I often run out of things to write because while most Westerners wildly misunderstand the Middle East, it is only because they misunderstand a small number of specific things:
1) Right now we're waiting on Egypt, which is by far the current situation with the most potential to reshape the Middle East.
2) The Western position on Iran's nuclear program is literally indefensible.
3) There is a string of colonies that the US maintains, for Israel's sake, over Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE and others.
4) The US' relationship with those countries and with the rest of the region is both indefensible by the US' own values and massively costly.
5) If the US was to lose its control of those colonies, Israel as an enforced Jewish political majority state would not be viable the way South Africa as an enforced White political majority state was not viable.
There may be some other statements I've missed, but from a Western foreign policy perspective, that is a summary of Middle East and I often feel like I'm writing combinations of those five statements in article form over and over. Because of that, I've invited anyone who comments on my blog to suggest articles for me to write about.
Pirouz_2 has accepted that invitation.
By the way, I remember you were saying that you wouldn't mind commenting on any articles we suggest. Recently I read the following article by Samir Amin about Egypt. I was wondering what is your take on it:I've read the article and will read it again to put my thoughts into a post later today. I reiterate my invitation to anyone reading this who has any suggestion about an article on the internet.
http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/2011-an-arab-springtime
I also wonder, for those who read or comment here, what small number of statements you would present to summarize the state of the Middle East. What you would add to or change in the list I wrote above.
