AboutPierre-Alexandre De Bavay M.A. Expertise I can answer any question that deals with geopolitics, political stability and the role of big powers in the Middle East. My strongest background deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but I have a good knowledge of the region going from the Caucasus to Egypt, the Arabic Peninsula and Central Asia. Even if your question does not directly deal with this, I will try to answer it anyway.
Experience I worked for the Center for American Studies in Brussels and for the European Institute for International Relations as political analyst.
Organizations CAS, EIIR
Education/Credentials BA Political Science
MA International Relations
MA American Studies
Question How far has America been responsible for terrorism and unrest in the Middle East? what should be done to bring peace in that region?
Answer Hello Nida,
Interesting question, though it seems quite difficult to quantifiate the role of the US in the spread of terrorism in the region. Terrorism is a method that has been used throughout the ages. It is different from guerilla in the sense that it aims not only the opponent, but also civilians in order to bring an atmosphere of chaos and terror.
Terrorism in the Middle East is not recent. Back in the 1980', Yasser Arafat was already using this method before trying diplomatic negotiations with Israel. The present situation of Kurds in Turkey is also interesting to examine in terms of terrorism. Same for Lebanon and the Hezbollah which is partly responsible for the political unrest in this country.
Now your question was dealing with the role of the US in the terrorism in the Middle East. Since 2003 and the invasion of Iraq, terrorism has been developing like never before in this country. This is a fact: bombings of the insitutions, violent struggle between different islamic ideologies, anti american attacks, etc. Clearly the last war in Iraq has caused this country to become extremely unstable. In that case, the US are undoubtely responsible for the spread of terrorism in Iraq.
You might be willing to argue the same as regards Afghanistan (though it is located in Asia and not Middle East). But terrorism was already happening before the US intervention. The struggle between Talebans and Massoud was already a reality before 2001. Maybe the presence of the US and other Western countries armies has strenghten the terrorist mobilization. Yet, the situation in this case is not as clear as the one in Iraq in terms of responsibility of the US.
As regards the second part of your question, my opinion is that a series of key elements should become real in order to bring peace in the Middle East:
- give Kurds a real state
- give Palestinians a real state with homogenous borders
- organize the political division of Iraq following ethnic and religious tendencies (or at least
build a truly decentrilized state like in Bosnia Herzegovina)
- prevent Syria to interfere in Lebanon
- prevent Israel to invade its neighbours without international consent
- have a government and ideological shift in Iran
- promote democracy, human rights and allow the international community to be the place to debate and solve conflicts
Of course, there are other elements that might be interesting in the solving of political instability and violence in the Middle East. I just gave here some food for thought.
