Conflict in the Middle East will never result in peace ...
... because when oppressed people are faced with greater tragedy than they had before a war; they will seek what they know and can rely on.
What any people know is 'fundamentalism.'
Fundamentalism is 'safe' in the lives of those at high risk for death, as in war zones. That is why the rise in 'fundamentalism' goes hand in hand with war and why it abates when there is not.
Fundamentalism is the enemy. It gives sympathy to 'extremes' as it 'shelters' the soul in the afterlife.
War is an extreme. It is failed diplomacy. In an administration with NO diplomacy as Bush's administration chronically reveals, there is always war.
In the case of Islam and perhaps not unlike most people, when threatened with war the 'citizens' react to embrace those that seem 'strongest' to RETURN to values less oppressive than war. They want to avert their own deaths.
Those that appear 'strongest' in Islam are often the extremists of Jihad or Fatwa. Example is the majority election of Hamas in Palestine. The extremists get their 'clout' by finger pointing leaders as 'fundamentally weak' and a danger to everyone's soul that follows them. That leads to a vicious cycle and more fundamentalism, more war, etc. A quagmire as witnessed in Afghanistan with the Taliban before the retaliation of the USA. Even today, as al Qaeda's most recent video reviewed, President Karzai came to pressure to retaliate in a speech regarding the change in military power in Afghanistan that has lead to hundreds of deaths of the Taliban. In order to stay in control, President Karzai felt he needed to 'one up' al Qaeda as if they would sincerely be able to carry out their demands for the people to rise against their government. Hamid Karzai is in a fight for his country due to the desire to be rid of a now nearly five year war. One that seems to have no end. One that was poorly fought by the USA and left the leaders of al Qaeda intact to continue to cause a worsening problem rather than ever assigning enough of a strike force that would completely dismantle al Qaeda and capture or kill it's leadership. The retaliation into Afghanistan by the USA let the world down with additional attacks into London, Madrid, Amman and Sharm el-Sheikh. The retaliation into Afghanistan has left the USA more vulnerable with terrorist networks springing up in nations all across the globe where before there was none. The retaliation into Afghanistan was never sincere so much as a foothold to a war Bush wanted to fight and that was in Iraq. The truth is, Cheney wanted Iraq more than Bush and Bush wanted it because his father was seen as a failure in the first attack of Iraq that would push Saddam Hussein back to his own borders. Iraq was completely insignificant to the destruction of al Qaeda.
Conflict fuels and rearms extremists. The citizen then seeks comfort to their war torn lives with the 'idea' of a life lived within fundamental values has a reward to the afterlife.
It's a no win situation in the Middle East when instability, conflict and war increase uncertainty in movement toward First World values due to an always impending death by the citizen. It is the masses, mob if you will, that rules the extremists ideology. When death due to war seems the only alternative to living under oppression; many begin to welcome the oppression and will sympathize with it.
The alternative is to kill masses of people for a 'nation building' status with sympathizers ONLY of First World Values. That is an atrocity. That is the current agenda of Bush's War. Nukes are the most extreme of war. The most extreme of lost diplomacy. Genocide is not an option and why war in the Middle East will never resolve to a peace.
I hope I am not too abstract. It is not abstraction I seek. It is understanding. There are dynamics to these circumstances in Iraq, Islam that are beyond the control of war leading to numbers of dead civilians. We see it everyday in bombings that kill fifty or more Iraqis at a time.
It is those 'dynamics' that are addressed in dissent of the war and administration, no matter what form of public opinion takes. Call it intuition. Call it political dynamics. It sincerely is a movement toward a successful ideology and not a demised one. It is why a change of direction/strategy is needed. The dynamics of the conflict demand a breaking of the cycle leading to greater sympathy with extremists.
Fundamental values have a huge impact on the politics in the Middle East. When war fuels that fundamentalism those that preach are very powerful men. UNLESS a religious leader such as The Grand Ayatollah al Sistani is also a man of peace (by strategy as survival under Saddam) then the war is lost right from the start. The USA knows it and has tried, in a plot, to demonize clerks that little understand/understood the politics of democracy. The USA tried to kill large amounts of people through their propaganda campaign while destroying a precious temple of an Imam. Innocent people that did not understand the world they now were faced with. A world of destruction far greater than any hardship they had to endure under Saddam. Fearless religious leaders with nothing they felt they had to lose. The reward of standing up for their faith would provide the world of comfort beyond this life. The USA is assured a 'legal genocide' in Islam by the simple fact the opposition can be coined 'insurgents' rather than citizens in the fight of their life for the preservation of their faith.
Diplomacy is paramount to ANY peace. What the president of Iran is hoping is that his fundamental ranting by invoking the eradication of Israel will 'spin' so much Islamic sympathy (for the perfect soul for Allah/God) that there is 'no dealing' with Iran or Hamas or any of the extremist elements and he can proceed by buying time in negotiations to master his war craft.
What Bush's 'posture' promotes is more resistance to the step away from that fundamentalism. He is not a man of peace. He has labeled himself 'The War President.' To a vast many in the USA that is political dogma. To the countries of the Middle East, less powerful than the USA, that is a horrible reality. And if Bush could replace Islam with Christianity, he would by the sheer fact Jesus and Mary are seen as significant figures in Islam and Bush sees them 'correct' saviors and not just prophets. I have very little doubt the fundamentalism of Bush is a severely a threat to the USA as is that of Islam.
Democracy has to prove itself to be benevolent to the lives of the people of the Middle East otherwise it won't be accepted and fundamentalism will win out every time giving a foothold to extremists. Democracy by nature is a choice. It cannot be forced on people. War will not instill democracy in any Islamic country. Quite the contrary it will force the victory of a return to fundamental values.
