Suppose we stopped all our meddling in the ME? By that I mean:
-stop actively interfering in wars
-stop supporting regimes (like SA , Pakistan)
-stop supplying weapons to ME governments
Now, I suppose that we would wind up allowing other interests to gain power in the region (like Russia). But, who cares? The main thing is to stop active involvement. Let the Sunni-Shia wars continue.
Would such a policy work?
No. There is too much immigration between the Middle East and Europe for problems to go away completely. Plus the whole Israel thing is problematic. Finally, with the oil we could never stop supporting different regimes; to do so would but our source of energy (the foundation of our economy) at risk.
Pretty much agree, but given the current oil glut, our depedence on Middle East oil is probably about as low as you can go right now; not so much for many of our allies and trading partners, however, so too much chaos in the Middle east could negatively impact their economies, which could affect ours (and our energy independence).
And Israel? I can’t see us ever withdrawing our support to them (note; I am not saying that this is necessarily a wise policy, simply one we cannot abandon based on previous history), and ditching the Arabs in toto while continuing to support Israel would still leave us a target.
And someone will fill the gap; Russia has always wanted a warm-weather port, Turkey might reluctantly return to the Ottoman lands if it was the only way to bring peace to their Southern borders, China and Japan depend on Mid-East oil (W. Europe to some extent, too) and would look to take steps to ensure their own nations’ health…
Looking at that, perhaps our involvement may be the most *stable * thing that could be happening there. Boggles my mind to say it, but there it is.
IMHO as always. YMMV.
The Pakistan is not in the Middle east.
you have in any case problems with arabes in the middle east, the typical paletinian christian likes your american policies in the middle east no more than the typical muslim palestinian.
and the usual Malian and the usual senegalese muslim does not care.
perhaps your problem is you confuse one problem with another.
As long as we are allied with Israel, we are going to be hated by the Islamo-fascists. If we break our alliance with Israel, the chances of war in the ME go way up. If war breaks out, that threatens the flow of oil from the ME to the US, Japan, Europe, etc.
There was war in the Middle East long before the US existed.
Regards,
Shodan
It is always the sign of the well informed, people who use stupid empty political slogan phrases without content.
yes because… things. Those sand people…
Insightful .
There was war in europe before the USa existed.
There was war in asia before the usa existed.
There was war in the americas before the usa existed.
This tells you very much about everything, what existed before the usa.
sans reflections.
Hardly.
Things were a lot more stable and friendly whith the Baathists.
It is your meddling that has turned everything to shit. The US is not hated for no reason.
no it is the poor good and pure usa that is bringing light to the world
After all there was war in places before the usa existed. it is a useful observation and learning to make, this.
I find just the opposite, which is why I don’t intend to waste much time on your post.
Regards,
Shodan
The US’s problems only? If we were in a fantasy universe where we could just get out of the entire region and if most of our best trading partners didn’t rely, absolutely on the resources and trade from the region? If oil wasn’t a global commodity and the fact we don’t get much from the ME would mean that OUR price would stay the same, regardless? If we cut and ran from all our allies in the region and left it up to our stalwart European brethren and, perhaps the Chinese and Russians to keep things from blowing up?
Well sure…all the US’s problems would go away and we could get back to being good isolationists. If this were such a fantasy world.
Who cares? Well…the Europeans would care (not that they would do anything by dither, but they would DEFINITELY care). The Chinese would care. Japan would care. Or, to put it another way, look at all the countries that use that oil stuff, not simply those who get their oil from the ME. Those countries that aren’t Russia? They would all care. You know who else would care? The people who live in the ME who would be under the less than tender thumb of Russia. Think folks in that region hate Americans? Well, they do. They don’t much care for Russians though (well, the Assad’s of the region might be ok with that arrangement), either. Nor Chinese. Nor Europeans (well, ESPECIALLY Europeans). Or, perhaps you think it would be good if Iran asserts it’s own influence in the region? Think again…that would probably be the final straw before there was a general war if the US wasn’t in the region.
Work in what way? With respect to our own needs? Well, assuming there wasn’t any major fallout in the price of oil or other US trade, and assuming that none of our trade partners would be affected, I guess it would ‘work’ for us in the short term. We’d save a ton of money on deploying our military hither and yon, as well as our soldiers lives. But work in the long term? No…it wouldn’t work. That region would explode without the US there as the 8,000,000,000 lb gorilla. Almost immediately there would be an arms race in the region, since most of the countries there distrust or even hate and fear each other they would all be freaking out without the US there, since no one is going to start any really serious shit as long as we are there. In addition to regional powers striving to become the top dog you’d have other nations suddenly realizing that there would be a huge power vacuum in the region…a region they are absolutely dependent on for their own strategic needs. And they would see this as both a threat AND an opportunity. Russia wouldn’t just be granted the right to control the region, and there are a number of larger powers who would vie with them for that. Which would further split the region.
I know it’s almost a matter of faith that the US is bad and evil and all. I get that folks, especially Europeans but not just them, think we are the root of all the worlds evils. I just don’t think that people realize that the US is keeping the lid on a lot of really nasty stuff that would happen if we weren’t there with our big feet and large club, keeping even worse shit from happening.
