Comments on: Old School Middle East

By: Azrael

Azrael — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:33:48 +0000

Mr. Friedman seems to have forgotten to get a clue. Iran provides predominately sunni Syria something that the u.s. will never willingly provide; regime security for the Alawati Shia overlords. Syria is a secular nation, where top positions in the government are reserved in the government for the 20% christian population and for a sizeable chunk sunni muslism majority that are secular not because this gives are warm fuzzy feeling to the alawati ruling oligarchy. Rather secularism is the tool by which syria’s often persecuted Alawatis are able to maintain their rule; very much like holding onto a tiger by it’s tail. The last time this was seriously challenged, the syrians had to level their 4th largest city to ensure the death of the syrian branch of the sunni muslim brotherhood; their motto was something along the lines of majority rules and minority mass graves. Fortunately for syria, Iran’s ultra shia government has offered to ensure that alawti rule in syria becomes a permanent fixture of the region. Is the u.s. willing to make the same guarentee? that if it gets hot, heated and tribal in syria that they’ll be able to match iran’s commitment of dozens of revolutionary guard battle groups for a good ole fashion sectarian massacre to ensure the alawati minority with it’s druze, christian and secular sunni collaborators hold onto power? I didn’t think so.
Syria can be bought off a la Libya, golan + an economic deal would probably make them into poodles willing to sign onto a sadat typ peace, but trying to force them to adopt democracy ( majority rule) or turn their back on iran ( their insurance policy ) will be non-starters from the viewpoint of damascus.

By: Noah

Noah — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 01:45:09 +0000

Old School Middle East?
How about the failure of the US to accept large numbers of Jewish refugees after WWII, opting instead to displace Palestinians by force in order to create a Jewish state?
How about the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that installed Reza Shah after democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh and the Iranian Parliment decided to nationalize oil?
How about the training, arming and financing of Mujahideen (and Bin Laden) in Afghanistan in the 1980’s?
How about the billions in oil revenue provided to Saudi Royals who stay in power only by financing fundamentalists?
Israel even funded Islamic Fundamentalists in an ill-advised (and CIA inspired?) attempt to destbilize Arab regimes …
“Old school” is what got us where we are today.

By: C-Low

C-Low — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 19:06:37 +0000

The religious wars in Britain had much to do with the changes that make such less likely today. And those old tribal divides for you short sited people effect the Old School Islamic Radicals a lot more than the Moderate westernized Muslims. Those old divides being brought back will weaken the radicals power (divide and conquer) while the moderates will be able to take advantage of a weakened radical enemy.
And for the

By: Yehudit

Yehudit — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:33:25 +0000

“America should be galvanizing the forces of order

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:36:59 +0000

Spend a little less time hating Bush and looking at reality. If this is so old why haven’t the Arab nations (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi) thrown support behind Hebullah? Why aren’t they condemning Israel? Why have they condemned Israel.
Your short-sightedness prevents you from seeing the big picture. Things are becoming different in the Mid East…We live in a 24 hour news cycle so you won’t see large changes overnite. Get over the Bush hatred.