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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (55120)	10/28/2002 8:04:04 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Yes, I think this debate, sponsored by "Reason", will generate a lot of light and not much heat this week. "Reason" is a very well written magazine that is called "Libertarian" here, and would be called "Liberal" in France. I would differ with the reason that the average Iranian likes the USA. First, they have grown up under a Religious Government, and learned to hate it, and they have access to the many expatriate Iranians in the USA and know just how good it is here. The ME Scholar Bernard Lewis, pointed out last year that Arab Countries with Governments that hate the USA usually have populations that like us, and Vice Versa. In any case, I will post the daily debates from "Reason", and I think you will enjoy the discourse.

To: zonder who wrote (55120)	10/28/2002 1:05:07 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Khomeini's Iran has become just about the only place in the Middle East where Americans are treated with popular admiration and respect. Significantly, Iran is also just about the only place in the area where the United States has been unable to meddle over the twenty years. And it is possible there is a lesson here. Unable to actually meddle, or unable to be blamed for meddling, zonder? You see the distinction? As far as I can see, the amount of US meddling in Arab internal affairs has been minimal in the last twenty years. All the 'meddling' has been with regard to the Israeli/Pal conflict, where we have tried to negotiate a settlement -- an effort largely frustrated by the Arab states themselves. For example, for twenty years we have paid Egypt big bucks not to fight another war with Israel. Have we told Hosni Mubarak how to govern, or how to deal with dissidents? Not to my knowledge. We even sat silent when Mubarak encouraged all local dissent to be channeled towards Israel and the US. I would say that our policy has been both too meddlesome and too hands off -- caught between two stools, as they say.