Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Silicon Chips, satellites, etc empowered the populaces of Eastern Europe to stand up to their Soviet masters, knowing the rest of the world backed their play. Now the Middle East seeks its opportunity as well. It is as natural as the rotation of the earth, or the movements of the tides. It is human nature, and it controls us, not the other way around.
The Middle East seeks the opportunity… to do what? To stand up to its masters? The Middle East hasn’t any master to stand up to. Of course they will seek to develop, emerge, and take their place in the world, why should they not? Certainly the US has no reason to try to stop them… Osama and his ilk will certainly try to abort the process, but it’s not likely that they’ll succeed: their support is just not broad enough.

The challenge the Middle East faces isn’t foreign mastery, it’s reconciling the conflicting impulses of their own populaces: some want full-on modernity, some want to retreat to the Middle Ages, some want material progress while retaining cultural traditions. Some want to maintain strong central states, some want regional autonomy… and on, and on, and on. It’s a diverse place with a lot of populaces and a lot of disagreement on direction and desired end state.

A lot of Americans misread the situation by assuming that change, progress, and emergence must necessarily mean abandonment of traditional political structures. Many Americans simply can’t imagine a government run by a King, Sheik, Emir, or Sultan that isn’t faced by a popular insurgency. It’s not something we’d accept, so we assume others shouldn’t accept it either.

Of course reality is much more complicated. Some of the more progressive and most emergent states in the Middle East are under traditional royal structures: Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE... and these governments enjoy very high levels of popular support. Some of those closest to collapse have Western-style structures, (Yemen, for one). In many cases populaces seem quite content with traditional structures, and the objections seem to come primarily from Americans who find the idea of royalty aesthetically displeasing... I can't say I find it aesthetically pleasing myself, but it's not my problem or my affair.

In any event, meddling in the internal affairs of these countries, no matter what the motive, is going to win no points with government or populace. We need to be minding our own business wherever possible, not trying to decide what constitutes good or bad governance for anyone else.