DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

As a contribution to an ongoing debate on Facebook concerning the wisdom of banning burkas, one person added this comment; “Islam means "to submit" just the name screams f…… religion”. I have no idea what this person means. How does this contribute to the debate? How is Islam different from any other religion? Religious leader build their religions on the idea of unquestioned subservience to a supreme being of some sort. In fact, most religions fragment them selves on minor points about how they should follow this Supreme Being. Islam is no different. Some people are Shia others are Sunni, which is based on who they believe is the “true” Mohammed heir. Ethnicity and politics enters into the argument when they make distinctions such as Sunni Kurds or Iranian Sunnis.  Demographers look at numbers and tell us such thing as there are more Sunnis than there are Shia but they also look at their distribution by country, etc. Even a superficial look at the situation generates an unsettling feeling of chaos. The easy solution for people, especially those who have no responsibility ion solving that problem, is to group all Islamic sects to one big lump on which to focus their hate and labeled it “Islam” or as the contributor said the  “f…… religion”.  Thus, he lumps all sects into one mass.

I am an advocate of the same thing; however, with the proviso, that we follow the wisdom of our founding fathers ion regard to religion. Religious leaders have been fighting and killing one another for so many thousands of years that historians have a hard time keeping tract of when the conflicts begin and end. It seems religious leaders have one aim, which is not only dominating other religions, but to eliminate them. Our founding fathers facing multiple sects, mainly Christian sects, made a choice to separate religious law from secular law in one sweeping gesture. As most powerful ideas are, it was simple to state, “Separate church and state”.

Accomplishing this goal in the Middle East is possible. This is the aim of the massive “Arab Spring” movement sweeping the area. This is the move from caliphate governments to democracies or to use the expression that lost favor during Bush era, this is “nation building”. Unfortunately, there are multiple ongoing “religious” war and a political wars in the Middle East; specifically in Iraq-Syria conflict, the Iranian Sunni people verses the Bush puppet Shia government supported by Iraqis but opposed by Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia, and ethnic Sunni Kurds fighting both ethnic Iraqis and Sunni Iraqis. Mix in a Shia dictator, Al Assad, who is fighting everyone to preserve his power.

Bush missed the opportunity to establish a government that was consistent with the Arab Spring movement but ignored the Sunni minority in that country; thus failed to do so. For me, the cause of the conflict we face in Iraq today is his failure to understand the problems in that region. Shia ISIS is a direct product of the fight against the government installed by Bush. Of course, there are always people who will try to take advantage of every situation for personal economic gain. The oil companies were there then and are still there doing their dirt. Oil companies are using Putin, who, in turn, is gaining politically in Russia. I can only shake my head in disbelief at people like John McCain, for example, who thinks we can bomb them and Syrians and Iraqis will do want we want. President Obama understands the situation and needs broad support to solve the problem. It is miraculous that he has been able to enlist both Shia and Sunni neighboring countries in the first coalition of its kind to help establish a democracy; of course, the coalition is shaky but it is a great start to a diplomatic solution. A bomb here and there is needed in Iraq and Syria but his emphasis is on a broad politico-religious solution; get religion out of government, which is what democracy is.      

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