For some reason, today I remember something that ran in one of the Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year books (it must’ve been 1991). Don’t remember who did it. Except for pictures of the nations’ leaders, it’s more or less as I’ve put it here.
MIDEAST SCORECARD
IRAQ
[DEL]GOOD GUY[/DEL]
BAD GUY
IRAN
[DEL]BAD GUY[/DEL]
[DEL]GOOD GUY[/DEL]
BAD GUY
SYRIA
[DEL]BAD GUY[/DEL]
GOOD GUY
JORDAN
[DEL]GOOD GUY[/DEL]
[DEL]BAD GUY[/DEL]
[DEL]GOOD GUY[/DEL]
BAD GUY
I understood it as a nice little indictment of our shortsighted and almost embarrassingly ham-handed Mideast policies. Unfortunately, as I myself was unfortunately not very politically attuned at the time, I was hard-pressed to recall any specifics.
Iraq’s the easy one. We sided with Iraq against Iran in their war, then radically changed our tune after the Kuwait invasion. (Why, I’m still not sure, but that’s another topic.) Iran’s a bit puzzling, as even after the invasion, I don’t think there ever was any specific time we considered them a “good guy”. I’m vaguely aware of attempts to appease Syria but don’t have any details. Jordan, I’m completely clueless.
Anyone care to spell this out? Please be as specific as possible, provide links, etc. I was really curious about this then, and I’d still like to know now.
Please do not turn this into a debate about Mideast politics. (Good Flying Spaghetti Monster almighty, DO NOT turn this into a debate about Mideast politics.) Just what events/attitudes/policy changes/grandstanding slipped under my radar.