Middle East Quandary

There is an old Arab proverb that says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  The current situation in the Middle East has proven that while this may work in the short run, it leads to a disastrous foreign policy for the US.  Saddam Hussein was no friend of ours, but he did provide stability and a counterbalance to Iran.  The turmoil that arose when we left Iraq, and what happened in Libya after the fall of Qadaffi, probably contributed to our failure to act in Syria at all before it was too late. 

Now we are bombing the enemies of the Assad regime. ISIS is undoubtedly worse than Assad, but, in trying to control ISIS, we are helping prop up a dictator whose overthrow is still listed as a positive by American policy makers.  To make matters worse, Russia is now ramping up their support for Assad, leading to the very real possibility of a clash between US and Russian planes over Syria.

Add to that the level of atrocities committed on each side.  Sunnis hate Shiites, and vice-versa, and the Isis troops hate everybody and everything.  The abominations being committed there in the name of religion today make Northern Ireland of a few years ago look like a picnic on a sunny spring day.

They all hate the US, and if there is anyone they hate worse than the “Great Satan,” it is each other.  It is enough to make you think that the doomsday predictors might have a point – this may be the beginning of Armageddon.

Even the Iraqis and Syrians have had it.  They are bailing out by the hundreds of thousands– trying to get to Europe by any means necessary – and they are creating a humanitarian crisis unprecedented in modern history.

Like anyone with a heart, I am moved by the pictures of desperate refugees drowning in the Mediterranean or being turned back at the Hungarian border by soldiers and police.  One thing keeps niggling at me though – the extremely high percentage of young men among the refugees, men who are choosing to leave their homeland rather that choosing a side and fighting for their beliefs.

I don’t have a solution to the problem.  I vacillate between staying out of the conflict entirely and the “Kill them all and let God sort them out” approach.  The only thing I know for sure is that whatever we do will eventually prove to be wrong.