The USA and the Middle East: Great Sacrifices, Small Rewards

[davidbfpo]

Via Open Democracy an article by an Arab heritage academic based in the UK and it starts with:

This article explores why realist views alone cannot explain the complexity of insecurity in the Middle East and why internal and regional conflicts in the Middle East, since 2003, look endless. What are the alternatives to advocating a single international relations theory to explain different regions with different socio-cultural, political, historical, economic, and security specificities? The Middle East’s particularities can prove the United States wrong in addressing the region’s problems by adopting hard-power policies, at least so far, as it did in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

(Ends with) Borders and states might be artificially created but they are contested. Bombing and launching missiles may be considered a strong political message which serves a politician’s domestic interests, but they can never resolve the regional security complex in the Middle East. So far, and for so long, international powers have been serving and seeking their national, economic, military, and political security, but hardly ever pursuing human security.

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/alam-saleh/us-cannot-win-middle-east-war-military-six-reasons-why?

[davidbfpo]

A curious article via Twitter via Politico by a reporter after a visit to Israel and apparently multiple conversations with IDF officers. It is rare for me to spot such comments. Added here as this thread is general enough to include it, even though the focus is within Syria.
Link:http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...s-wrong-215172