Gautam Mukunda wrote: > I was just in a seminar with an Arab political scientist - I don't > want to identify him more closely than that - and he was quite clear in > saying that there was widespread support for eliminating Saddam Hussein, > particularly among the liberalizers in the Arab world.
But what about the current rulers (hardly the most liberal faction in the middle east). While we definitely want to encourage the liberals, we still have to deal with the incumbent powers... It is at least encouraging to hear what you say about support for his removal. > As for the difficult situation that the US has put you in - maybe that's a > good thing. Maybe you _shouldn't have_ close relations with a government > that supports Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that just attempted to smuggle > weapons into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a gross violation of the > Oslo Accords, and that has been pretty clearly shown to be responsible for > the murder of American servicemen in the 1998 bombings. I think I said strong, not close, relations. The day that the US stops spending untold billions in preventing free trade, we will happily sell our wheat to more deserving markets. Since we can produce wheat at a much lower price than the US, it shouldn't be hard, but we don't have the cash to compete with your dumping, so we sell wherever we can get a good price. Quite simply, we need the lamb and wheat sales in the middle east to survive. > I, like most > Americans, am grateful for Australia's support - but Bush's statement > causes > you to rethink your relationship with Iran, I can't say I'm unhappy with > that fact. In fact, I'd say good for him for introducing some moral > clarity > into a situation where moral ambiguity only favors the terrorist states. Of course, I'm fairly sure that the CIA finds it useful to have such a close ally with an embassy in Tehran - we're more co-operative than the Swiss when it comes to activities within Iran to assist the liberals and encourage the slow but steady encroachment of western society in Iran. Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea are all allies of the US with more trade with Iran than Australia, all of whom want to encourage the liberals and are reluctant to shut the door and leave them to the militants. Cheers Russell C.
