Diplomatic Relations in the Mideast

[kreeden]

Ok , everyone seems to have an opinion about the Mideast , but how many of us have any idea what kind of diplomatic nightmare it is over there ? Personally , I don't . Looking back on history , it appears to be a hornet's nest of factions . Some wanting one thing , others want another , and no-one having the authority to speak for others .

It seems to me that one can NOT divide the area into two groups , the Jews and the Muslims . It's not that cut and dry . Every country has political factions , and Israel is no differant . Some of those factions were / are rather extreme . The Irgun for excample { the King David Hotel incident } , and the Lehi , who actually proposed backing Nazi Germany during WWII . { No lie }. Now these are two extreme groups , and I'n not saying that all Israelites would agree with them .

On the other hand , we have the " Arabs ". I could be mistaken saying this , and please correct me if I am , but if Israel has factions , what the west calls the Arab world is splintered into hundreds of factions . Much of it is historically based upon a nomandic society . Ties were made , broken and remade .

The countries that we see today are all rather new , that rose out of what was once the English and French Mandates . { and the Ottoman Empire before that }. And each has had their owe problems . What I'm trying to get at is that even today , we hear about minority factions like the Kurds . { I'm using " faction " here to cover political and ethnic differents , which may be a mistake , but please bare with me }. The Kurds don't have a " country " so much as are slattered throughout the region . There are many such people in the Middle East .

The Lebanese Civil War is a prime excample of my point here . Christains { a rather large population of Christians } , Muslim { Shi'a and Sunni } , PLO , the Druze , with Israel and Syria thrown in ....

How does one even start to divide interests in such a mixture of political interests , ethnic interests , religious interests and growning nationism ? Let alone try to set down and settle the differences diplomaticity .

I see the problems we have having in Canada over Native Land Claims and related issues . I can't imagion the problems with trying to do the same in the Middle East . But that is what HAS to be done .

 

[greatcalgarian]

Ok , everyone seems to have an opinion about the Mideast , but how many of us have any idea what kind of diplomatic nightmare it is over there ? Personally , I don't . Looking back on history , it appears to be a hornet's nest of factions . Some wanting one thing , others want another , and no-one having the authority to speak for others .

It seems to me that one can NOT divide the area into two groups , the Jews and the Muslims . It's not that cut and dry . Every country has political factions , and Israel is no differant . Some of those factions were / are rather extreme . The Irgun for excample { the King David Hotel incident } , and the Lehi , who actually proposed backing Nazi Germany during WWII . { No lie }. Now these are two extreme groups , and I'n not saying that all Israelites would agree with them .

On the other hand , we have the " Arabs ". I could be mistaken saying this , and please correct me if I am , but if Israel has factions , what the west calls the Arab world is splintered into hundreds of factions . Much of it is historically based upon a nomandic society . Ties were made , broken and remade .

The countries that we see today are all rather new , that rose out of what was once the English and French Mandates . { and the Ottoman Empire before that }. And each has had their owe problems . What I'm trying to get at is that even today , we hear about minority factions like the Kurds . { I'm using " faction " here to cover political and ethnic differents , which may be a mistake , but please bare with me }. The Kurds don't have a " country " so much as are slattered throughout the region . There are many such people in the Middle East .

The Lebanese Civil War is a prime excample of my point here . Christains { a rather large population of Christians } , Muslim { Shi'a and Sunni } , PLO , the Druze , with Israel and Syria thrown in ....

How does one even start to divide interests in such a mixture of political interests , ethnic interests , religious interests and growning nationism ? Let alone try to set down and settle the differences diplomaticity .

I see the problems we have having in Canada over Native Land Claims and related issues . I can't imagion the problems with trying to do the same in the Middle East . But that is what HAS to be done .

The issue is that there is not a single truly independent nation there in Middle East. For example, in Afghanistan, the local fought so hard to get rid of the Russia by the Al Qaeda with the help of CIA, but was immediately followed by the official invasion of US to remove the Al Qaeda and return the country back to the stage of chaos of war lord and partial control of AlQaeda in certain region. I am not saying that the short period of AlQaeda rule is a perfect state of Government for Afghanistan, but at least that is an independent government, though some may say a country under the control of a group of Muslim Fundamentalists is not an independent country. Then we have Iraq which may be considered as relatively independent free of foreign power during Hussein reign, but that independency is gone now. The only countries that can be considered as relatively independent are (1) Israel and (2) Iran currently.
All other countries are not independent nations. Syria, Lebanon, are all not independent country because the government is not powerful and strong enough to speak for their own nationa and own people. Their nation's faith lies in the hand of the western power, so the existing government of these countries have to play politics to remain in power, and that is not an independent nation.

 

[kreeden]

Pretty much what I was trying to say .

So , how does one go in there and use diplomacy if there isn't a power strong enough to back and agreements they make ?

 

[greatcalgarian]

Pretty much what I was trying to say .

So , how does one go in there and use diplomacy if there isn't a power strong enough to back and agreements they make ?

Only US is the country with enough military resources to do a peace keeping. However, US is not neutral, and hence cannot be entrusted with the task. The only solution left is for the parties concerned to be worn out by the war, and the conflict will die a natural death. Unfortunately, this will take a lot of attribution on human life and incurred lots of suffering for the people.