Anyway, that is my read of the neo-con plan:
- attack Wahhabi/Talliban on the battlefield of Afghanistan
- cut of the source of their funding ("charities")
- make Saudi's cut off the funding as well
- hopefully, sign up Saudis against Wahhabi
- provide alternative (Iraq)
- give another shot to resolving Palestinian conflict (low probability of success
So much speculation, so little evidence. The most offensive festering issue, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, receives no attention at all from the administration. If there are two sides to Muslim resentment of the west, of which America is the focus due to its prominent role in foreign policy, is the fact that we support Israel unquestionably (which means in right or wrong doing) and we become complicit in what Arabs (Muslims) view, probably with justification, as unjust and onesided behaviour. Ameliorating (notice that I don't use the word "solving") this single issue provides far more payback than the Iraq war ever will, if I even stretch my imagination and allow that it could have a slight probability of a beneficial effect in the ME. Remember that Turkey is a Muslim country in the ME, a Nato member, a democracy for a number of years, and I ask you, what effect has that had on other countries in the reqion? The very fact that we are being sold this romantic notion of a democratic Iraq as a prerequisite to democracy throughout the region should answer that question amply.
The second issue is the Muslim fundamentalist culture of hatred of anything western. THe war in Iraq actually feeds this hatred and plays into its belief that a violent war of culture is required to keep the west from contaminating the ME with it's "moral corruption".
There is so much more that can be said about the adminsitration's "methods" in its approach to foreign "policy" and the incredibly negative effect these are having on America's ability to re-shape and influence now and in the long term. The recent report I posted on this thread gives but a taste of this.
Latly, anyone who says that bush hatred is irrational is being dishonest. There never have been clearer and more concrete points to be made to disapprove of an adminsitration's policies whose effects can tangigly be measured at home and abroad and whose effects will be felt for a very long time.
It's all the time I have for now...
Al |
