Middle East Misconceptions

There is a difference and a split in the Middle East and one that the USA is aware of and exploiting in Iraq but not across the region. The wahabbi's (mostly linked to Saudi and in more extreme cases AQ) are of the opinion that anything the West does is bad, and should be wiped off the planet (they of course include Israel in this). The only reason the Saudi's don't get louder about it is because the house of Saud needs the USA to avoid being overthrown. Other regimes in the ME, like Syria and Iran are actually much more west facing in their culture and ideals. They too dislike the wahabbi's and generally have nothing against the west. Their major beef is with Israel, and even that is politically motivated to win support in the region.

The Shiite Syria/Iran bloc need to appear hostile to the west to win minds in the ME away from AQ. Now their (Syria/Iran) behaviour lately has been frankly terrible, but in the current state of affairs military force is not an option and rightly so. The old defensive forces of the cold war cannot deal with the complexities of the modern world. Our great mistake with Hamas was in not negotiating with them, if we had simply laid down the condition of "accept and work with Israel and we'll talk to you", we could have saved a lot of problems, and the same goes for Hezbollah. There may have been fighting between the two sides, but both can have a common enemy if we sort out their beefs with Israel. This is the situation we need to get to, winning these states round will take some concessions on our part, but I think we will be surprised by how cooperative they are. Their current behaviour is reactionary not proactive.

It requires us to swallow pride and talk to those who we have de-humanised as terrorists, but it worked in Northern Ireland and The Balklands. Often its the only way to solve Ethnic and nation state issues. Give people a stake in the future and incentivize them to work towards that future. Then we can concentrate on wiping out AQ who are the only real thread we here in the West have.

Iraq needed to happen, Saddam needed to go, and hopefully if we learn anything from the cultural divide in the region... its that we can have common ground and work with some seemingly hostile factions if we incentivize them to do so. We can all take lessons from this. Often our must emotionally and strongly charged beliefs are leading us astray.