Tom Timberman will share his analysis of current developments in the Middle East with the Community Breakfast Group (CBG) at their January 30 meeting. Tom is a former American diplomat with expertise in national security and foreign policy.
The CBG meets for breakfast every Thursday at 7:30AM at the Holiday Inn Express in Chestertown.
From Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates to Harry Truman’s recognition of Israel, the invasion of Iraq and now Syria, chemical weapons and an unraveling of Libya, America has involved itself in the fate and future of a region we individually as citizens and collectively as governments, consistently misinterpret.
As a result, our government continually takes actions that are unwise and even immoral. We seem to be providing limited support to one of three sides in the Syrian civil war, but not enough to be decisive so the killing continues. We arbitrarily target individuals living in the Middle East for assassination via drone strikes, with little regard for collateral damage. Such policies have a ruinous effect on the effectiveness of our foreign policy. According to Pew Research, 85% of Jordanians view the US unfavorably! Surely, there must be a better way.
Dennis Leventhal says
Editor,
The theme described here is substantiated with great historical detail in Michael B. Oren’s “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present” (W.W. Norton, 2007). It’s a great read.
Stephan Sonn says
Editor
Generally speaking, I agree that Western solutions, as the US has enforced them, do not make viable friends or solve anything in the Middle East and in Muslim countries we engage.
I wonder if it has been realized yet among the decision makers that no one representing our culture will get beyond a small following at large expense, unless we are operating on European soil.
The only non-western country we have ever defeated was Japan by way of the atom bomb. So why bother to engage in anything other than containment and terrorist disruption.