Iraq and Middle East

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

I hope that's what he meant, because I thought he meant that the US invaded Afghanistan because of the USSR...

no not what i meant

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

just something i thought of. didn't we go into Afghanistan because of the USSR

'we' means US Intelligence the Poms and us Aussies

[DigiFluid]

Antecedents

I think we need to start by acknowledging that there is a long standing tradition of antisemitism in the Arab world. But we need to differentiate between different sorts of antisemitism, 'benign' vs. the more modern sort which we understand. For centuries upon centuries, antisemitism amongst Arabs was really nothing special or unique amongst peoples anywhere in the world. Indeed, it was often not much more than a case of 'they're different from us,' or 'their religious teachings are blasphemous because they're different from our religious teachings'. You see this sort of divide all the time, all throughout history. Muslims vs. Christians, Catholics vs. Protestants, Buddhists vs. Hindus. Even 'restrictions' like the Dhimmi law were offset both by the fact that it covered all non-Muslims, and because religious sorts were granted a certain level of protection under the law. It's really wasn't any unique or special sort of discrimination; likely you'd find more examples of hateful antisemitism in medieval Europe than you would in the medieval Middle East. Nonetheless, the seeds were there.

That all began to change in the late 19th- and early 20th-century.

The Ottoman Empire, six centuries old, was in sharp decline, and the cultural and religious institutions which had formed the bedrock of Islamic culture for much of its existence were decaying and fragmenting. The Empire finally completely collapsed in the wake of the First World War, leaving the Muslim world at the mercy of foreign invaders and occupiers (primarily: Europe) for the first time since the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Wrap your head around that for a moment. Your culture, your church, your country, everything that's held the fabric of your civilization together for twice as long as the USA has existed today comes crashing down in the span of a single generation. Where once you were a united nation, now there are numerous new nations, all puppets of foreigners more interested in conquest, glory, and resources than in the people being stepped on. To describe this as "culture shock" would be the mother of all understatements.

The inter-war period proves no better, as these various powers vie for position and prestige, using the Arab nations, leaders and people as mere pawns in their games. While less recognized as colonialism than, say, Africa (not to diminish that in any way either), European rule over the Middle East was most definitely colonial in nature.


The birth of racial antisemitism

Along come the '30s and '40s. Fascists and Nazis pervert Darwinism into Social Darwinism and begin one of the most ruthlessly violent antisemitic campaigns in human history. Simultaneously, the European powers go to war once more and continue to turn to their Arab possessions as both a resource to be used and a proxy through which to fight their own war.

At some point, the concept of race-based antisemitism finds its way to the Middle East and becomes a rallying concept for some groups. This even manifested physically during an Arab revolt in the late 1930s, as violence against the British overlord spilled over into violent attacks on Jewish civilians and property.

Throughout the war, a Jewish 'underground railroad' of sorts springs up. It defies the immigration quotas for Palestine established by the British, and successfully sneaks many thousands of Jewish refugees out of war-torn Europe and into British Palestine. Meanwhile Zionist groups in Palestine, dedicated to the creation of an Israeli state, initiate violent uprisings on more than one occasion to defy British immigration restrictions on the territory and demand a state of their own. Action, reaction: relations between both Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs fray.

Finally the guns in Europe fall silent once more. The Western world collectively licks its wounds, while the horrors of the Holocaust emerge and shock a great deal of antisemitism right out of Europe in particular. For the Nuremburg Trials, of the Nazi criminals, it's decided that the occupation of foreign lands gained through warfare is an international crime.

In the aftermath of the European chaos, a number of things happen.

Before, during, and after the war, the Jewish population in Palestine exploded. A 1920 report indicated that the entire population of the country was 700,000, of which a mere 76,000 were Jewish. By 1948, the country's population had reached nearly 2 million, of which nearly a third were Jewish. This sort of demographic shift in a population is enormous and has social and economic impacts that almost defy description.

Also in '48, the European nations, whether right or not, to support the establishment of a "Jewish state" in Palestine via the Partition Plan. Ponder on all that for a minute. In your grandparents' time, your civilization was intact and united. In your parents', it was stripped and divided, and conquered by foreigners not interested in the plight of the locals. And then in your lifetime, those same foreigner overlords dictate that they're cutting away half your nation and handing it over to their own expatriates.


The birth of Israel

Civil war erupted in the territory. Arabs fighting Arabs for primacy, Arabs battling the 'foreign invaders' and their favored expatriates, and the Jewish community fighting for its very survival. With the termination of the Mandate and the birth of Israel as an independent nation, the civil war overnight transformed into a war between sovereign states. Much of the Arab world united against Israel, whilst its occupants fought ferociously to keep themselves from being crushed in their national infancy.

When the war ended in effective stalemate (though most definitely Israeli strategic victory), Palestine effectively ceased to exist as an independent entity and borders were redrawn to nobody's satisfaction.

