I am planning to cut down on my blogging in August, the traditional month for Psychoanalytic vacations. My original plan was to eschew blogging completely, both because after two and a half years of blogging five days a week I could use a break to refresh myself, and because August is shaping up to be a very busy time. However, I do plan on posting from time to time, including a number of reviews of books that I have been reading or plan to read in August. (Blogging less = reading more.)
With that preamble I thought I would end July on a hopeful note. By now the idea that we might actually win the war in Iraq has been insinuating itself into the zeitgeist. The left leaning media and the Democratic party are rather far out on a limb that depends on an Iraq defeat, so this should be an entertaining story in the fall when General Petraeus finally reports on our progress. When I wrote about the surge working in my post yesterday, I made the comment that:
Of course, the surge could still fail utterly, and we may yet abandon Iraq to its fate unceremoniously, but at the moment the tide is running against al Qaeda. Iran has some powerful interests in keeping the Shia under control and the Sunnis have an even greater investment in stability (since they would lose any civil war that ensues from an American withdrawal.)
I thought I would elaborate a bit and zoom out to look at the greater Middle Easts and how some recent developments offer grounds for guarded optimism.
The path to disaster is well marked: In brief, radical Persian millennialism trumps their mercantile aspirations, leading to a ramping up of rhetorical and military support for the terrorists in Iraq (Sunni and Shia) and managing to provoke a military response from the United States. Following an American attack, the level of violence in Iraq increases exponentially, Congress forces a draw down and the entire gulf descends into chaos. That is an outcome that some in Iran/Iraq fervently desire, but is unlikely any time soon.
The more optimistic scenario involves a successful surge. As Iraq becomes more stable and the Iraqis more able to maintain security, and the Iranians continue to show evidence of difficulty in building a bomb, the entire region continues the transition, well under way, from a war footing to peace time prosperity.
Starting in Iraq, th surge succeeds in marginalizing al Qaeda and the Sunnis place their trust in politics and the US military. The Shia, after some period of sorting out amongst themselves, having already determined that they have won power concentrate on the political sphere while keeping their powder dry. The Kurds have already committed to using their power to support stability since they have a decade old and economically booming state and have no interest in trading economic booms for the other kind. Thus we approach a time in the fall where all of the contending parties in Iraq see it as being in their best interest to support stability and a political process.
Panning out takes us to the primarily Sunni states throughout the region, who until very recently were the primary supporters of violence in the region. Newsweek has an article suggesting why and how the Sunnis are coming to the realization that their interests no longer lie in perpetual war:
An unprecedented boom is changing the region—and echoing far past its borders.
Aug. 6, 2007 issue - We all know the headlines by now: the Middle East is burning, right? So it seems, as Palestinians and Iraqis wage civil war, Lebanon seethes, Syria and Israel trade barbs and Iran spits defiance. Yet beyond the smoke a very different story is emerging nearby. In the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, times have never been better. Business is booming. And political conflict has become a foreign phenomenon, watched on flat-screen TVs in the air-conditioned living rooms of Doha, Dubai, Kuwait City, Muscat and Riyadh.
In almost every case, when people begin to savor what their wealth has allowed them to accomplish and have "things" they value, violence declines. When one has more to lose than to gain by war, war becomes less likely. There are obvious exceptions. The Palestinians have always valued killing Jews more than having their own state. Further, there are many people who for all sorts of reasons prefer war to living "la vida loca." Many of my posts have been devoted to understanding the motivations of those who prefer hatred to happiness. Yet, on balance, and in toto, populations prefer comfort to war in almost every case.
What has so often been missed in considerations of the Middle East has been how unevenly the riches have been distributed. And by riches I do not simply refer to material goods but to the full panoply of valued objects (pride, honor, power, possessions, etc) that satisfy our most intense desires. Even in the wealthiest nations in the ME (especially in the wealthiest nations) the gap between rich and poor has been extreme. Such a gap is destabilizing and has been one of the primary reasons for the efforts to export Jihad out of the area.
The Middle East is being transformed, a la Tom Barnett, by what he would refer to as shrinking the (intra-societal) gap and a different politician at a different time would call trickle down economics. There is simply so much money pouring into the area and a threshold of educated people (an expanding elite that is not solely based on heredity or tribal affiliation) that the pressure for openness and peace, the prerequisites for continuing wealth creation, has increased dramatically. As a result, the risk of open war that could engulf the entire region, will almost certainly continue to diminish.
There remain significant dangers, ranging from the still strong possibility of renewed war between Israel and the HISH alliance (Hamas, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah) but even this risk seems less than earlier in the summer. If Iran makes a bomb, all bets are off, since they would likely become much more adventurous. If al Qaeda succeeds in a mass casualty attack on American soil, if Israel attacks Iran the entire fabric could yet unravel in the face of the passions aroused. However, with those caveats in mind, we may well see an August that is more propitious than any of us have had reason to expect.
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