Middle East Smackdown

Could there be a strange upside to Iraq? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced the infamous Al Quaeda attack on sites in Manhattan and Washington DC. Roughly 3,000 innocent people perished and the chief perpetrator, Osama bin Laden, has yet to be captured some 7 years later. Of the 19 operatives directly involved, 15 were Saudi Arabian, along with 4 others from places such as Lebanon, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The attackers practiced an extremist form of Sunni Islam, Wahabism, which is militantly hostile to any western presence in the Middle East. Their Al Quaeda training base was in Afghanistan; it gained a foothold using US weapons left over from fighting the Soviet occupation 20 years earlier.

The Bush Administration did execute a military action against Al Quaeda in 2002 in Afghanistan, which served more to drive them underground than to vanquish them. As of this writing, Al Quaeda is still alive and well in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. One action the U.S. did take, which has almost universally been seen as “Bush’s Folly” is the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in nearby Iraq. Here are some interesting things to note about these people we attacked and currently occupy:

o The majority are not Sunni Arabs, they’re Shiite.
o The Iraqi Sunnis are not the hostile Wahabi variety.
o The occupied people are Iraqis – they are not Saudis, Lebanese, Egyptians or any of the nationalities that actually attacked the U.S.
o There was never a significant Al Quaeda presence in Iraq until after our 2003 invasion opened a wound, inviting opportunists across the Middle East to come in.
o Iraq is a huge, sprawling nation strategically located at the crossroads of the Middle East, rich with oil and other natural resources.

There is something unfortunate about the U.S.A. Our state department doesn’t seem to make careful distinctions about nationalities, histories, rivalries or competing strains of someone else’s religions. If you look at that part of the world, it is kind of difficult to piece it all together even for a studious person. Virtually every Middle East nation is under authoritarian rule, enforces theocracy, and has recently experienced disruptions such as assassinations and suicide bombings.

The upside to all of this is that we now indefinitely occupy Iraq, which neighbors Saudi Arabia. We indefinitely occupy Iraq, which borders Iran. We indefinitely occupy Iraq, which is but a stone’s throw from other Middle East trouble spots such as Palestine and Lebanon. The American Tiger Paw came down – and it was rather clumsy and undiscriminating in its sweep. But had 9/11 not happened, the Tiger Paw wouldn’t be there. If Quaeda had it to do over, would they want that consequence?

This is unfair you say and you’d be right. This would be like punishing a Flemish Democrat for Nazi atrocities, simply because they both might speak German and have similar last names. One difference is that the Flemish Democrat would be more likely to vociferously condemn the actions of his crazed neighbors. Saudis and other Arabs have been almost quietly supportive to their Al Quaeda brethren. How many Madrasas schools that condemn America have been closed now? None? How many have had their curriculum changed? None?

I once had a Spanish teacher keep us all late because one person was talking and nobody would fess up. The many were punished for the action of the one. The entire Middle East is under the thrall of miscreants it allows to exist. Where my Spanish teacher merely detained us 30 minutes, the Middle East is facing a smackdown by the U.S.. Just as we wrap things up in Iraq it looks like Iran is chomping at the bit for some kind of military entanglement. You know the American tiger is clumsy, inaccurate and easy to rile. Do you really want your brethren pulling his tail? People of the Middle East, any nation, who suspect that a young relative is training to be a terrorist, you might get more attuned to the situation and its possible consequences.

© 2008 blogSpotter