Reform, the Iraqi case

There's been alot of talk about reform in the Middle East lately. Heaven knows we need some kind of change.
But the question is, what kind of change?
The present regimes in the region cannot and will not survive endlessly. Something will change and i hope its for the good.
Let me speak about Iraq today.
I was one of the few (that i know of) in the region that were publicly all for the invasion of Iraq. While the use of military force is not something i like, but it was needed and long overdue.
Let me explain.
Since the 1950's, perhaps even earlier, the Arab world's short experiment with liberalism had come to a slow and, sometimes violent, end. The 1952 coup (they call it a revolution) had ended a thriving, if somewhat ailing, parliamentary system in Egypt. Not long afterwards, Syria and Iraq followed. The 1958 mini-civil war in Lebanon, while not destroying, seriously harmed Lebanon's pluralistic democracy.
Since then, for nearly half a century, the Arab world was a stagnant, smelly, wretched pond. From Morroco to Oman, the Arab peoples were ruled by either absolute monarchs or absolute dictators. From Nasser to Saddam to Assad, there was no escape. The leftist "movements" had stifled all liberty.
The Iraqi war as a large stone that was thrown into that stagnation, it moved the waters (waters that had not even felt a breeze in decades), it allowed some light to reach it murky, vile depths. The nocturnal creatures that had thrived in this darkness ran for cover, they were not accustomed to any kind of movement, to oxygen being exchanged in the water.
That is how i viewed the Iraqi war. Of course, others disagreed. They had become used to the dark. The stillness and darkness around them comforted them, they did not want anything or anyone to alter that, but altered it was.
Those stuck in the dark depths of this stench ridden pond that we call the Arab world glimpsed just how awful it was, how dark it was, compared to the rest of the world. Old gods, their dogmas with them, (otherwise known as rulers) were shattered. The dark towers, in which tyrants rested in between long periods of teaching "lessons" to their people, shook.
The tyrants wanted nothing of this "new" world, but it's too late. We the people now know, we think and we express. The tide of time cannot be reversed.
If it was not for the Iraqi war all this might have happened sooner or later, i don't know, but it would not have happened for a very long time at the least.
I'm sure no one could forsee the bloodshed that it happening in Iraq, but considering the amount of hate and religious insanity that is in the region now, i don't think its surprising.
Ahh, the violence in Iraq, what can i say about that? Think of a bull that gets wild with rage when it's wounded, before it finally dies.
I'll get to that later.

Arabs and the occupied territories

Time and time again we hear "Arabs" talking about their view on an end to the Middle East issue (by that i mean the Palestinian/Israeli conflict). They say that this end will only come when Israel withdraws from all the occupied territories. The "occupied territories" here are those lands taken by Israel during the six-day war in June 1967. Israel has already left Egypt's Sinai peninsula, so we are left with the Gaza strip, the West Bank and Syria's Golan Heights (which have already been directly annexed into Israel and i will not talk about right now)
Israel's legality, in my opinion, is based on the 1947 UN partition plan (which Arabs vehemently opposed). During the 1948-49 war Israel took over those territories earmarked for a Jewish state and then some, declared its independence and then waited for what the Arab world would do next.
So what did that Arabs do? They did not create a Palestinian state on the remaining Palestinian lands under their control, they did not withdraw their forces from the West Bank and Gaza, they actually took them over. Egypt basically "administered" the Gaza strip and Jordan directly annexed the West Bank Those actions effectively destroyed any chance for a real and internationally recognized Palestinian state.
What the hell were they thinking? The king of Jordan decided to pursue some old, grand Hashemite vision of a unified Arab state, under Hashemite leadership of course. So why didn't he then invade Saudi Arabia to regain his ancestoral lands that the Al-Saud took over with British help?
The Arabs refused to give any of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in god-forsaken camps any kind of legal recognition, the Arabs refused to give those Palestinians in the Gaza strip and West Bank any king of independence, the Arabs simply refused to compromise.
Then June 1967 came along and the last remaining parts of "historic" Palestine were lost and still Arab leaders refused to comromise. It was not until the late 1980's that King Hussein finally ended the legal links between Jordan and the West Bank. To this day, the regime in Syria refuses to compromise on anything. When will the Assad dynasty realize that you can only dictate your terms for negotiation if you are in the position of strength, which Syria surely is not in?
Wasn't Jordan's saying that the West Bank was part of Jordan also saying that Jordan and Palestine were one and the same? Wasn't this a recognition of what some far right Israelis and their American supporters say that a Palestinian state already exists in Jordan?
What the hell were they thinking?
If that is what the Hashemites were thinking then they have no right to complain about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, no right whatsoever. They did to the West Bank what Israel has done to the Golan Heights.
To this day the Arab world refuses to compromise.
They refused to compromise when the 1947 plan would have given them a not-so-bad part of Palestine. They refused to compromise when they had the West Bank and Gaza. They refused to compromise when they had the chance at some form of negotiations following the 1973 war (when Jewish settlements were still few). The refuse to compromise when talk is about the remnants of the West Bank.
I am sure they will continue their nice little policy of refusal until there is nothing left to compromise about.
I am no defender of Israel, on the contrary, i have serious questions about the basic legality of the state of Israel itself, but legality, as we all know, is quit different than reality.
Let the Arabs refuse, let the religious fanatics work themselves into a frenzy, let the terrorists blow themselves up, let them scream.
No one is listening.

