The Middle East is a very confusing place with complex political, religious, cultural, and boundary disputes.  It is this very complex multidimensional aspect that is so difficult for anyone to understand making peace so problematic for the U.S. and even people living in that region.  Many here have tried to oversimplify their analysis of that region when proposing solutions overlooking seemingly insignificant factors which in truth turn out to be major stumbling blocks.  More often than not our actions add even more complexity to an already overwhelmingly complex and sensitive landscape.

It is the U.S. failure to appreciate the complexities of such human behaviors and interactions in the Middle East that has led to our continuing attempts to unsuccessfully solve the problem of stability over there using primarily military means.  I feel that the only way to overcome the social, religious, and political complexities in the Middle East is to completely dominate them with our entire military might in a ruthless fashion like the Germans did in Europe and the Japanese did in Asia during WWII for as long as we want stability.  The fear of certain death, punishment or imprisonment is common among all people and 95% of people will respond to it so one only need to deal with 5%.  But of course I am not proposing we do this.

The best thing we can do is withdraw all our troops from that part of the world.  Killing them simply makes them more determined to kill us.  We would feel the same if some foreign nation invaded our land killing citizens and tried to enforce their form of government or social standards upon us.  But I am getting way ahead of myself.  Let them solve their own problems in their own fashion and in their own time frame.  They are at a social, cultural, and political level we were 300 years ago.  Let us stop killing more Arabs and being killed by them.  This is not a constructive or positive way of solving problems.  If they kill each other than that is on their hands but it shouldn’t be we who kill people in a land that we hardly understand to bring about self-serving stability.  By its own nature wars of this kind creates instability.

Change is always disruptive and painful.  Pulling out of the Middle East will be no different.  There will be a power vacuum that needs to be filled.  Various militant and religious factions such as ISIS will want to fill that vacuum.  If ISIS forms a nation then so be it.  ISIS has many enemies in the Middle East so as it forms into a nation it will encounter many other militant warring factions which will draw its attentions away from us.  If it survives it will eventually need to deal with the rest of he world including us if it ever becomes a stable and major country in the Middle East.  This may not happen the year after we leave or perhaps even 10 years later but all major nations must eventually join the community of nations for economic reasons as we see signs of happening in Iran doing today.

There will be violence and instability in the Middle East after we leave but is it any different now?  The President has made it clear that the battle against ISIS will be long and drawn out.  I have no doubt it will.  But what will we have solved if we succeed in destroying ISIS, another ISIS or Al Qaeda like militant group springing up to take its place?  History should tell us that it is senseless to stay in the Middle East just to achieve stability for 20% of our oil needs from the Saudis.  I’m not sure why President Obama does not see this.  He is too close to his military advisers who only see military solutions.  Our military is too powerful making people believe that it can solve most problems.

Arabs, even militant ones, are in essence people just like us.  If we would feel resentful and hateful of a government who sends troops on our land and kills our people so why don’t we realize that the Arabs feel the same way?  We really are not part of the solution.  We are a major part of the problem.

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