It’s kind of a long video, and I doubt anyone will bother clicking on the link, but here is a YouTube video on what might happen if the US turned isolationist. I don’t agree with all of this video, and if you check the comments section a lot of folks think this is simply US propaganda, but I think it lays out some of what I’ve tried to say in these threads in the past.
What a load of horseshit.
I believe he’s American not British or French so I’m not sure about the “your meddling” phrase is about.
It was the British and too a lesser extent French meddling in the Middle East following WWI which is probably most responsible for the current problems though the U.S. Invasion of Iraq has certainly not helped.
On another note, I really was hoping people stopped making references to “Islamo-Fascists”
No we can be sure that you do not waste much time as you have no thing of substantial real information to say beyond silly platitude observations like “they are at war forever, why before my new country was made” - a great insight that is only true of the entire world which thus will explain so many things.
And the use of stupid phrases that have no content at all but are easily copied from the talk radio.
No there are always the ideological who let the phrases of the ideological pimps make their thinking for them.
And those who have the deep and so greatly informed insights of ‘they have always been at war’ …
Well gosh, in contrast to the deep insights you have offered, and the detailed observations you have about the subject in the OP, I blush in shame. Not really.
u mad bro?
Regards,
Shodan
Your own nuanced position being, what? America is evil? I couldn’t make heads or tails of your first answer, to be honest. I agree that saying that there has always been war is not a very structured response. However, the way things are today are pretty finely balanced, with essentially all parties, including those who really hate us, basically relying on the fact that we are the 800 lb gorilla in the room and knowing that we would intervene if real stability were threatened. If we pulled out of the world (or even just the ME), there would probably be a short period of disbelief and consternation. After that though, I don’t see how the entire region wouldn’t start a rapid arms race, or how other non-regional powers would just kick back and hope for the best when they rely on oil and trade through the region. This would lead, almost certainly, to war…and much worse wars than the US has bumbled our way into and out of (and now seemingly back into…sort of kind of) in the region. Love the US or hate them (or, as with most folks feel somewhere in the middle), our leaving the ME or anywhere else would create a huge power vacuum that WILL be filled.
With all of the nations in the region distrusting or disliking each other, and with all of the nations strategically dependent on resources from the region and thus having a huge stake in stability or dominance of the region it couldn’t be any other way. Frankly, I wish we could run an alternative universe simulator to show what would actually happen if the US did what so many want us to do, which is let the world go back to the peace and tranquility that it enjoyed before the US butted in where we weren’t wanted or needed world wide. I think it would be eye opening to a lot of folks who really believe things would be better, but base that on nothing more than their belief tainted by their dislike (some justified, some not) of the US but filtered through a US dominated unipolar world (or, at most, the bi-polar world that was still dominated by the US even when the Soviets were a going concern) which is all most people really know or remember.
My nuanced position is that america is an ordinary big country with ordinary big country habits. It is neither good nor is it evil, although it is behaving better than a china or a russia in the overall. it does have the national mytos of being so good and so excellent so that criticisms of the american policies or just not worshiping the american actions draws the reactions of “you think america is evil” very consisently even when one has not said america is evil or even any particularly bad thing about the nation.
no I am making fun of badly informed shallow unthinking and ignorant discources that promote as a deep insights like “people fought wars before my country was made” and use very superficial slogans heard on the talk radio as if they have some meaning.
What does any of this have to do what the question the OP is asking. What’s you ANSWER to whether or not our problems would end if we simply left the ME? I get what you are saying, and I generally agree, except with the ‘ordinary big country’ thingy…we aren’t an ordinary big country, we are THE superpower (or hyperpower if you prefer) in the world today. That is not something we will be forever, and maybe we won’t be that even in 10 more years, but it’s still the case today. I don’t believe that any other country has ever been as dominant as the US has been since the fall of the Soviet Union (or really since WWII), and it’s affected how other countries act and even how they allocate resources. All of that would seriously shift if the US just pulled out of, say, the ME since that’s what the OP wants to talk about. This isn’t RAH! RAH! AMERICA! stuff, it’s reality.
The reason we don’t do stupid shit like what the OP is suggesting has little (but not nothing) to do with how great and noble we are or because we know how bad it would be if we did something so stupid for the folks who live in the regions dependent on the US for their safety…we do it because even though WE don’t get much oil from the ME, destabilization of the region would be a huge economic impact world wide, and the scramble to fill the void we’d leave would set off even more chaos as countries scrambled to fill it or to defend themselves from their neighbors…or as countries now with a free hand decide to go all Assad on their populations without anyone being able to potentially do anything about it…and that this would negatively affect US. So, we do it for mainly selfish reasons, IOW.
Well, you’re not doing a very good job.
Perhaps you could address the OP. If the US abandoned its alliance with Israel, do you believe that the chances of war in the Middle East would not be affected? Or do you just want to rant because I called the various terrorists in that area Islamo-fascists?
Regards,
Shodan
The OP is simply absurd and requires maigical thinking. What is the point?
Mocking is of course not ranting.