Posted by
Buster Foghorn on Monday, January 29, 2007 9:21:41 AM
Ralph Peters’ column today, Ugly Choices, covers the broader strategic issues we face in the Middle East and looks at the conflict between our short and long-term interests. This is a thoughtful analysis that will make the current machinations over nonbinding resolutions in Washington frustrate and anger you even more. Serious times require serious people and our elected leaders in Washington are fiddling while Rome burns.
The whole article is worth reading, but here are some essential questions Mr. Peters raises.
In all-too-real a sense, backing either side, Sunni or Shia, is just betting on black or red at the roulette wheel - knowing that the house always wins in the end. And the house is the collapsed and vengeful civilization of the Middle East.
But we're locked in the casino; we have to make our bet. So here are the fundamental questions the administration has to ask itself before pushing the chips across the table:
* How do we defeat Iran's government without alienating the Iranian people?
* Do our long-term interests truly coincide with repressive Sunni Arab regimes?
* Are we once again in danger of starting a fight we lack the guts to finish? The administration's less-than-half-hearted military policy in Iraq and Israel's disastrous loss to Hezbollah last summer aren't encouraging models.
* By reinvigorating our "alliance" with Saudi Arabia and other repressive Sunni states, are we just setting ourselves up for another round of "let's you and him fight," with American blood defending Arab oil wealth? Are we still the Saudi royal family's whores?