Is there any nation in the Middle East, whose regime the west would side with, in the case of an uprising?
Saddam
Gaddafi
Mubarak
Ahmedinejad
al-Assad
Taliban
Pakistan
Are we going to keep going until the US is running the show, throughout the region? Even when all these leaders are removed and replaced, the US is still going to have military presence in the country, and most likely prop up unpopular replacement regimes. But yet, strangest of all, the US support Israel.
The whole thing is crazy.
The irony being that the US and colonial powers helped all of these regimes:
- into power in some cases.
- propped them up.
- created the conditions for them to come to power.
Probably a few more to add to that list such as SA, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen whose regimes are equally brutal.
Basically we have de-stablised the region and until we remove some of the obstacles for stability it will continue.
- the Palestinian conflict must be resolved.
Too many reasons to even list, it is the single biggest source of anger in the region fueling extremism.
- the US must forge a peace with Iran. Instead of sticking to their guns about the Shah they should apologise for their role in the tyranny and barbarity he inflicted on Iran.
There is no regime on that list above which even comes close to his murderous reign - despite how we like to conveniently overlook this in the West.
Of course the current regime is less than ideal and the extremism is fueled by the above two points.
- We must support reformers not just talk about supporting them and then let them rot when they make the bold steps, as we did in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia etc.
We must support those groups who are actively engaged against Islamic extremism.
We must stop supporting brutal totalitarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen. These regimes create breeding grounds for these extremists groups.
- Shia uprisings in some of these countries are not the work of Al Qaeda as our media likes to report, they are a fight against brutal repression which the regimes like to falsely label as being Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a Sunni disease, it has nothing to do with Shia Islam except for their desire to eradicate Shias.
It is no surprise that the same Al Qaeda backed groups which are murdering Shias across the region have now popped up in Syria.
Their presence is as much about sectarianism as it is about opposing Assad.
Syria is a metaphor for the region as a whole.
We have not supported the rebels to any significant degree. Sending a few hundred to Qatar for training is not enough.
Our lack of support has created a vacuum and anger resulting in many of those trained rebels migrating to extreme groups which are well funded.