The world has a major problem. It’s called the Middle East. In this blog, I am going to propose a bold first step to coping with this problem. I hope that you will share your thoughts, especially if you disagree with me. To respond, all you have to do is to go to the bottom of this post, click on "Comment" and then simply keyboard in your thoughts.
The purpose of this blog is to create frank and open discussion. None of us knows as much as all of us. My opinion follows, and I hope yours will follow that.
This geopolitical sinkhole is ground zero for the world’s most pressing problems: privation, ignorance, violence, and hatred. It is the breeding ground for the greatest enemies of civilization. The origin and center of Islam, here is where those who hate us and want us dead are indoctrinated and trained for deadly attacks on the “Great Satan.”
I believe that humanity’s greatest achievement is western civilization. It needs to be defended against those who want to kill us and destroy our culture. There are really only two solutions.
One is to make the entire Arab world glow, fuse its desert sands into a nice glassy surface. This is what would happen if it were the Islamic world who possessed nuclear might. A straightforward, objective reading of the Koran makes clear Allah’s hatred of those who refuse to honor such a god. Other than the worship of Allah, the main purpose of Islam is to destroy anything that is not Islamic. If Islam had nuclear weapons and we did not, western civilization would be gone as soon as the first devout Muslim could reach the nuclear trigger.
Read the Koran and you will see for yourself that Allah never tires of cursing the unbeliever and promising a terrible fate for Jews and Christians. In contrast, the religious traditions of the civilized world stress love. Jesus taught that we should love even our enemies and return good for evil. If we are to be true to our own highest and best traditions and deepest religious beliefs, as just as it might seem to do so, we must strike Islam with the nuclear sword only as a supreme last resort.
The one undoubted right thing to do is to take bold and decisive action to avoid a war with the Arab world. If it is unacceptable to eliminate our enemies through nuclear annihilation, we must eliminate them by making them our friends.
It is hard to think of a greater challenge. It means that we must transform the Arab world, for as it is now there is no possibility of their learning to love us. We are in a battle for the hearts and minds of the people. We must help solve the profound problems that make theirs a sick and corrupt society.
Our two great weapons are education and the power of prosperity. Anyone who seeks profound change must know two essential things about the contemporary Middle East.
First, it is enormously overpopulated. Cairo was desperately overcrowded thirty years ago with some 3 million people living there. Today there are 15-million people in Greater Cairo.
Second, population is young. The average age of the population is about sixteen. That is half the average age in the United States. That one fact tells volumes about the intractable problems confronting the governments of the region, and why their record in solving these problems is so bad.
These two facts have huge implications. To begin with, it means you have an overwhelming number of people who are simply incapable of caring for themselves. It means that the majority of the population -- counting both the very young and the aged – are consumers instead of producers. They require an unlimited number of expensive services, especially education, housing, food, and medical care, while producing very little wealth. As half of all Arabs are age 15 or younger, they lack education, skills, and experience. This means that the majority of the Arabian population has almost nothing to contribute to society but instead represent a colossal burden and an immense problem.
The labor markets are flooded with young people all dressed up with nowhere to go. These young people are ready to begin to participate in a modern economy, but theh problem is that there is no modern economy to enter. As a result, they are frustrated in their efforts to get even a low-paying entry-level job.
There is vast unemployment. You find university graduates working as night hotel clerks, tourist guides and cab drivers -- not as temporary jobs, as in our country -- but as permanent long-term jobs without hope of advancement. In short, you have in the Arab world a society made up largely of young, frustrated, angry, hopeless people. You find throughout the Middle East young people desperate for meaning in their lives. They are easy victims of radical clerics who can point to chapter and verse of the Koran calling for holy war against non-Muslims.
The fundamental problem in the Middle East is economic. Economies there have failed to provide jobs and opportunity for their young people. This is what we need to change.
We must give the young and angry people of the Arab world a new alternative. More than freedom, they need capitalism. Initially, the chance to create a decent life matters more than theoretical political freedoms. It’s great to be able to vote; it’s even better to be able to feed your family.
In the Middle East as everywhere else, the key concern of those in power is to remain in power. Because these governments are intent on staying in power, they divert much of their revenues into programs that deal with the social turmoil provoked by intense frustration. First and foremost, the governments want security. For the past half-century, almost every country in the region has
made extraordinary military expenditures.
It’s an extreme case of guns instead of butter; it’s security measures instead of roads, telephones, and factories. Despite all the oil, the long-term capital needed for economic growth has not been available. Military expenditures do the economy no good as they do not offer new capital investment that can fuel future growth. Military goods are either stockpiled or destroyed.
No Middle Eastern country except Israel has adopted the one growth strategy that works: high-value-added manufacturing. This model is what made fueled the growth of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and more currently, China. We drive Japanese cars, watch DVD on players from Taiwan and wear Chinese clothing.
But, in contrast, not one single manufactured item from the Middle East can be sold competitively on world markets. This is why Middle Eastern states must sell commodities to finance their imports, obtain foreign exchange, and accumulate investment capital.
The problem with Middle Eastern commodities is that there is no domestic market for them. This means their price is set by external forces that they cannot control. While these governments complain about the crippling limits of commodities-based economies, they are unable to make the big adjustments needed to modernize their economies.
The adjustments required to place their economies on firm new foundations have been too overwhelming to do anything about. In other words, the Middle Eastern economies are locked in a desperate impasse. The camel has plodded into a quagmire and the more it thrashes around trying to escape, the further it is drawn into the sinkhole.
The only hope for these sick economies is some very harsh medicine, a total and radical overhaul of the bases of their economy. This will never happen without outside intervention.
It is surely not obvious right now, but I’m convinced that the invasion of Iraq is the greatest possible thing that could possibly have happened to the Iraqi people. It’s not just getting rid of a brutal dictator who ruthlessly exterminated millions. The greatest benefit is not the fall of Saddam Hussein but the rise of opportunity.
The only path out of the wilderness for the Arab world is the one that leads to a modern free enterprise economy.
This, of course, is precisely what Dr. Bush is prescribing for Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. aid currently pouring into these two countries represents the only real hope for the Middle East that anyone has seen on the horizon since World War II.
U.S. dollars constitute the capital needed to produce a robust market-oriented economy. Poured into in potential growth and export sectors, this will not only raise the standard of living, generate new jobs, and build long-term development
It has never been a mystery what economic policy has been needed to transform the Middle East economy and with it. The solution for Middle Eastern social problems is prosperity. George Bush has the vision thing down pat. He is providing the fuel to drive the economy that will create the opportunities that will absorb the youthful drive and energy currently being poured into perverted causes.
Rebuilding Iraq under initial American control is an opportunity to institute economic rationality. It represents a chance to introduce a robust new form of capitalism that is capable of transforming first Iraq and then the Middle East.
That's how I see things. How about you? To post a response, click on "comment" below, keyboard in your point of view, then click on "post" to publish your comment on the blog.
And for better or worse, the outcome of the global recession will be closer regulation of the world's economic and financial systems, for years to come.
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