the Region's Problems
By Barry Rubin
April 7, 2010
http://www.gloria-center.org/
A former senior Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler, made the main
foreign policy speech to the Liberal Party convention there. He
voiced the most common myth about the contemporary Middle East. In
fact, it is a myth now returning to favor in the United States after
many years in the shadows. (The last thing that killed it was the
1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait which indicated there were a few other
problems in the region.)
Regarding Fowler, let me quote from the Ottawa Citizen editorial
about the speech:
"Fowler singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as
the primary source of instability in the region. Meanwhile, a country
like Iran -- a totalitarian theocracy bent on obtaining nuclear
weapons, which it has already threatened to use -- didn't get a
mention. Is that Fowler's idea of an "even-handed" approach to the
Middle East?
"By externalizing blame for Arab-Muslim dysfunction--pinning it on
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on Israeli intransigence in
particular-- Fowler is playing into the hands of all the Muslim
dictators, autocrats and mullahs who use the "Zionist" threat to win
popular legitimacy and to justify their refusal to embrace
modernization, democratization and economic reform.
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