2005 Topical Seminar: Prospects for Security in The Middle East

摘要

Our military presence in the Middle East region continues to be hotly debated and divisive; contradictory is another completely appropriate word. Many Arab governments and even their publics both want us there and want us gone. How can this be. Simply said, they recognize their need for a US military presence for regional security; but they feel and fear the intensity of popular animosity toward the US in the region and see a very visible American military presence as exacerbating that hostility. The United States decision to send American ground forces into the heartland of the Arab and Islamic Middle East is a defining event of significant importance. Many issues, long dormant or under some control, are now in motion. What all this means for the region is, as yet, unknown; but one fact is certain. While we and other actors in the region can influence developments, none of us control the outcome. Our actions, therefore, must be wisely and carefully considered with much more sensitivity to the culture of the Middle East than we have thus far shown. The Middle East region is seething and we would do well to act with that in mind.