their citizens. While most of the human world is progressing, the Arab world is regressing.
Thus the American empire is the only agent that can moderate and stabilize the Middle East to some extent. Washington is the one city to which the oppressed and threatened in the Arab world still lift their eyes.
But Washington is fed up with the Middle East. It has its reasons. In the 1990s it tried to generate a peace revolution in the region, and it failed. In the 2000s, it tried to generate a democratic revolution in the region, and it failed. In the spring of 2011, it tried to believe in the Arab Spring, and found it to be an illusion.
In the course of all this, it invested two trillion dollars in pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also invested a considerable portion of its political capital in various attempts to turn residents of the Middle East into what they refuse to be.
So now Washington has very good reasons to stand aside as the Iranians become a nuclear power and as the Syrians butcher each other and as Egypt, Iraq and Libya implode.
Washington’s state of mind these days is one of withdrawal. After the rash withdrawal from Iraq and the rash withdrawal taking place from Afghanistan, now it is the turn of the rash withdrawal from the war on terror. Time and again the Americans declare victory, leave behind violent disorder and go away.
All these dangerous withdrawals reflect a new, deep and understandable American wish − to get out. To be done with it. To turn its back on the Middle East and not hear about it any more. To erase the Middle East from consciousness.
Perhaps from its own point of view, America is right. Perhaps the unilateral American withdrawals will not undermine America’s national security the way the unilateral Israeli withdrawals undermined Israel’s national security. It’s also possible that its approaching energy independence will enable the United States to shift its focus from the sinking Near East to the rising Far East.
The two oceans that protect it may allow the superpower to adopt President Barack Obama’s version of the Monroe Doctrine. After having scrambled the eggs in the Middle East, it is now trying to flee from the omelet that is going up in flames.
But for anyone living in the Arab world or near it, the winds of withdrawal now blowing over the Potomac bode ill. The Middle East, after losing all previous hope, is now losing the hope of Washington as well. If the wildest region in the world finds itself outside the sphere of protection and interest of the world’s capital, may Allah have mercy on it.
FUENTE: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-great-american-withdrawal.premium-1.526716?utm_source=Media+Roundup&utm_campaign=e85b6b0d3c-MR_053013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0eddedb016-e85b6b0d3c-62942265#
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