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Posted on 12/05/2007 1:54:52 PM PST by Clive
History does not progress in a straight line for people from whichever point they set forth to their desired end.
This illusion is served by retrospective view, and then deviations explained as results of people's ignorance or the caprice or duplicity of leaders as those today on the liberal-left -- those on the right in their time displayed the same tendency -- mindlessly repeat the silly phrase "Bush lies and people die."
The politics of the Arab Mideast show how improbable is the idea of history's linear progress in the region.
More than 500 years of Turkish rule of this region ended not as a result of the indigenous peoples' capacity to gain their own independence. It was won for the Arabs by Britain with soldiers from its empire, men bearing arms from India, Australia and New Zealand, in the war of 1914-18.
The story of the Arab Revolt as told by the Englishman T.E. Lawrence in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a magnificent record of the effort invested on behalf of a people, the desert Arabs (Bedouins), so they may have a claim on their history that was being shaped by forces from outside of their lives.
This effort continues with all its various meanderings as witnessed this week at Annapolis, Md., to make the Arab states grapple with their shortcomings, to turn the page on the politics of resentment and grievances against each other and outsiders, to take responsibility for their failings as an essential requirement to become alert in defending their own interests.
The practicality of politics lies in the capacity to distinguish between all that is desired and what is possible, and make it happen. This is also the lesson of the Jews to the Arabs in making Israel happen from what was the least desirable held out to them.
U.S. President George W. Bush, unlike any of his predecessors, has gone the furthest in committing the United States to support the establishment of the Palestinian state. Like Lawrence with the desert Arabs, Bush has leaned forward to save the Palestinians from themselves and their past folly of repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of sanity.
But the desert Arabs -- Palestinians among them -- are, as Lawrence described them, "a people of starts, for whom the abstract was the strongest motive, the process of infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing."
It was men like Lawrence, and General Sir Edmund Allenby in command of the British forces in the Mideast most of all, who were responsible for returning history and independence to the Arabs after 500 years of their slumbering in the shadows of Turkish rule.
Then, 90 years later, it is Bush investing the resources of the United States to turn the Arab states around against their self-defeating instinct and squander another century in recrimination.
There is urgency for the Arab states to recognize how their interests are being undermined by Iran and its clients, Hamas and Hezbollah. This was the subtext of the Annapolis meeting.
The Arab states led by Saudi Arabia have a choice to make.
They can either settle with Israel and join the United States in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capability, or let their disunity work in favour of Tehran's ambition to become the dominant power in the Mideast as once were the Turks.
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‘Nuff said.
bump for later
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What’s next? Hopefully not HIllary or we may all be looking like that!
Very nice post devolve!
Bump!
Bush put Gates in as secdef, yet Gates coauthored Iran: Time for a New Approach, a 2004 CFR paper written with Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter's NSA) calling for negotiations with the Islamist terrorist state.
Bush continues to pressure Israel to cede territory, while failing to press the Palis to renounce their mad lust for the destruction of Israel.
Annapolis will lead to no good for anyone--with the possible exception of Olmert who shows signs of insisting on Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist.
I posit the only way Arabs will recognize Israel exists is when it has won the war.
The most repressive regime on earth is Saudi, and yet it receives the most ass-kissing of any other nation on earth by the mucka-mucks in Foggy Bottom.
There is little incentive for Arabs to stray from a dual policy of public tut-tutting of Islamoterrorism and a covert funding of same.
Democratic elections for Palestinians produced a Hamas majority, while the same for the Weimar Republic gave a leg up to the wickedest political figure (in a statistical dead heat with Joe and Mao) of the last century.
Bush has been well-intentioned rather than self-serving (Carter, Clinton) in his policy, but blinded by naivete and paralyzed by jihadi disinfomentors.
Arabs cannot advance while dragging the jihadi torture devices of their glorious blood-soaked empire past and future.
Good post and music devolve. Looks like the Clintons are hiding behind the hedge!
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Yes
An Islamic festival!
Lol, thankfully it’s an Indian festival that’s called a Potlatch!!
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