Western powers have long recognized that the heady cocktail of state-of-the –art warfare churned with economic blockades and military devastation has proved effective for maintaining its pre-eminent position as the dominant and most sought after players in Middle East politics.
This position continues to reign supreme although certain key individuals representing European interests may have changed guard. The Arab leaders are constrained to walk the tightrope of assuaging popular sentiments in their own countries and yet curry favor of American overlords for political patronage, at the cost of economic liberalizations.
The escalation of conflict in this part of the world has arisen mainly due to two causes:
- Direct intervention by American and British powers and action by their local clients.
- Toeing the economic lines delineated by premier lending agencies and institutions.
Different European powers have used the Middle East as a happy hunting ground for marketing products and services and competing for imperialist control. Their competing stakes in fossil fuels like oil and gas sectors have ensured that the Middle East crisis remain a permanent feature in this part of the globe.
The price paid by Israelites in nurturing American powers came with the loss of their own independence and suzerainty. American troop presence has ushered a false sense of safety and security but the man in the street in any American military controlled state is fully aware, that it is at the cost of his own freedom and dignity. The trail of death and destruction left by operation of weapons of destruction in the Middle East has embittered and reviled every ordinary peace living citizens. The aftermath of the Iraq war has been even more gruesome and ghastly than the war itself. “According to the United Nations 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a result of the sanctions regime. Another 500,000 children have developed cancer, which many scientists believe is a legacy of the depleted uranium weapons used during the war (Alexander, 2001).
All long the Israeli military had mounted aggressive acts of brutality on civilian Palestine populations, killing, and maiming even children. The Palestinians have been clustered in separate enclaves, separated by metallized roads, guarded by Israeli armed troops, restricting passage in their own land. Their only constant companion is the fear of becoming targets of zealous Israeli forces, or to be caught between cross fires of the Arab and Israeli gun battles.
The problems of Palestine seem to be intractable and obdurate. It would summon all the political skills of sagacious leaders to find a lasting peace accord, given the vested interests that operate not only nationally, but also globally in delaying this process. For the Americans the success of Palestine self determination would mean undermining of their own roles and dependency, and for the Arabs it would mean acquiescing to the rights of the Palestine people which may not serve their political leadership interests.
It is only a constant war of attrition that could serve all interests, political and economic, except that of the poor man in the street who would be worried where his next meal would come from. In the constant war that has plagued this region for several decades; the end is still not in sight. and the ultimate sufferers have been ordinary peace living citizens of these countries.
Only a mass oriented and massive worker revolution could be seen as an possible antidote for the problems surrounding the Middle East, since it is capable of causing economic and social upheavals that could possibly auger well for the future, and also protect human and worker rights, especially in the context of the administration having a poor, if not non-existent human rights record.
References
Alexander, Anne. (2001). The crisis in the Middle East. International Socialism Journal, (93). 2008. Web.