Obama Is Right: America Can’t Fix the Middle East

[geek tragedy]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/us-foreign-policy-middle-east-213723

A decade or more of involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq should make it clear that we don’t have those keys. An even longer period of failed efforts to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict just puts an exclamation point on the inconvenient truth: America has infantilized the Arabs, Iranians, Israelis—and even itself for that matter—by assuming we know what’s best, that we can get the locals to actually own and take possession of the things that need to be done, by lecturing, hectoring and offering up clever formulae; or worse, naively trying to scare them with the grim fate that awaits them if they don’t choose another, more enlightened course when their own instincts and agenda run in the opposite direction. That we—surrounded by nonpredatory powers to our north and south and fish to our east and west (our liquid assets)—seem to have freed ourselves from the forces of history and geography doesn’t mean that our friends and adversaries elsewhere have. Indeed, the Middle East is littered with the remains of great powers that wrongly believed they could impose their will by force on small tribes or persuade them to accept their plans for peace and accommodation.
...

The painful fact is the United States is trapped in a region it can neither transform nor leave. It deserves its fair share of responsibility for making a bad situation worse. Blame Bush 43 for getting into Iraq; and blame Obama for getting out too quickly, if it makes you feel better. But this region was never America’s to win or lose. And despite the tough talk on the campaign trail, I’m betting the next Republican or Democrat—whether it’s a he or a she—will have no better or more compelling answers than their predecessors. I would think in terms of outcomes (and perhaps positive ones that America can help shape). But forget solutions, because as inconvenient or incorrect as it is to admit, especially for the solutionists, the region’s real problems and solutions are to be found not primarily in Washington, but in the largely leaderless, angry, and broken lands and hands of the Middle Easterners themselves.

[bemildred]

1. Excellent article. nt

[geek tragedy]

5. Miller is one of the more clear-eyed commentators on the subject.

Rather refreshing to find someone to speak up for the argument that doing nothing is always an option.

[bemildred]

9. I remember reading it, he was thorough and very clear eyed, as you say.

He has a point of view, but he keeps it in its place, where it belongs.

[Jefferson23]

2. See that, a sane plea for a non interventionist. n/t

[geek tragedy]

6. not trying is better than trying and failing. nt

[Jefferson23]

7. Recognition/evaluation is one key, another would be......Restraint is a Good Thing.

I bet Martha Stewart would even agree with me.

[geek tragedy]

8. don't do stupid stuff nt

[phantom power]

3. "...it can neither transform nor leave" really? we "can't leave?"

So we can't win, but supposedly we're not allowed to get out of the game either?

That kind of thinking must give the military industrial complex multiple orgasms.

[geek tragedy]

4. oil, plus we can't have the entire region turn into ISIS/circa 1999 Afghanistan

it's a shitshow and a quagmire. Shitmire? nt

[TygrBright]

10. He had me up to this point:

"that it can address, much less resolve, the challenges of governance, sectarian conflict, religious divisions, hatreds, lack of respect for human rights, and the conspiratorial and irrational reasoning that afflict large parts of the Arab world"

But not Israel?

SRSLY?

Has he LOOKED at Israel recently?

Has he attended ANY Knesset sessions?

This is not a trivial matter.

Focusing only on "the Arab world" as the problem IS the problem.

Any policy, active or non-interventionist, that fails to address ALL of the Middle East, including Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Persians, Israelis, and all of the other groups in the region, is going to continue making things worse.

wearily,

Bright

[geek tragedy]

11. Israel is better than its neighbors, but that's not saying much nt

[yurbud]

12. We do a pretty good job of breaking it over and over again.