wrote:
>
> --- authfriend wrote:
> >
> > A well-reasoned op-ed column in the Newark Star-Ledger by two
Middle
> > East experts on why the notion that Iran is a threat to Israel is
a
> > crock:
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/jg6ja
>
> Last year I read a book called Sands of Empire, by
> Robert W. Merry. He espouses the "clash of civilizations"
> worldview, with which one may or may not agree. But
> one point I found interesting is that is that the way to
> manage cross-cultural international affairs is to deal
> primarily with the core states of a given cultural block.
> "Core states" would be America for the West, Russia
> for the Orthodox civilization, China for the Sinic, India
> for the Hindu. Who is the core state for the Muslim world?
I'm a *little* puzzled that so many of these
"cultural blocks" are defined in terms of religion.
Is religion *the* most important cultural element?
Or just the easiest to use if you're dividing the
world up into large chunks?
> Well, that's the rub. There isn't any. No one Muslim state
> hold sway over the others. The neoconservatives
> were probably hoping Iraq would serve that role,
But only as America's satellite. The neocons basically
would like to Westernize (and Judeo-Christianize) the
entire world.
but that
> country seems to be indisposed at present.
Well put.
Merry makes
> a case for Iran serving that role (despite being a Shi'ite
> nation, whereas 90 percent of Muslims are Sunni). Merry
> says a reasonable U.S. policy would be to "seek to bring
> Iran into a position of respect among nations, much as
> Richard Nixon did with China in the 1970s." Merry says
> our policy of vilifying Iran is the exact opposite of what
> we need to do to manage relations between the West
> and Islam.
Pretty much everything Bush & Co. have done is the exact
opposite of what it *should* be doing.
I think of this perspective whenever the U.S.
> does something to diss Iran, or whenever Iran tries to
> garner some respect before the world. (Being a physical
> threat is a primitive way of gaining respect.)
Yup. That sure is why *we're* doing it.
I don't know that we're dissing Iran to make it feel
insecure; I suspect we're dissing Iran to give us an
excuse to use our military might so everybody else
will "respect" US and do what we say. That's why we
invaded Iraq, and it has worked so magnificently well
<gag> we're going to do it again.
Merry's right, of course, but his argument is *rational*.
That's why it hasn't got a chance, at least for the
next two-plus years.
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