Occupied territories

I honestly cannot imagine any final (by that i mean a just and peaceful) end to the Palestinian issue.
First of all, the Palestinians want an independent state. Ok, now that might seem "simple" on paper somehow, but reality is very different. Let us, for argument's sake, say that this "independent" state will be in the Gaza strip and the West Bank, the territories occupied in the June 1967 war. How will this happen? The West Bank is full of Jewish settlements (colonies would be a better word). The "settlers" there do not want to go, and will not go, anywhere. This means that either they will have to live in a Palestinian state, or these settlements will become part of Israel. I cannot see any Jewish settler deciding that he wants to live under Palestinian leadership and rightly so, i cannot imagine Palestinians being any nicer to the Jews than the Jews have so far been to Palestinians.
So we have a fragmented and divided Palestinian "state", if it can be called that, in Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Such a state will be fully dependent on Israel. When and if the Israelis decide to tighten the screws, the Palestinian state will crumble.
The Gaza withdrawal plan is quit the clever move from Israel, which has long been pushing the Palestinians to seeing Gaza as their only "truly" viable option for statehood. So we will see Palestinians with control over Gaza and some form of wierd power structure in the West Bank.
I also do not get what the hell the United States is doing. Condoleezza Rice says that the recent decision to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank is wrong, but then says that Israel will get to keep some of its settlements there. Someone explain this to me. Are we saying that there should be no new settlements, but that the ones already there should be recognized as legal and become part of Israel? Legal according to who?
If this is what we are saying then all we are doing is recognizing the foreful seizure of territory. Israel waged a war, took over Arab lands and now gets to keep them. So why can't any other country do that? I can think of plenty of other countries that would love to get their hands on a slice of some neighboring country's territory.
So what does the term "occupied territory" mean then?
Sell the West Bank settlements to the Palestinians and use the money to build homes for those settlers within Israel. The Palestinians can then use these settlements to house some of the Palestinian refugees living in those awful camps in Lebanon, Syria and other countries in the region.
So there we have it, another population exchange like those that happened in Europe after first and second world wars and India during its independence process. Alot of good that did them.
If we really believe in democracy, human rights and the value of each and every indivdual human being then every person living in "historical Palestine" should become the citizen of one state. I see the "one state" solution as the only way to solve the "holy land's" problems. Palestinan refugees should remain where they are and be given the citizenship of whatever country they reside in.
That is the only way. The settlers won't leave, Israel can't allow any viable Palestinian state on the whole of the West Bank and the refugees will only make matters worse if they return.
The "two state solution" talk cannot and will not ever work on the ground, the two "states" and their populations are too closely tangled for any real separation to be succesful.
I will get into my critisizm of the Arab side of this issue later. I have alot to about that.

Revolution and religion

Kyrgystan; An interesting little country in central Asia.
They just rose up and overthrew their government. Popular revolutions are becoming quit the common thing, especially in the former Soviet Union. Seems like the populace in those countries have finally realized that the old Soviet elite that took over from the Soviet leadership in those countries really wasn't as nice as they had originally thought.
So what does religion have to do with this? Well, i'm not sure myself, but Kyrgystan is the first Muslim dominated former Soviet republic to have such a popular uprising (i am overlooking Chechnya here, because that is still part of Russia and the revolutionaries there have stained themselves with horrendous terrorist activities, something that cannot be condened evenb if the Russian military used exessive measures in Chechnya). In other countries, like Azerbijan, opposition movements have not been able to put up much of a fight against the established powers.
I do not know what the inclinations of the new government in that country is. Kyrgystan has been viewed by some as being a potential hotbed for Islamist extremism, so one will have to watch matters closely until things settle over there.
With Islam so deeply embedded in people's every thought and action in most of the Muslim world, i personally do not see how a popular revolution can succeed without catering to these religious sentiments. If one has to lead the people, one has to cater to their beliefs. The situation in the Middle East is the same. I really cannot imagine a secular revolution in any Muslim country. I don't even think the average Arab knows the meaning of the world secularism. They are still struggling with the word Liberalism. The Arab press is full of opinions that equate liberalism with athiesm and many of the more conservative, and thus usually paranoid, Arab voices equate democracy with liberalism.
Thus is you are an Arab and call for democracy and/or liberalism in your country, you must be a godless athiest.
Humm, i wonder what they would do if they heard of agnosticism?

The Arab world

What is this Arab world? What is wrong with it?
Even though i've lived in it for most of my life, i have yet to grasp what exactly is holding it back, causing it to lag so far behind the rest world.
Could it be tradition? Religion? Rigid mentalities? Paranoia? I don't know. I would think that it is a combination of all these.
Today, Arab leaders are gathering in Algeria. I don't think this is even worth the effort and I know that many agree. These leaders had to have their foreign ministers meet in advance and agree on everything before they themselves hold their summit.
I find this laughable. The leaders want to meet, but they do not want to disagree. I guess all they want to do is sit, have a smoke and talk about the good old days when no one paid attention to how they treated their people.
A bunch of medieval rulers gather to discuss the same issues every year.
Maybe this year we'll see another comic exchange bertween Libyan and Saudi rulers. Rulers, they are still called rulers for goodness sake.
A nice little medieval enclave.
Too bad for these rulers that the modern world has finally realized how dangerous it was to ignore it.
Let's see what these rulers are up to.