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Running with Scissors
// The price of the question
Long before Condoleezza Rice was U.S. secretary of state, and even long before she was born, professors of history told their students that whoever controls the Middle East controls the world. Rice is going to find out how true that statement, which has held through the ages and defined the policy of the current American administration, is.
Formally, Rice is going to the Middle East to carry out several local tasks, in particular, to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and improve America's image in the Arab world, which suffered so considerably during the Israeli military operation in Lebanon. But look at how many other foreign policy issues the United States could settle at the same time as they are busy helping the Israelis and Palestinians make up and picking up stones thrown during the latest war in Lebanon. The fact that Rice will be talking about Iran, which is outside the Arab world, is more proof of the importance of the region. America has tried to find the key to Iran in Russia, China and Europe, without success, now it will try the Middle East, where they understand Iran better. It can be suggested that they will not stand behind Iran there with the steadfastness they showed in Moscow and Beijing, which have something to lose if they lose Iran. That is easily explained. A hidden competition defined relations between the Persians and the Arabs for many centuries and that spirit of competition is still wafts through their relations. The U.S. can play on that, if it has sufficient diplomatic skills.
But the question is not only and not that much about Iran. The price of the question for America in the Middle East is even higher now. That region was chosen by the Bush administration as the main testing ground for advancing its model of democratic development, which could subsequently be used in other arts of the world. That is the origin of the concept of the Greater Middle East, casting off its authoritarianism like a snake shedding its skin. Washington has yet to prove the viability of that concept. Moreover, serious mistakes made by the U.S. in the region have allowed Washington's opponents to point to its role in the Middle East to say that the county does something entirely different from spreading democracy. Russian President Vladimir Putin's ironic comment that we don't need “democracy like in Iraq” was an irresistible sucker punch to U.S. President George W. Bush. Now today, when his term is nearing its end, it is a matter of principle for Bush to show that he was not mistaken in his efforts to spread democracy in the region. He understands that his role in world history will be evaluated on the success of his Middle East policy.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 03, 2006
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