cry of the banshee wrote:
We basically bribed him to keep peace with Israel, is what it boils down to. ...we have to deal with them, and it is only logical and pragmatic that we try to frame it towards our own benefit.
Agreed!
Mubarak was supported because it stopped the constant state of warfare between the Arabs and Israel.
The Egyptians were the main rabble rousers against Israel. By taking them out of the picture you took out the main aggressor.
Syria is too poor to effectively wage war on Israel on it's own.
You also took out out two potential fronts. In the past Israel had to wage war on two - Egypt to the west, Jordan to the south and Syria to the northwest.
Taking out Egypt has removed the massive threat to the West. Jordan was sick of it all by the 1970's especially after the PLO tried to take over.
That leaves Syria all on its own.
And bribing Egypt has worked. Syria tried in 1982 and got it's arse kicked by the Israelis. We've had relative peace ever since.
I.e. by relative peace I mean not as much conventional warfare.
If Egypt had stayed aggressive towards Israel, the wars would've continued and possibly led to Israeli nuclear strikes if the Arabs ever penetrated their lines.
This was possible as in 1973 the Arabs managed to get Israel on the defensive and had it not been for massive US military aid, Israel might've folded.
Indeed one of the reasons the US provided all that aid to Israel in 1973 becuase the Israelis were already suspected of being a nuclear power and they were thought to be considering the nuclear option to stem the Egyptian advance.
So Mubarak for all his wrongs, was a necessary evilcry of the banshee wrote:
an adamantly populist movement by the people is despicable. The framing of any attempts at democracy in the Middle East as only promoting the solidification of Islamic control is repulsive considering the wars we've waged for the last ten years have been always founded upon the possibility of democracy in an Islamic state. We condemn when things aren't dne our way even if they have the same goals in mind.
The problem is once one looks outside Western-Islamic relations, one finds the same problems anywhere in the world.
We talk of Western-Islamic relations, yet there are massive issues with relationships between Muslims and other people everywhere else in the world. Look at India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sudan, Nigeria or even western China.
Look at the oppression of non-Muslim minorities in the Arab world and other predominantly Muslim countries.
The problem is that Islam views the rest of the world as incompatible with it in a very black and white way.
You're either Muslim or you're not. There is no pragmatism here and where there is, it's usually accompanied by subterfuge such as Saudi funding of Islamic terrorist groups while pretending to have a good relationship with the West.
A big problem here is that this "you either Muslim or dead" is not just state policy. It's engrained in many Islamic socieites. Just one look at honour killings, at mob murders of non-Muslims and of societal intolerance of non-Muslims proves this.
Islam was ocne more tolerant than it is now. Centuries of decline and the emergence of extremist Islamic though from the Arab peninsula (especially Saudi Wahhabists) have created a culture of extreme intolerance to non-believers.
This is why I think any attrempts to bring true democracy to Islamic cultures would actually increase levels of intolerance.
Even increasing wealth would not help. After all the most fundamentalist countries are the rich Arab ones.
