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Friday, February 20, 2015

Brookings Institution: Martin S. Indyk: A Return to The Middle Eastern Great Game

Support Middle Eastern dictators in the past may have worked in the past up until 1978 or so with the fall of the Shah of Iran, as far as maintaining some form of peace and stability in this region. And giving America a good resource for energy which we don’t need anymore, as well as intelligence on certain terrorist groups and the worst dictators that had plans for expanding their territory like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But we’ve paid a heavy price for both financially and with our own security. Like having troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia a country more than capable of defending themselves both financially and with their current military.

Not excusing 9/11 obviously, but our involvement in the Arabia and our subsidizing authoritarian states there is one of the motivations for the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 9/11. We subsidized the Shah of Iran for about forty years going back to Franklin Roosevelt and the Shah was a tough ruthless dictator that beat down the opposition. And the Iranians rose up and threw the Shah out of power and of course replaced that regime with another authoritarian regime the Islamic Theocrats. There are huge costs that America is still paying for subsidizing states that don’t have our best interest and their own people’s best interest at heart. And we’re still paying for them today.

And you can say that well if America and Europe didn’t subsidize these authoritarian regimes, something else that is worst would come instead. Perhaps if all you did was not subsidize them in the first place and done nothing else instead. But an alternative would be to give those states conditional backing. That they respect the human rights of their people. Like not arresting political prisoners simply for being against the current government. Respect the rights of their women, racial, ethnic and religious minorities. Most of the countries are fairly diverse across the board. And instead of backing authoritarian regimes, back people who want democratic change and to build a democratic society in their country.

Backing authoritarians doesn’t stop or prevent future violence or terrorism. Is just moves it around, because instead of the regime backing terrorists who would hit you, what you do instead of give the people on the ground in those countries who hate their government motivation to want to hit you. Get organized, join a current terrorist group or create their own that would work to knockout the current regime, as well as try to hit American targets. America needs to get past the better of two evils foreign policy in the Middle East. And stop subsidizing bad guys even if they aren’t as bad as other bad guys. And instead work with the good guys who want to build a developed peaceful society where their people would be respected.


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John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat

John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat
Source: U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960