AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - Where the Middle-East is headed.

AnimeFan188 · 2012-10-11, 18:11

"The short-run problems of the Middle East appear intractable because they are
irruptions of long-term problems, in a self-aggravating regional disturbance. It's
like August 1914, but without the same civilizational implications:"

"Egypt cannot achieve stability under a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood
regime any more than it could under military dictatorship, because 60 years of
sham modernization atop a pre-modern substratum have destroyed the country's
capacity to function.

Turkey cannot solve its Kurdish problem today because the Kurds know that time
is on their side: with a fertility three times that of ethnic Turks, Anatolian Kurds
will comprise half the country's military-age population a generation from now.

Syria cannot solve its ethnic and religious civil conflicts because the only
mechanism capable of suppressing them - a dictatorship by a religious minority -
exhausted its capacity to do so.

Iraq's Shi'ite majority cannot govern in the face of Sunni opposition without
leaning on Iran, leaving Iran with the option to destabilize and perhaps,
eventually, to dismember the country.

And Iran cannot abandon or even postpone its nuclear ambitions, because the
collapse of its currency on the black market during the past two weeks reminds its
leaders that a rapidly-aging population and fast-depleting oil reserves will lead to
an economic breakdown of a scale that no major country has suffered in the
modern era."

See:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NJ10Ak02.html

It all reminds me of this quote from Syriana:

"You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred
years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other's
heads off and that's where you'll be in another hundred years,"

Where is the Middle-East headed in the years to come?

2012-10-11, 18:11	Link #1
AnimeFan188 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2008	Where the Middle-East is headed. "The short-run problems of the Middle East appear intractable because they are irruptions of long-term problems, in a self-aggravating regional disturbance. It's like August 1914, but without the same civilizational implications:" "Egypt cannot achieve stability under a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood regime any more than it could under military dictatorship, because 60 years of sham modernization atop a pre-modern substratum have destroyed the country's capacity to function. Turkey cannot solve its Kurdish problem today because the Kurds know that time is on their side: with a fertility three times that of ethnic Turks, Anatolian Kurds will comprise half the country's military-age population a generation from now. Syria cannot solve its ethnic and religious civil conflicts because the only mechanism capable of suppressing them - a dictatorship by a religious minority - exhausted its capacity to do so. Iraq's Shi'ite majority cannot govern in the face of Sunni opposition without leaning on Iran, leaving Iran with the option to destabilize and perhaps, eventually, to dismember the country. And Iran cannot abandon or even postpone its nuclear ambitions, because the collapse of its currency on the black market during the past two weeks reminds its leaders that a rapidly-aging population and fast-depleting oil reserves will lead to an economic breakdown of a scale that no major country has suffered in the modern era." See: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NJ10Ak02.html It all reminds me of this quote from Syriana: "You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other's heads off and that's where you'll be in another hundred years," Where is the Middle-East headed in the years to come?