Transcript
KEN POLLACK: I would love to be able to tell other Americans that we can just forget about the Middle East, that it's really not that important, that we really don't face meaningful threats from the region, and that those that we do face threaten us only because we've tried to do too much there. Such an argument would be especially popular after our tragic experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan which seem to have reinforced many Americans' desires to just forget about the Middle East. The problem is that turning our backs on the Middle East now is neither possible nor wise.
One of the main reasons why America's problems in region seem to get worse and worse is that our inclination has always been to try to have as little to do with this confused and confusing part of the world as we could. As a result, we have consistently tried to do things on the cheap. Even when we have taken on Herculean tasks like invading, occupying, and rebuilding Iraq, Washington's inclination has been to try to do it with too few troops, too few resources, too few allies, and too little time. As in Iraq, the result of this shortsighted approach has always been to prolong our involvement and make it more costly than it needed to be even if it were always going to be more costly than we wanted to admit.
Consequently, the principal theme of this book is that to secure America's interests in the Middle East over the long term, the United States must embrace a long-term commitment to encourage and enable the countries of the Middle East to pursue a gradual process of political, economic, and social reform; one that grows from within rather than being imposed from without, one that reflects the values, traditions, history, and aspirations of the people of the region themselves, not a Western guess at them; one that recognizes that reform and stability are not mutually exclusive, but mutually reinforcing and ultimately mutually essential. As I readily and acknowledge and discuss at some length, this is a difficult undertaking but I believe it is ultimately the only good path that we can follow.
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