Is it possible for the West to do anything right in the Middle East?

[World's End Stella]

This 'hard man' line gets trotted out regularly and rather ignores the fact that these sort of quasi-socialist, kleptocratic, 'hard-man' dictators like Mubarak and Assad are actually shït at running their countries. They give the appearance of keeping the lid on, but actually balls things up to the extent of them becoming backwards, rat poor and basically forming a wonderful breeding ground for resentful hard-line islamists.

Oh I don't know - Saddam had a pretty good control of Iraq, the problem with Mubarak and Assad was that they weren't hard enough. Saudi is effectively a dictatorship but given that they based their entire society around Wahhabism it's hardly surprising that they've exported loads of mental Allans. Would we have been better off in many of these countries if we had picked a brutal dictator type and said 'do what you want to your people, provided you stop exporting terrorism we'll give you all the money and arms that you need to keep power'? Possibly.

And if dictators aren't the answer and these people will simply never accept democracy, I'm not too sure what the answer is.

There is also an argument that you leave the entire region to become what it will become and then deal with whoever emerges. If ISIS had been successful in completing their caliphate complete with oil revenues to keep them going, would they have turned down the West's offer of peace provided they kept themselves to themselves? Especially if the alternative was that we bombed their oil production and themselves out of existence? Personally, I doubt it.

[Ash]

Isn't the problem that just when things start to get really messy in these conflicts, the west loses its nerve, in large part because of political pressure back home imposed by 'progressives' and squeamish anti-war movements. Like when Obama talked about the 'red line' of Assad using chemical weapons and then pussying out when he did.

First, this ignores the role of the west in fomenting the conflicts in the first place. It then assumes the unverified story of Assad using chemical weapons is true while assuming the position of tough guy with stock words like 'pussy' and 'squeamish' to somehow suggest that piling in, all guns blazing on behalf of Islamist terrorists is somehow a good idea.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

Interesting parallel I saw someone draw the other day. He suggested the ME may currently be going through its equivalent of The Thirty Years War. I think he meant it as an optimistic point of view, suggesting that a more secular enlightenment-type deal may result eventually.

They've been talking about this being their 30 years war for a decade now. Unfortunately, there are a few areas where the parallels break down:

1. They've been killing each other since the C7th. Reformation to Tr of Westphalia was 130 years. They're already passed 1,300 years.

2. We had national rivalries which were more important than religion once it ended. cf Proddy GB and NL fighting during Charles II's time. And then Louis XIV, meaning his quest for dominance would see GB (from Willy Orange onwards) cut deals with any European power who would help us, irrespective of religion.

3. The growing empires (coupled with the scientific advances) made Europeans feel secure as top dogs. Our Muslim friends know they are seriously behind the west, and like poor people everywhere, turn to religious tribalism to make themselves feel better (cf what's happening in India under Modi with the poor Hindus attacking Muslims and the cow vigilantes etc.) I may be poor, but I can kick this sunni/shia to make me feel superior to him.

4. The Reformation, by challenging the fundamental tenets of our 1,000 year old belief structure, paved the way for the Enlightenment. The French philosophes may have been nominally Catholic, but read between the lines in the Encyclopedie and you can see the attack on established religion.

The Enlightenment were Deists who believed in natural religion - working it out for themselves - not in revealed religion where God uses an intermediary to tell us what to do. As the very basis of all Islamic belief is revealed religion (hence the clamp down of the natural religion aspects of Sufism), I can't see an Islamic enlightenment coming.

Basically, it can't be the 30 years war as they haven't had a Reformation yet. We need that first - to challenge the absolutism of the Koran. Then we can have a 3 way war between the Reformed Muzzies, the Sunnis and Shias, a bit like our civil war had the non-conformists fighting both Catholics and Anglicans.

That's just my take, though.

[Ash]

This 'hard man' line gets trotted out regularly and rather ignores the fact that these sort of quasi-socialist, kleptocratic, 'hard-man' dictators like Mubarak and Assad are actually shït at running their countries. They give the appearance of keeping the lid on, but actually balls things up to the extent of them becoming backwards, rat poor and basically forming a wonderful breeding ground for resentful hard-line islamists.

