It seems every time there is a change in the Middle East, whether it is Iraq and democracy by force, or Arab spring and Egypt or elsewhere, whenever the population at large is free to choose they don’t choose the West.

This shouldn’t be a surprise as the reason is simple enough.  I wish they would choose the West as I know if we can get it there it’s far better than what we’re experiencing in the Middle East right now.  I believe in the Western style democracy that I live in and want it for Iran and the Middle East.

If you look at the Middle East after WWII, all the regimes were backed by US, UK or the West in general.  They had decades to implement a Western Style democracy, which some managed to get close to but the rulers US backed were more interested in filling their own pockets and build palaces than bringing freedom and democracy and blamed it on people not being worthy or not knowing any better!

In the case of Iran’s Shah and his father before him we had a constitutional revolution at the turn of the century which they didn’t seem to be interested in until such time that they were about to be kicked out, not once not twice but at least three times between the father and son.

In the case of other rulers in the Middle East they were all backed by the West and for decades the majority of the population did not benefit from it.  Then we have the Arab Spring that we’ve been witnessing in the past few years.  In the absence of another Western alternative, which doesn’t exist in reality, in almost all those cases the alternative is some sort of Islamic Republic (Sunni or Shiite) or ambitions to that effect. 

Even in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan after years of direct intervention they’re now Islamic Republics, albeit the light version at least for now, with weekly bombings in the streets all around their countries.  So what is going to take and how long will it take?

First you have to look at how much the West can look beyond their politics and admit to failures in the past decades which have brought us to this point publicly, not just declassifying documents and putting them aside.  Then they have to acknowledge that they cannot simply say “let bygones be bygones” and expect everything to be honky dory.  There has to be some tangible acknowledgement that they can live with these rag tag Islamic “democracies” until such time that they fail on their own or stay alive and live side by side, whichever occurs first.

Since in this day and age the US or the West can’t annihilate or nuke the entire region and get rid of everyone, like previous empires used to do in WWII and prior centuries, they have to acknowledge the limits of their military might as it was shown recently in both Iraq and Afghanistan, both countries with severe lack of any meaningful militaries.  In the case of Iraq decades of no-fly zones in their northern and southern territories and severely degraded military after Persian Gulf I.  In the case of Afghanistan no military to begin with.

So politics will trump everything and the rest is just lip service.  Obama claimed he didn’t set the redline like Bill Clinton claimed he did not have sexual relations with that woman!  Or Romney claimed the healthcare law that he passed and was good for the Americans in Massachusetts isn’t good for the Americans living in Texas or other (red) states!  So we can’t really expect much.  I haven’t even mentioned Israel, nor have I mentioned Egypt’s elections and a military coup that wasn’t a “coup”.  It depends what your definition of the word IS is! Wink! Wink!

That Bush W used to say we fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here.  How stupid was that?  You don’t want to spend the time to understand anything so you just fight them, even if it benefits the terrorists and lowers your stature.  Even if it creates violent divisions between Sunni and Shiites that was by and large dormant for 1400 years and now it’s out of control.  Whose side are you going to take?

Just like Howard Dean’s infamous scream that cost him his presidential bid, we’re going to take Iraq, then we’ll take Afghanistan, then we’ll take Iran and then get Syria, yeeeeaaaaaah!!

In the end the people of the Middle East have to decide for themselves and eventually will, as no one else cares. They (may) have to go through missteps of creating more “Islamic Republics” and eventually look beyond this form of government as it can’t sustain itself.  Along the way any measure of progress, large or small, either on the part of US and the West or Governments in the Middle East is good. 

In the end and in my opinion after decades of Western influence that has crumbled and brought us to this point, getting out of any bad situation and crisis in the Middle East has to do more (much more) with the policies of the US and the West towards the Middle East than the people in the Middle East and the regimes that rein on them.  We can have a select group of population become westernized and eventually leave their countries as the policies fail but you can’t expect this select group to either be your spokesman or actually be able to do anything that gets you in the hearts and minds of the populations at large.