• Israel took for itself about 1/3 more territory than had been granted it by the Partition. Besides fanning the flames of Arab anger over (further) occupying lands which to that point had been Palestinian, this was also a violation of international law which had been used to prosecute Nazi leaders just four years prior
• Gaza was occupied by Egypt
• the West Bank was occupied by Jordan

Effectively, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War saw the utter downfall of Palestine as it had been less than 10 years before. Israel established that it was here to stay, and established itself as a force to be reckoned with in combat. And the Arab allies of the Palestinians, in the end, took their sovereignty away. Whether by Israel or by fellow Arabs, Palestine was now occupied territory.

This was, of course, a long way away from the end of the wars between Israel and the various Arab nations. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Arab terror groups routinely carried out vicious attacks within Israeli borders while the IDF responded with counter-attacks and military actions of their own. This surely frayed both sides and resulted in even more hatred and bad blood.

In 1956, things once again got hairy. Egyptian President Nasser, generally regarded as a strong and independent Arab leader, stuck his finger in the Cold War's proverbial eye by recognizing Mao's government as the legitimate rulers of China. This pissed off the States, as was apparently Nasser's intention, as he seems to have been trying to play the US and Soviets off one another to his own benefit. The Egyptian flashpoint ignited when Nasser ordered Egyptian forces to seize the Suez Canal, the one connection from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and nationalize it as Egyptian property.

Israel allied with the Western powers, namely the British and the French, to put a stop to this, and together they decided on military intervention. The conflict escalated, and Israeli forces occupied first Gaza, and then the whole of the Sinai Peninsula. In the end little was accomplished, but it seems everyone in the area got something out of it. The IDF proved that it was capable of large-scale military operations and benefited from the placement of UN peacekeeping forces in the Sinai (right next to their border), Nasser's stature as a pan-Arab icon grew, and Soviet influence over the entire region increased. But as I'm sure anyone can see--the Israeli alliance with Europe did little to endear it to its neighbours. Nor did it have much of a positive gain for Arab feelings toward the Western powers in general--particularly once evidence emerged that Britain, France, and Israel had conspired beforehand to plan the conflict.

Fast forward another 10 years and everyone's at it again. Palestinian guerrilla terror operations were on the rise, Israeli forces attacked Jordanian-occupied West Bank cities in response, meanwhile Syria and Egypt signed a joint-defense pact (apparently having learnt nothing from Europe's folly leading into WW1). The USSR fed Nasser false information about Israeli troops massing on the Israel-Egypt border, and massed his own troops there in turn. Nasser declared that the "basic objective will be the destruction of Israel," and then Egypt signed a joint-defense pact with Jordan as well.

Seeing that war was a foregone conclusion, Israeli leaders chose to launch a preemptive strike rather than be caught on the defensive. Despite the inevitability of war and the obvious military wisdom of the move, much of the Arab response was that it was an unjustified attack.

The war was a decisive and crushing Israeli victory. Despite finding themselves faced by an alliance of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and forces from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia, and Sudan, Israel emerged as the clear victor in a war that took less than a week.

The Six Day War saw a couple developments which also offer further explanation as to the Arabic anti-Israeli and anti-Western sentiment.

• despite the fact that their own leaders were massing forces on Israeli borders, it seems that Arab sentiment preferred to believe that an Israeli attack was to blame for the conflict
• rumours and allegations were perpetuated that the US and UK gave a great deal of support to the Israeli cause--despite a legal embargo on that. It appears an obvious lie, but a comforting one to those so handily defeated in war
• Israeli forces seized and annexed Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights--permanently erasing Palestine from the map. And, once more, defying international law in claiming territory obtained through conquest

[DigiFluid]

The Cold War continues
In the years following, and perhaps resulting from the Six Day War, American policy in the Middle East shifted dramatically. Where before the US goal was to prevent of minimize an arms race in the region, the 1967 war convinced them that much of the Arab world had permanently drifted toward the Soviet Union's camp.

As a result, the American government and military-industrial complex began to actively supply and support their staunchest ally in the region, Israel. With half a century of foreign occupation and manipulation gone by at this point, to see the mightiest of the Western powers actively and openly militarily supporting the 'invader' nation is perhaps the ultimate breaking point in Arab-Western relations. Though, as I'm sure you can see at this point, it wasn't anything so dramatic but rather the straw that broke the camel's back (if you'll excuse the metaphor *facepalms*). This policy of aid, both financial and military, continues to this day.

Turning attention away from Israel, we can also find other historical explanations as to hostilities between West and Middle East.

One particular example of this is the Shah of Iran during the Cold War. Back during the Second World War, military forces both British and Soviet had occupied Iran to defend against the possibility of German forces seizing Middle Eastern oil reserves. And since Iran had previously declared neutrality in the War, this didn't exactly go over well with either the Shah of the time or the people of the country. Reza Shah, ruler of the country, was forced to abdicate his throne in favour of his son.

