Not exactly...
It's more that there will be change, and that there's not much we can do to move it along.
Because it needs to come from within. The people there are not much different from people anywhere. They want for themselves what everyone wants, and at the same time, they don't want outsiders telling them what they should want, or have, and they certainly don't like those outsiders trying to enforce their ideas at gunpoint. The future cultural and political shape of Middle East will be determined by the people who live there, until it reflects what they want it to be. Clearly, the current governments over there are not doing that. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria... some of the most ruthlessly autocratic states on the planet. But the grip of the iron fist can only hold on for so long, and once it slips, all bets are off.
It would be nice if those governments could read the writing on the wall and go quietly into history, but they won't. Heck, by funding suicide bombers and the like, they've sown the seeds of their own overthrow. Teaching people to die in order to resist oppression will bite you in the butt when you are also oppressing them. When (not if) their own citizens figure out that their own governments are the ones subjugating them, watch out.
Afterward, they will decide where their interests lie. If they align with our own, we'll be friends. If not, we'll be enemies. Or, if there are few points of confluence or conflict, there won't be much of a relationship either way. It will be what it will be, and nobody knows now how it will end up.
--Shannon
It's more that there will be change, and that there's not much we can do to move it along.
Because it needs to come from within. The people there are not much different from people anywhere. They want for themselves what everyone wants, and at the same time, they don't want outsiders telling them what they should want, or have, and they certainly don't like those outsiders trying to enforce their ideas at gunpoint. The future cultural and political shape of Middle East will be determined by the people who live there, until it reflects what they want it to be. Clearly, the current governments over there are not doing that. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria... some of the most ruthlessly autocratic states on the planet. But the grip of the iron fist can only hold on for so long, and once it slips, all bets are off.
It would be nice if those governments could read the writing on the wall and go quietly into history, but they won't. Heck, by funding suicide bombers and the like, they've sown the seeds of their own overthrow. Teaching people to die in order to resist oppression will bite you in the butt when you are also oppressing them. When (not if) their own citizens figure out that their own governments are the ones subjugating them, watch out.
Afterward, they will decide where their interests lie. If they align with our own, we'll be friends. If not, we'll be enemies. Or, if there are few points of confluence or conflict, there won't be much of a relationship either way. It will be what it will be, and nobody knows now how it will end up.
--Shannon