Libya was doing pretty well under the previous guy though. Just smashing countries up and hoping that the various Islamist factions who scrabble for power will be any better is, by now, just repetition of madness.

[Sir C]

First, this ignores the role of the west in fomenting the conflicts in the first place. It then assumes the unverified story of Assad using chemical weapons is true while assuming the position of tough guy with stock words like 'pussy' and 'squeamish' to somehow suggest that piling in, all guns blazing on behalf of Islamist terrorists is somehow a good idea.

Nice to see you back, j. #it'sallourtfault.

(Can you have an apostrophe in a hashtag? Who makes the rules anyway?)

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

We don't know what is happening in Al-Queda-held areas because these people, y'know, tend to chop journalists heads off, so we rely on 'tweets' and 'doctors' which are assumed to be geniune. I suspect they are from the same PR sources funded by Washington and Westminster which have been providing the same drip-drip of propaganda for the last five years.

Some of it's genuine, Ash.

There was a great report a few weeks back on R4's From Our Own Correspondent. The Beeb journo says he can't go to Aleppo cos of the decapitations.

But he was in London where for the first time ever, using internet apps, a top GB surgeon took some surgeons in Aleppo through an operation to repair a man's jaw and save his life.

So don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Ash]

Nice to see you back, j. #it'sallourtfault.

(Can you have an apostrophe in a hashtag? Who makes the rules anyway?)

Not our fault, not your fault, not my fault. When I say 'west' I don't mean you and me I refer to the neo-cons and lib-hawks that make these policies. The elite. The so-called experts whose wisdom we are supposed to defer to on questions of our own national sovereignty, and everybody elses.

[Sir C]

Not our fault, not your fault, not my fault. When I say 'west' I don't mean you and me I refer to the neo-cons and lib-hawks that make these policies. The elite. The so-called experts whose wisdom we are supposed to defer to on questions of our own national sovereignty, and everybody elses.

Lordy, a, have you been reading The G? You've picked up all the lingo, dude. DOES THIS MEAN YOU'RE ONE OF THEY ALT-RIGHT NAZIS?

Seriously though, this does all sound a bit global conspiracy. In truth, isn't it more like a bit of a balls up all round?

[Ash]

Some of it's genuine, Ash.

There was a great report a few weeks back on R4's From Our Own Correspondent. The Beeb journo says he can't go to Aleppo cos of the decapitations.

But he was in London where for the first time ever, using internet apps, a top GB surgeon took some surgeons in Aleppo through an operation to repair a man's jaw and save his life.

So don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

I'm not automatically discounting all stories. Just being sceptical and opposed to attempts to use real or fake atrocity porn to whip up fervour for deeper involvement.

[Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult]

This 'hard man' line gets trotted out regularly and rather ignores the fact that these sort of quasi-socialist, kleptocratic, 'hard-man' dictators like Mubarak and Assad are actually shït at running their countries. They give the appearance of keeping the lid on, but actually balls things up to the extent of them becoming backwards, rat poor and basically forming a wonderful breeding ground for resentful hard-line islamists.

As I said, the only peaceful time in Baghdad in the last 1,300 years was when GB ruled it between the wars under the League of Nations mandate. Because we above the sectarian conflict and put a stop to it.

Wouldn't work nowadays cos of this new-fangled Islamism. But having a colonial ruler who doesn't represent and support his own ethnic group does seem to make things better.

Maybe if we said we'd colonise them again, but wouldn't steal any oil this time, it might work, but I think that the Jihadis wouldn't agree to it.

I honestly can't see a solution, with or without the west.

Though I think the point is that while they won't let us come back, recolonise the place and try and run it well for them, some Baathist hard-man is better than Isis. A bit like Sun-Saharan Africa (outside Botswana which actually works) them locals just aren't very good at running countries, especially where our lines in the sand have created a country full of groups that hate each other.

The fact that they've turned to Jihadism to make them feel better about being poor (cos God loves us more than you even though he doesn't give us money for a nice life) means it's ****ed for the foreseeable future.