In the wake of the San
Bernardino and Paris
attacks, fear and anger have given rise to hubris and xenophobia. The inclination of many is to advocate for
more surveillance, closed borders, and to bomb perceived enemies further back
into the Dark Ages in an age of unending Middle Eastern warfare. Little, if any, deep thought seems to be
given to what motivates people to sacrifice their own lives to do us harm? Instead, convenient answers are tossed
about: The terrorists are envious of our
standard of living or driven by religious fanaticism.
Many Americans I speak with know little
about our record in the Middle East or care to
know. They rely exclusively on narrow,
often reactionary, sound bites from politicians and media.
The truth is the West has been meddling
in the Middle East for more than two
centuries, and longer if you consider the Crusades. Even the borders of modern Middle Eastern
countries were, in large part, arbitrarily drawn by the West after the fall of
the Ottoman Empire following World War I,
often ignoring ethnic, religious, and tribal differences.
The United
States’ role, a relatively recent one, has been motivated
by an insatiable appetite for oil, protection of Israel, and a fear of the spread of
communism. In pursuit of these goals,
the U.S.
has long supported despots who permit the exploitation of their nation's
natural resources and strategic locations in exchange for their own personal enrichment
and protection.
As a consequence, the general populace
of most of these nations live in abject poverty and oppression. They have little hope and no voice, and see
terrorism as the only way to be heard.
Promoting democracy in the region would give them that voice, but we
don't aggressively advocate democratization because authoritarian governments
are easier to buy, predict and control.
The story of Iran illustrates this point. By the CIA’s own admission, they instigated a
coup in 1953 that overthrew the highly popular, democratically elected Prime
Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. He lost
favor with the West when he decided to nationalize Iran’s petroleum industry which,
since 1908, was fully controlled by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company owned in
large part by the British government.
First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, Winston Churchill, called the
British control of Iran's
oil fields “a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams.”
The removal of the Prime Minister
ushered in decades of brutal oppression at the hands of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
the Shah of Iran, a pivotal Western ally until he was overthrown during the 1979
Islamic Revolution. The radicalism we
see in Iran
today is largely a result of this Western interference. Former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright
stated in 2000 that “the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's
political development. And it is easy to
see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in
their internal affairs."
Today our allies in the Middle East
include some of the worst human rights offenders in the world including Bahrain, Djibouti,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Radicalism is usually born from oppression so
it is counterintuitive to wage a War on Terror without considering what role
the West plays in oppressing countries where terrorism is born.
Limited warfare waged principally by
drones and other air strikes has removed the unsavory prospect of mounting U.S. casualties
and made war more palatable. But, what
we don’t readily see are the enormous civilian casualties.
Pentagon censorship of media in war
zones has helped keep these casualties from the public’s eye. Even by conservative counts civilian deaths
in Iraq alone since 9/11 far exceed 100,000, but without disturbing My Lai-type
images on the 6 o’clock news there is no public outcry. Out of sight, out of mind, while animosity
for West, particularly America,
grows stronger.
Terrorists have always existed in world
history and always will so long as there are oppressed people. What is different today is the terrorist’s
ability to kill great numbers of people.
The unrelenting advancement of technology will continue to put more
concealable, more powerful weapons in their hands. In an age of biological agents and drones, no
amount of security or military aggression is going to stop determined terrorist
groups from killing more and more people.
The root cause of terrorism is
oppression and we can’t address terror effectively without giving oppressed
people self-determination. Our foreign
policy can no longer cling to the century-old mantra, “speak softly and carry a
big stick.” That won’t work in the 21st
century.
Hope, reason, and goodwill must shape our
view of the world rather than fear, hatred, and exploitation. If we don’t change with the times, we will
continue to reap what we sow and the consequences will only grow worse.
