Curmudgeon's Corner

The Politics of the Middle East

Posted by Al Campbell on Sept. 13, 2012

U.S., Political, Quality of Life, Economy, Taxes

The Middle East is in a high state of turmoil and that seems to be increasing almost on a daily basis.  The forces at work in this area have been in place and ‘at work’ for a long time.  The Libya debacle that claimed four lives on 9/11 is only a part of the equation.

Our president has apparently determined that he won’t visit with Israel’s prime minister.  That visit requested by Israel was replaced with a one hour telephone call by the president during the middle of the night in Israel.  Of course no one knows the subject or the content of that conversation, but I suspect that Iran was among those topics discussed.  I suspect that the United States will have little or no influence over Israel from this point forward, especially if it is not willing to engage face-to-face.  This isn’t a State Department level conversation anymore, if it ever was.

The Middle East is boiling over; radical Islam seeing an opportunity is fomenting the unrest as best it is able.  The window involving Iran and its supposed nuclear capability is going to be closed, if the effort is successful, by Israel with or without our support.  Israel sees itself having no other option than to try to wipe out the capability by use of its military assets.

We seem to be unable or unwilling to exert influence in this area.  Maybe we have no more influence, or maybe we simply have no will to continue to try to influence this region.  Whatever the answer is, there is going to be a price to be paid.  If, or when, the area erupts we will see oil prices skyrocket.  We will see countries that were economically unstable, the EU and others, experience problems far greater than has been the case to this point.  That will have an economic impact on the rest of the world, and the United States will not escape its impact.

The United States is not in a position of economic strength itself.  We will feel the impact of the Middle East explosion or implosion, whichever it is that occurs.  It is difficult to see a Middle East that doesn’t erupt given the current unrest.  We are also in our every four years ‘high political season’.  There will be, if this all comes to a head prior to November 4^th, political winners and political losers.  This whole region and the issues we see roiling the populace could have the effect of determining who our president will be come next January 21^st.

I would have to surmise that such a Middle East explosion prior to November 4th would favor the current Administration since it is in place and has a reasonably known capacity in terms of foreign policy.  The electorate will probably be more prone to keeping the known team in place rather than substituting a new team, especially a team that won’t take office for nearly two and one-half months.  We will have heard a lot about the Republican team having little or no foreign policy experience; we have already seen those discussion points being rolled-out given the loss of the four lives on 9/11.

I would much rather that we citizens determine our future without world events weighing so heavily on our decision-making, but we may have no choice in the matter.  Will the Middle East force changes in the dynamics of the races being run by our two parties?  I suspect so.