An interesting story in Alternet, "Muslims Around World Condemn Paris Attacks", raises a further question that is squarely in the minds of sober-minded analysts: if ISIS is using the migration crisis to seed terrorism into Western, secular democracies, using turmoil in the Mideast and Africa as cover, how should the rest of the world respond?
At the edge of the debate are prophets for whom radicalized violence promotes a preference for sadistic behaviors, for End of Times credos, and for imperial ambitions like the Caliphate. Add climate change, scrambling economies in some of the poorest, most drought-prone regions of the globe, and one has a combustible, toxic formula leading to acts of extreme violence in secular Western democracies.
The United States and its historic mis-steps in the Mideast in service of oil supplies have massively complicated our decision path and moral authority. Put another way, like any superpower we have made deals with the devil but ours have been mostly bad deals through which we sacrificed so many American lives and so many trillions of dollars.
Where there is hope, it is that Vladimir Putin can rationally assess the ISIS threat and understand continued use of Syria as a proxy for competition with the United States will backfire tragically for Russia.
The Syria problem must be solved, and that solution requires the involvement of Iran too. The only justification for Russia to fan the flames of conflict in the Mideast would be a dominant policy strain within its own militaristic radicals (and oligarchs) that Russia survives a terrorism dogfight better than the United States.
Although the Paris massacre has ignited calls for a "merciless" response, a more sober view is that the migration crisis in Europe requires coordination by secular Western nations, Russia, and Arab states. Put another way, Germany with one million Syrian refugees is not an answer; just look at the impact of chronically impoverished Muslim enclaves in Paris to understand why.
The answer requires political negotiation above military action, and the parties had better get to this business now because where we are headed looks a lot like a dystopian science fiction film we would rather view from the safety of a theater than on the streets of Paris or anywhere else in the world.
At the edge of the debate are prophets for whom radicalized violence promotes a preference for sadistic behaviors, for End of Times credos, and for imperial ambitions like the Caliphate. Add climate change, scrambling economies in some of the poorest, most drought-prone regions of the globe, and one has a combustible, toxic formula leading to acts of extreme violence in secular Western democracies.
The United States and its historic mis-steps in the Mideast in service of oil supplies have massively complicated our decision path and moral authority. Put another way, like any superpower we have made deals with the devil but ours have been mostly bad deals through which we sacrificed so many American lives and so many trillions of dollars.
Where there is hope, it is that Vladimir Putin can rationally assess the ISIS threat and understand continued use of Syria as a proxy for competition with the United States will backfire tragically for Russia.
The Syria problem must be solved, and that solution requires the involvement of Iran too. The only justification for Russia to fan the flames of conflict in the Mideast would be a dominant policy strain within its own militaristic radicals (and oligarchs) that Russia survives a terrorism dogfight better than the United States.
Although the Paris massacre has ignited calls for a "merciless" response, a more sober view is that the migration crisis in Europe requires coordination by secular Western nations, Russia, and Arab states. Put another way, Germany with one million Syrian refugees is not an answer; just look at the impact of chronically impoverished Muslim enclaves in Paris to understand why.
The answer requires political negotiation above military action, and the parties had better get to this business now because where we are headed looks a lot like a dystopian science fiction film we would rather view from the safety of a theater than on the streets of Paris or anywhere else in the world.
3 comments:
Excellent assessment, Gimleteye. The only thing I could ad on is: BLOWBACK!!!
Typical pacifist. Just let'em kill. We'll make it better using an immigrant screening system. Like the one we use at the Mexican border?
you forgot to add the apartheid policies of Israel which has the record for the longest occupation of the largest population (of mostly Muslims) in history and their continued illegal settlements in occupied territories. The current government has no intention of honoring prior peace negotiations which would end the occupation.
Post a Comment