The Trouble with Talking

        To understand a country you have to understand the source of its income. This epiphany came to me in Lebanon, the day I saw with my own eyes the source of income that supports Syria. I was travelling in the Lebanese mountains with an American I met in Beirut. We had hoped to do some hiking but discovered that it's impossible due to the land mines and unexploded bombs left over from the Lebanese Civil War. Not wanting to fly home with my legs in the cargo hold, we hitched a ride with a young Lebanese Christian who was on his way to Baalbek, headquarters of Hezbollah and home to the world's most magnificent Roman temple.
        At the time, Syrian army garrisons were still controlling the roads in most of the eastern half of Lebanon; a relic of the war. We were a little unsettled not knowing how Syrian soldiers abroad treat American tourists, but it was no problem, they just stopped us and tried to sell us some counterfeit U.S. twenty dollar bills. This is how the regime earns its money. Syria has a rapidly growing population settled on some very resource-poor land. What oil and gas they have is minimal and rapidly disappearing. They have little water to speak of and pretty much nothing else of value save some seriously delicious pistachios and honeydew melons. Counterfeiting, drug-dealing and weapons smuggling are really the only way the country can pay its soldiers.
        Lebanon was Syria’s cash cow. President Bashar Al-Assad and his mafia-style regime profited enormously selling weapons, drugs and fake currency to warlords, terrorists and wealthy citizenry and tourists looking for a good time. Also, a small but significant portion of Syria’s working class works in Lebanon and sends money home to support their families.
        When Syria was forced to pull-out of Lebanon in 2006, by international pressure, after the assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri, it became harder for the Syrian regime to operate its business interests. A threat to the revenue stream of a dictatorial government of Syria’s type is a threat to the stability of the whole country. With Syria in danger of becoming, in the words of Dick Cheney,”A way station run by an eye doctor”, Bashar knew he had to salvage what he could. I would not at all be surprised to find that Syria encouraged Hezbollah to start the 2006 Lebanon war, knowing that it would profit enormously through the sale of arms and ammunition. Additionally, the war made it clear to the world that if any peace is going to happen in Lebanon, Syria must get what it wants.
        So Syria can’t survive without the profit it earns exploiting Lebanon. This puts it squarely at odds with the U.S. since it threatens our friends in Lebanon and Israel and the peace of the whole Middle East. Since the Syrian regime can’t continue to exist without directly leeching-off and threatening American interests and allies, we can therefore conclude that it is and always will be our enemy. There is absolutely no set of circumstances under which the U.S. can be at peace with the current Syrian government.
        As the Middle East suffers, as it has since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, from war between its nations, civil war, war by proxy and war from direct foreign intervention; we Americans busy ourselves with a Democratic primary in which the winner will likely become the next president and thus decide the fate of much of the Middle East. The front runner, Barack Obama, has made an open pledge to meet with the leader of Syria, who is and always will be our enemy (see above). This is a terrible idea. In my featured article of the day The New Republic columnist Lee Smith explains why:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=59337e60-8b8c-42a4-b3f9-7f2e8be27e73

[Disclaimer: The article tears into Obama in a big way. Don’t worry though, in an effort to be non-partisan I will soon be posting similar articles tearing into McCain. I Promise.]

