Amid another day and night of widespread protests in Egypt, and rumours of a massacre of protesters in Suez, Western governments’ policy toward the Middle East is tottering and is now one dictator’s plane flight away from collapsing altogether.
For decades, Western governments, and particularly the United States and unquestioning allies such as Australia, have backed the most vile Middle Eastern regimes as long as they served broader strategic purposes. The Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein were prized vassals during the Cold War. Later, the threat of Palestinian terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and “another Iran” meant the Jordanian monarchy, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali received lavish aid from the West even as they flagrantly violated basic human rights.
The “Arab street”, stereotyped even by left-wing commentators as some sort of inarticulate, monolithic source of rage, was considered incapable of dislodging its dictators.
Tunisians showed otherwise, in an event wholly unexpected by Western governments and a mainstream media commentariat used to thinking strictly in clichés about the Arab world. First in Algeria, and now in Egypt, other Arab states are now facing the same protests, fuelled by the same forces of economic and political discontent. This time, at least, the western media is paying attention. Commentators are beginning to wonder whether the hitherto rock-solid Mubarak regime could go the same way as Ben Ali’s.
Meanwhile, al-Jazeera has effectively destroyed the Palestinian peace process by revealing not merely how far the Palestinian Authority was prepared to compromise in its negotiations with Israel, but how little real interest Israel has in any sort of settlement with the Palestinians. It has long served Western governments, every bit as well as it has served Israel, to portray the Palestinians as incapable of the sort of serious compromises that would deliver peace.
The approach of the United States and of every western country to the Middle East must now fundamentally change. And as each protest is savagely repressed, and each fatality is counted, the urgency of doing so becomes ever greater. Treating Arabs as a second-class race that gets overlooked when it comes to human rights is no longer sustainable.
I 2500% agree that Arabs should not be treated as a second-class race. I think we should go so far as to say that Africans could do with a bit of love as well. But human rights start at home, Crikey. Or are you suggesting that the US go in and bomb the beejesus out of the rest of the Middle East?
The USA and its syncophantic allies (Australia at the top of the list) have treated the Palestinians not as a second-class race, but as some form of sub-species, undeserving of the same human rights entitlements which we in the West enjoy. How else do we explain the ignoring and flouting of UN resolutions which address the Palestinian issue?
Nevertheless, a good article.
Mubarak and the rest of the tin-pot despots infesting the Middle East might well shiver at the cold wind which blows from Tunisia. Wouldn’t it be great if Gillard and her Israel-first cronies would feel it too?
Please keep this up Crikey. You are now starting to analyse exactly what constitutes US foreign policy and it is not pretty. You may not agree with the oft quoted line that US foreign policy is there to keep the world safe for its corporations, but the micro managing of the world by methodically supporting unsupportable regimes , targetted assassinations and acclimatizing the western world to a state of permanent war are all signs of something very ugly, and we are their leading supporter!
If only I could be so optimistic as to think that whatever replaces current regimes will be sympathetic to any notions of human rights. I recall vividly how new regimes such as Pol Pot in Cambodia and the Ayatollah in Iran were welcomed enthusiastically by my fellow ‘progressives’ who rubbished my reservations. It would, however, be a pleasant change to be wrong about such ‘improvements’.
Yes the US and the West have behaved badly. But is it the West or is it whoever has the power. If the tables turned would the Palestinian behave any differently? The whole world needs a political paradigm shift towards non violence and cooperation between nations. We need the citizens of the world to demonstrate as the middle East is beginning to do. But I think its not the governments that make the rules now…..The golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules!