A New Middle East, After All

The following article titled A New Middle East, After All by Reuel Marc Gerecht, American Enterprise Institute, is a very level and complete summary of the current status of the Middle East today that I recommend to your attention. The article has sections that discuss: Iraq; Al Qaeda and the War on Terrorism; Afghanistan and Pakistan; Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria. The article is a lengthy but nonetheless worthy of your attention.

The article concludes: “An uneasy and healthy tension now exists between rhetoric and reality, guaranteeing that Americans will continue to debate what has gone wrong and right in the Muslim Middle East. Whether America escapes another 9/11 or not, the president deserves credit for understanding that the region's murderous anti-American extremists, both secular and religious, had to be confronted on the battlefield. Sanctions, cruise missiles shot at rock huts and empty intelligence-service buildings, and close liaison relationships with foreign internal-security services were not enough. If the United States is brutally struck again by holy warriors, President Bush will seem prescient and wise--about the need for reform in the Middle East's autocracies, about the strategic shortsightedness and immorality of pre-9/11 American foreign policy toward Muslims, and about the imperative to use ugly tactics against mass-casualty terrorists. Given the forces arrayed against him, his administration's failures, and his own limitations, these are achievements even Ronald Reagan would envy.”