       I agree with Smith completely. When an American president meets with our enemies he legitimizes them and gives them a window of opportunity in which to inflict evil. Obama will meet with Bashar, who will make promises that he will not keep, accept a generous aid package, pose for the cameras, and then crack down on pro-democracy activists consigning innocent men and women to torture and prison for the rest of their lives. Ditto if he goes to Iran. Ditto North Korea.
         What he doesn’t realize is that, in meeting with Bashar, he would be meeting with a seasoned manipulator with years of experience deceiving western politicians and diplomats (read the article to see how he has already used Colin Powel, Richard Armitage and Nancy Pelosi to get away with murder). Barack may be smart, but he is in no way prepared for the kind of conniving that a great liar like Bashar will thrust upon him. Bashar is from a political family that gained control of Syria through deception and violence. He was not raised from birth to be a dictator like his deceased brother was, but he has learned quickly and become very crafty. Anyone who can hold power in a place like Syria is by definition a very shrewd politician.
        Unfortunately, the tyrannical dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad is the only regime that has a chance of keeping control of Syria right now. Should Bashar fail to suppress his people and pay his army officers by shedding Lebanese blood, they will rise against him and no one knows who (if anyone) will seize control.
        What we have here is a classic lose-lose situation. If we start talks with Syria we give them the green light to destroy Lebanon, threaten Israel, destabilize Iraq and torture dissidents. If we assassinate Bashar or invade Syria, we risk turning it into a haven for Al-Qaeda, Palestinian terrorists and Iranian-backed Shia’a militias; sort of like present-day Iraq. The best plan? Continue the fight to keep Syrian influence out of Lebanese politics. Target the Syrian regime’s economic interests and make it difficult for them to do business. Suppress their ability to threaten Israel and support Hezbollah. Keep the eye doctor in his place as president of Syria. Let him be responsible for keeping the lid on the Islamists and terrorists, but for god's sake keep him marginalized so he can’t stir up mischief. Then wait, while slowly, over the span of decades, the Syrian people become educated, form a middle-class, and are able to peacefully work themselves into the decision-making in their own country.
        Our biggest problem in Middle Eastern affairs is that we Americans underestimate our enemies. We think that because we have the biggest military, we can achieve the advantage in every theater of conflict. We think that because we’re democratic, people who hate us want to be like us. We think that because the different ethnic groups and states that form the United States can live together in harmony, that so can the ethnic groups and states of the Middle East. We fail to see that Osama Bin Laden, Mahmud Ahmedinajad, and Basher Al-Assad have consistently used our lack of expertise in Middle Eastern affairs to pull the wool over our eyes and turn our missteps into their opportunities. We think that because they are petty and cruel, that they are also stupid. We think that because they are religious fanatics, they couldn’t possibly be intelligent, effective, tenacious military and political leaders. We have to admit that in Middle Eastern affairs, the Middle Easterners are always a step ahead of us, and will always do what’s best for themselves and that often what’s best for themselves is not what’s best for the United States. No amount of talking can change that.

Book Review: the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East

          Have you ever thoroughly studied a subject, spent months or even years forming your conclusions about it, boiled it down to its essence thinking you've separated the wheat from the chaff, and patted yourself on the back for your efforts? Have you ever done all this and then found a more thorough, more concise, better organized account of the subject with important concepts you missed, clearer conclusions and better analysis? That's what happened to me when I read
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East by Martin Sieff.
          It looks like a "________ for Dummies" book, and for the seasoned scholar, it will offer nothing new in the way of fact. But that in no way diminishes its value, as the conclusions are what make this book. In a mere 216 pages, it lays out the events that immediately shaped the modern Middle East, focusing on the post World War I colonial period through the present day. For the uninitiated, that facts presented here can be astonishing:

-Iraq was a democracy for 26 years
-Radical Islam is only 30 years old
-We couldn’t have beaten Communism without the Saudis

          Better than the clear non-partisan view this book brings to Middle Eastern history is the clear non-partisan view it brings to the present and the future. Here’s a book that actually offers courses of action that are both realistic and achievable while acknowledging that -- things being complicated -- they are not without their caveats.
          The most interesting thing about this book, in my opinion, is the author’s choice of heroes and villains. He unsparingly criticizes the obvious idiots (Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush), but is equally unrelenting on some failures that are often overlooked (Winston Churchill and Bill Clinton). His heros are the Ottoman Empire (for making life so miserable for its subjects that they couldn’t possibly rise up and threaten the stability of the empire), and the Saudi royal family.
          It’s the author’s take on the Saudis that was the real eye-opener for me in this book. Sieff claims that by selling the USA oil at well-below market prices during the 80s, the Saudis made it impossible for the USSR to develop its own oil and gas industry and thus brought about the bankrupting of the evil empire. I’m going to have to research this before I accept it wholesale as the truth, but looking at the massive influx of oil wealth pouring into Russia now, it seems believable. He points out that the often-stated fact that the Saudis encourage the spread of radical Wahhabism (or at least do nothing to stop it) is an outright lie. He also warns that Osama Bin Laden intentionally used Saudis as the 9/11 hijackers to damage the relationship between the U.S. and the Saudi government and that we’ve all unwittingly fallen into his trap (Osama, believe it or not, is one smart cookie, but I’ll save that for another post). His solution for Middle Eastern peace: arm the Saudis to the teeth and let them use their wealth and weapons to force the other Arab states and sub-state actors into not fighting each other. I love this approach. It’s not democratic or fair, but if it works, who cares.
          As for the other major Middle Eastern dilemma – Israel – one thing really stood out to me in this book: Sieff loves the Israeli security barrier. I was surprised by this because it’s something I really hear any reasonable person say, but his logic is solid. As for the thornier issues of the role Israel should play and whether its shoot-first-then-ask-questions policy is a good thing… well… you’ll just have to read the book yourselves, but I will say his approach accepts that things are really complicated and that every course of action has both positive and negative outcomes. It’s this approach that make this, in my opinion, a stellar book.