I should note, at this point, that Iran is not an Arabic nation. It's considered Persian, and the majority speak Farsi--not Arabic. But I include it here because of its undeniable importance to the region at large. Moving on:

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the new Shah of Iran, would act as a Western puppet for decades to come. Years later, in the early '50s, the democratic body of government sought to nationalize Iran's oil fields and oust the Shah as a political power. With the aid of CIA in particular, the Shah was able to hold on to his position of power and the 'troublemakers'--those with the interests of Iran at heart, rather than the West--removed as an obstacle. As the years went on, his unpopularity grew and grew, and he dodged a number of assassination attempts. Finally, Ruhollah Khomeini came along and led the people of Iran through the Iranian Revolution, throwing off foreign dominion forever.

The Shah of Iran was not the only one getting support from the West, however. With the "atheistic" Soviet Union forever threatening to expand its influence or even military activities into the Middle East, certain NATO governments (in particular, the US and the UK), fomented and encouraged the development of fundamentalist religious groups throughout the region.

The fatal mistake here (besides...supporting fundamentalists) was that it appears the groups were meant more as human landmines. They weren't trained to follow any particular direction or orders or goals, they were supported to act as dangerous insurgents if the Soviet Union chose to invade. But leaderless fundamentalism hardly comes without consequence. With no-one leaning on them to keep in line with Western goals, many of these fundamentalist groups came to actively challenge the existing Middle Eastern governments for any number of reasons. This is the foundation of many of the Islamic fundamentalist groups that exist today.


Afghan Civil War and the birth of Islamic extremism

In yet another proxy battle of the Cold War, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979 under the pretense of supporting the new Communist government there (which itself had seized power in a coup). Not willing to let this stand, the US (CIA) began arming and training the mujahideen militants to wage a guerrilla war and make the Soviets pay dearly for every kilometer of land they tried to take. Amongst these militants, these tools of yet another foreign proxy war, was a young Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden was no poor man thrust into war. He was a member of the exceedingly wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, who owe their wealth to being the owners of one of the largest construction business in the whole of the Arab world.

When the war ended, bin Laden traveled to Pakistan, and in 1988 established the earliest iteration of al-Qaeda. It was stated to be "basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious," and listed membership requirements as 'listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge to follow one's superiors.' It was at some point around this time that bin Laden in particular drifted into a particularly extreme and violent brand of Islamic fundamentalism and we begin to approach the modern period.

But let's back up a moment to 1980 again. Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini and Iraq under Saddam Hussein went to war for various reasons. And at various points in the 8-year war, depending on shifting alliances, the United States supplied both sides with chemical weapons. In a region that has already spent the preceding 60 years growing to hate and despise the West, I can't imagine a more shortsighted thing to have done. This has certainly resulted in resentment from people on both sides of that conflict rather than 'minimizing' it to just one.
A couple of years later, Saddam Hussein's forces invade Kuwait and the Gulf War begins. Western boots are on the ground, battling Arab forces in open warfare for the first time in decades. But H.W. and co. then decided on long-term damage: embargoes, trade restrictions, and no-fly zones. Were these effective at caging the dictator? Maybe, it's hard to say. But what it most definitely succeeded at was making the lives of the common people a lot harder. The clash of rulers, as is invariably the case, hurts the little people more than anyone else. Animosity.
But the War also had the unintended and unexpected consequence of driving the various Islamic fundamentalist groups over the edge. With the permission of the House of Saud (who in so doing found themselves named enemies of the fundamentalists), American soldiers were allowed to set up shop in Saudi Arabia, home of Mecca and Medina. The "infidels", the "unbelievers", the foreign invaders, the United States had soldiers stationed in the Holy Lands.

Where in normal religious people this might cause disquiet or even protest, in fundamentalists this spurned them to violence and jihad; because, let's face it, there isn't much rational or explainable about a thought process that leads one from "I'm offended" to "I plan to kill civilians en masse."


Recent Years

While I'm sure aid goes out, it seems that the mis-deeds of our part of the world have had far more of an impact in recent years than any other recent actions. The Afghanistan War--which, to my mind, was a just decision in the wake of 9/11--has in the long run only perpetuated the ongoing civil conflict that's plagued that nation since the 80s; and has compounded things both by bombing their civilian infrastructure and by installing yet another puppet ruler in Karzai

Iraq is obviously a far worse quagmire of international relations. The US-led invasion was launched under pretexts that were dubious at the time, and which have in the years since been not only been proven false, but that certain key political leaders may well have known that they were trumped up charges. In the space of mere weeks, the invading forces laid waste to the nation's infrastructure and killed many thousands of civilians in a war whose endgame seems (in the end) to have been the capture of one man. And let's also not forget the atrocities committed by Blackwater in that country too.

History, disagreement, blood for blood in a seemingly endless cycle; I don't know where it ends. But if there just one thing to be glad for in recent times, I think it's that bin Laden lived just long enough to see the start of the Arab Spring--that the common people of the Arab world were throwing off the yokes of oppression and flocking away from his twisted view of the world in droves.




I suppose I could delve into the twisted theology of fundamentalism more deeply, but it's taken me quite long enough to write all of this. Another time, perhaps.