Musing on…Yawn, Another Middle East Crisis

I’ve received some emails asking me why I haven’t posted anything about the current Middle East crisis. Here’s the simple answer: I haven’t posted anything because I’m bored with it. It just keeps happening over and over again. Nothing ever gets resolved, and the only thing that ever seems to change is the Beirut skyline.

Of course it’s so easy to point the finger of blame at the British and the French for the recent troubles. Their colonial entry into and out of Middle East affairs in the eighteenth

, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and how badly they handled almost all of it–on about a par with Chamberlain’s "Peace in our time," prescience–really set the stage for a lot of the mess we’re still dealing with today.

But I only blame them for setting the stage. The actors that have come since have had more than enough opportunity to learn how to play nice with each other. Oh, they sometimes talk the talk, but the walkers have been few and far between (and usually get assassinated in short order).

Like I said, at this point, it just bores me. The frustrating thing is that there is a simple solution: cordon off the entire area and let them fight the once-and-for-all war they seem so desirous to have. The war doesn’t spread out, supplies don’t come in. The cordon doesn’t come off until there is mutual peace, or an unambiguous winner. Let the war be no-holds-barred. WMDs are allowed. Just fight the damn thing and get it over with so the rest of the world can have some peace and quiet for a change. Everyone agrees that they’ll simply cede the entire region to the victor if there’s just a winner, or to the coalition if there’s a negotiated resolution.

What’s that? Too extreme? Maybe, but nothing else seems to work. Sometimes it’s better to let the kids fight and get it out than to let the tensions fester unresolved. As Bill Cosby remarked, "The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet." Well…I just want some quiet coming out of the Middle East.