Jamil Chughtai
One of the prominent national virtues of the United States of America is that it bears an unduly ‘kind and caring heart’ for the vulnerable humanity at large. Especially it cannot stand the atrocities against the hapless lot being committed anywhere in the world — if and only if — the perpetrator is some under-developed country and not the United States itself or one of its favourites such as Israel or India. This unique idiosyncratic empathy with the suppressed anywhere on the globe has always forced the Americans to move its military forces to help rescue the aggrieved and distressed people from scourge of their undemocratic as well as uncivilized rulers. On top of it, in each such reformative campaign that the US had ever launched, it always wanted to have a quick fix work in the said autocratic state or decaying democracy and comeback forthwith. ‘Unwillingly though’, the universal soldier had to prolong its stay in all such states merely for ensuring continuity of the democratic process, desire of the ‘unknown’ locals populace and ‘undeclared’ greater interests of the world. American philanthropic services in Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and now in the Middle East bear witness to their immense love for humankind.
If truth be told, for the US it has always been the factor of meeting the cost of the previous war-effort that had acted as a powerful stimulus for its unsolicited landing onto some brand new destination having resources to attract and potential to be declared as a threat towards ‘world peace’. Having become genius enough after landing back in US empty-handed from Vietnam’s misadventure and conceding huge public censure at home, Americans learnt this unique lesson ‘to never ever pull-out its military from a land without squeezing out its total resources and prior to finalizing a new object with hidden riches to start the whole episode afresh. Hence this frog-jump tactic by the US, having proved successful beyond expectations, continues unabated.
Though America never flinched back in taking up select excursions in other parts of the world whenever such an opportunity knocked at its open-doors, the Middle East has always had a special place in the heart of US strategists for decades and for not-so-oblivious reasons. There is another specialty of Americans that no other country could and will ever be able to share; US never won a war decisively and has always left a uncontrollable mess in the wake of its reformative military campaigns. Case in point is of Afghanistan where they are on the verge of losing the war, the longest they have ever fought, against inconceivably primitive foes. Similarly in Iraq they call it having almost won the war, but it cost them billions of dollars, thousands of innocent lives, and Baghdad is still a violent, dysfunctional chaos. The over-hyped Arab Spring orchestrated by the US has been left in the lurch having consumed lives of thousands of its enthusiasts in Egypt. Liberating Libya and Syria from undemocratic tyrants led to disintegrations and further throwing these otherwise stable nations into an endless war with bad guys on both sides and the US watching on the sidelines. The pitiable Middle East that we find today is all because of unwarranted American interference.
There are no two opinions that behind every US decision having bearing on the Middle East, its Zionist sidekicks and stake-holders have always remained at the forefront. Earlier, under their sway, US kept bribing Egypt with billions of annual aid dollars to maintain its peace treaty with Israel and to keep a lid on ‘radical’ Islam. In case of Syria the Americans pushed the plea that Bashar al-Assad’s regime, being aligned with Iran, was the biggest state sponsor of international terrorism both in Arab and rest of the world. Obviously and resultantly, the situation demanded of the US to see Bashar defeated for the ‘good’ to prevail. This greater ‘good’ revolves around oil, and till the time majority of the world have aircrafts, cars and trucks running on petroleum fuel, the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf region would remain a strategic priority for the West. Naturally, this all ultimately requires American security guarantees simultaneously providing further pretext for its military presence in and around the region at all costs. Thus, peace is not likely to come to the Middle East till last drop of oil is not siphoned out from this part of the world.
Exposing Washington’s military failures in the Middle East, an American military historian Andrew Bacevich in his recent book titled ‘America’s War for the Greater Middle East’ blamed former US President Jimmy Carter for concocting the dogma for direct military interventions in the Middle East. The Carter doctrine outlined that “Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” This is how the doctrine paved the way for future US military strategies, interventions and campaigns for the last four decades in Middle East and the Muslim world including the wars in Gulf, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
The question arises how despite the proven failures, US leaders and strategists have continued to use the same playbook for decades. The only logically supported answer is that owing to delusional leadership and oblivious public in the US, the wars in the Middle East are being successfully driven by oil and the military industrial complex not letting the people know that their so-called military victories have consistently mutated into different sorts of prolonged conflicts. Rather the general public in the States has been made to believe that same as in Hollywood movies all the campaigns that Washington launch end up as “missions accomplished”. The fact of the matter is that US political and military leadership has over the years consistently over-promised and under-delivered with respect to their role towards peace and serenity in the world in general and Middle East in particular.
It was right time for the world at large and especially the American public to have questioned the US warmongers when they resorted to a utterly unrealistic rhetoric, claiming that the US’ longest war ended responsibly in Afghanistan – when it did not – and pretending to leave behind a democratic and stable Iraq – when it is not one like that. People in America have a choice and do have a say – a luxury that the entire Middle East is deprived of – and therefore must take responsibility for their leaders’ choices and blunders. Similarly, it is to be understood clearly by the Arab world that the US might support freedom, democracy and prosperity in the Middle East, but only as long as it gets the lion’s share through it. The death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians and Afghans demands from the US citizens and human rights icons that they needed to have done more than merely witness as genocide was being carried out under their watch. They need to pay attention not only when Americans die, but also when countless Arabs and Muslims pay the price of the US’ follies in the region.
