Which begs the question -- in light of the latest democracy-farce being played out in Pakistan, how should we treat the kind real threats posed by a radicalized Muslim Middle East?
In a word: containment.
We won the Cold War largely by containing the Soviet Union's expansionist ambitions. And we won that long war without the level of bloodshed we've already experienced in Iraq, or the amount of bloodshed we will incur if we continue trying to force these people to drink from the democratic pond. Instead we told the nations of the Soviet bloc that, if they wanted communism, fine, it was all theirs. But, we made clear, don't look for any financial, political or military help from us. In essence we let them stew to death in their own dysfunctional communist pots.
The Muslim Middle East is currently addicted to its own dysfunctional social/religious philosophical code, unreconstructed Islam. And that will continue to poison almost any relationships they try to form with the non-Muslim modern world. Christianity had to re-calibrate hundreds of years ago in order to survive and coexist with scientific and social progress. Islam has yet to do so and is therefore hopelessly out of step with modernity.
In the Muslim Middle East today, half-educated Mullahs have more influence over what their people know and believe than anyone inside or outside their countries. And much of what they believe is the very reason their countries are backward, violent places. For example, half their population -- women -- are barred from contributing to their society's governance, commercial or even social development -- a shocking waste of human capital for countries that need all the human capital they can get. But it was exactly that kind of misogynistic ignorance that played a role in Bhutto's death today.
There is only one cure for addiction, be it addiction to a substance or a crippling ideology, and that's to let the addicted hit rock bottom. The addicted must be ready to shake their addiction. Until then they are nothing but blackholes for charity, advice or other efforts to save them from their themselves. Western military and financial aid to nations like Pakistan and Iraq are like financing a saloon for alcoholics.
Instead the west should treat the nations of the nations of Muslim Middle East the same way we treated the nations of the Soviet Bloc. Those nations in the Middle East that refuse to disengage their governments, military, security forces, schools and financial institutions from the yoke of unreconstructed Islam should be held at arms length by the rest of the word. In other words, they should be contained and isolated.
Bush keeps saying that we need to believe terrorist when they say they want to destroy us. Fine, so we also need to believe them when they say they want Sharia law. Well fine, so get the hell out of the way and let them have it -- let them have Sharia law in spades.
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