In popular folklore a man trying to fix a wobbly table by
chopping a chunk off one leg at a time invariably ends up with a very low
table. Whatever Frank Spencer touches turns from crap into catastrophe in a
horribly predictable fashion. And all attempts to understand, explain, reform,
aid or punish the Middle East slide inexorably into war. Big wars, little wars,
rumbling conflicts, the low growl of
diplomatic ‘initiatives’... all end up the same way. So as all sane voices are
screaming “Stop dealing with them!” the witless powers that be align themselves
with one or other of the many sides of this polygon of pariahs.
Never far from the news, islam returns once again to
centre stage and the big question is Saudi or Iran? Sunni or Shia? And does the
rest of the world really care about their battle of ideologies? So much for the
koran being the literal word of god. As today’s picture illustrates, the
country that currently heads up the UN Human Rights Council executed forty-seven
Shia muslims including ‘talismanic’ cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr yesterday.
The Daily Telegraph reports: “Describing the
executions as acts of “mercy” to prisoners who might have committed crimes on
their release, Saudi Arabia's leading cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al
Sheikh, said they were carried out in line with Islamic law and the need to
safeguard the kingdom's security.”
Take away the oil and what do we have across the entire
region? Sand. Sand and ferocious, merciless sunshine and precious little else
apart from small knots of bewildered Bedouin trying to find water and shade.
Without the oil the region is powerless. With it, it is unstable as western
meddling supplants one tyrant with another, backs one regime against the rest.
Oh and we as good as gave Iran a nuclear bomb to use with impunity. Maybe it’s
just me but giving the doomsday capability to a power dominated by a religion
that seems to care more for death than life seems just a tiny bit
irresponsible. But hey, that’s been our record in trying to come to terms with
islam.
The weird thing is
that no matter how many times they tell us that the final goal of mohammedanism is to convert or kill the entire
population of the world, we just stick our fingers in our ears and pretend we
must have misheard. I say ‘we’ as if the electorates of the so-called ‘free’ world
have any say in the matter. Think about the oil, they say, it’s all about precious
oil. But times move on and it turns out there’s a lot more oil than we thought.
Right now there is a glut of the stuff and an oversupply of any commodity
reduces its unit value.
If this is what our 'friends' do..?
The other thing we have a glut of, reducing its worth to
humanity by the day, by the atrocity, by everything it says and does, is islam
itself. We’re not buying it any more. This seems the perfect opportunity to stir
up the stinking camel pat of the Middle East with a shitty stick and get them
flies buzzing; sort it out once and for all. Sunni or Shia? There’s only one
way to settle this...
I do believe our best interests are served by dealing with shitty regimes as long as what they do to their own people is not the same as they want to do to us. We forget that a nations sovereignty is inviolable we wish ours to be and so should respect the right of other sovereign nations to have the same. Taking the moral high ground, or wishing to impose our standards and values on foreign states is not what our approach should be. That way we only end up painting ourselves into a corner losing trust and turning states and their citizens against us and they then wanting to do to us what they do to themselves. A policy of live and let live would have made us fewer enemies so fewer who want to us harm.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately people aided and abetted by their politicians cannot help themselves from wanting to meddle in other peoples affairs and take control of them if they can. It has always been that way and no doubt will continue to be so for a long time to come. Especially as the trend these days is to find that practice even more acceptable. Observable from the fact that statism is rising as never before, experts are taking away decision making from the individual and anyone with a grievance or a particular hobby horse they wish air is taken seriously whether it is justified or not.
Nobody is going to take my advice let alone act on it. So having got ourselves into the messes and crises we have today because our foreign policies approach have been misguided we have no choice but to interfere. To try and help solve the problems as those problems are very much affecting us in unpleasant ways.