All My Life Trouble in the Middle East

With the events of the last few weeks in Egypt and Libya and Bahrain I can't help thinking that the region for whatever reason has not been peaceful. There hasn't been a year gone by when there hasn't been some shit happening there. I can remember the American's bombing Libya. Then the Libyan's taking revenge and bombing the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie. And coming down through the years various Arab leaders have been both in and out of favour with the Western Allies. During the Iran and Iraq war both the U of K and the US of A backed the Saddam Iraq regime and ten years later we were kicking his ass end out of Kuwait. And from that time onwards he was completely out of favour with us.

During the 80's on the daily news menu hardly a day went by when there wasn't a mention of the Intifada on the West Bank or stories of the US Marines coming under attack in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Also the arms for hostages and western citizens being seized by the PLO. Whilst at school we studied the Islamic uprising on the West Bank, and as part of our studies we were asked the question can there ever be real peace in the region. That was some twenty years ago and I came to the conclusion that it could never happen for 2 reasons. The first reason being not whilst there were dictatorships such as Gadaffi's Libya, the Iotolha's Iran and Hussien's Iraq. And the second reason being Israel's policy of not negotiating with terrorist organisations that were being backed by these regimes. But I always found that excuse to be more than a little on the side of the hypocritical. And so far I have been proved right.

Now that there has been a peaceful change of regime in Egypt the situation in the Middle East has its own snowball effect. In days gone by the powers that be in each of these nations would simply have quashed these rebellions with an iron boot. But in the age of the internet their leaders know that the whole world is watching. Gone are the days when the press can be kicked out and the local news channels could be shut down. And the protestors could be quietly dealt with.

But with the current climate in the region and Israel's attitude to the Islamic world will the question become will there ever be peace in the Middle East in my lifetime?