Distrust Towards the West in the Middle East - Term Paper Example

Distrust towards the West in the Middle East Almost whole of the world is dependent on the oil reserves of the Middle East. The oil prices and the economy depend upon the changes in the Middle Eastern political scenario and the events happening in the Middle East have a direct impact on the global economy. With prevailing terrorism and dictatorships, the countries in the Middle East are not the most stable part of the world. There are various religious and ethnic groups present in the Middle East; majority of the population is Muslim however there are marked differences between different factions and sects due to their racial background, tribal divides and minor differences in religious beliefs. The only thing that joins them and serves as a binding force is there negative perception and distrust towards the West in general and the US in particular. The perception of the Western and American people is not very positive as well, they consider most of the Middle Eastern population and countries as uncivilized and uncultured with prevailing tribal traditions. They are considered as the originators and masterminds of the post 9/11 terrorism. The only civilized people are the ones who have benefited from the discovery of oil and this perception is legitimate up to some extent because the perception is based upon what is shown on the media. There is a remarkable difference between people living in the same countries, with urbanization on western patterns in some cities and old tribal traditions and ways of living prevalent in the rural areas of the same country. Religion is the most important binding force but there are two major divisions Shiites and Sunnis which are further divided into various different factions. But when it comes to hatred toward the Israeli state or the Jews, the whole Middle Eastern world is united under the same flag and leads the whole Islamic world against Jews and Israel because of the beliefs that they are the eternal enemies of the Muslims. There are several reasons behind this distrust and hatred towards the west the most important of which is the Palestine-Israel issue in which the west have always supported Israel. In the First World War, the Ottoman Empire which consisted mostly of the current Middle Eastern states sided with the German forces and the British and French considered the Ottoman Empire as the weak link in the enemy alliance. With the help of people like Sharif Hussein who sided with the British against the wishes of the Ottoman Empire and Arabian people on condition that the Arabs will be given independence after the end of the war, but the British did not fulfill their promise and when the Ottoman Empire was finally defeated in 1918, the British and the French disbanded the Empire and demarcated the boundaries between various regions of the Empire which were formally the provinces of Ottoman Empire and made them into separate states under the French or the British rule. The present picture of the map of the Middle Eastern states though seems very natural but was actually carved out by the French and the British after the First World War to fulfill their own interests. The distrust towards the West was seeded after the First World War and the Middle Eastern states never considered the Western World as its allies because of the treatment they received after the end of the war. United States was not directly involved in the affairs of the Middle East after the First World War but always supported the British decisions and division of the Middle Eastern regions into various states. The majority of the people of the Middle are Muslims and it is a religious belief of the Muslims that wherever they live in this whole world, they form one nation and the Muslim majority regions of the world should form one state. Therefore the division of the Ottoman by the British was considered as an effort to weaken the Muslims globally. During the war, the British double crossed for their own interests, they promised the Jews that they will be given a separate state in the Biblical region of Israel while they also promised the Arabs that they will be given independence at the end of the war. These two promises were contradictory to each other on various grounds. The demarcation of the boundaries of the states made by dismantling of the Ottoman Empire was not according to the ancient and informal tribal and religious boundaries and these borders are still not considered as boundaries even today and the Arabs still possess a sense of being united under the concept of Arab Nationalism. The Arabs however soon realized that the British never thought about giving independence to the Arabian regions and the distrust towards the British, the US and the west was anchored very deeply into the minds of the Middle Eastern people. The Middle Eastern states retained the status of being the French and British colonies till the Second World War after which the British left most of the Middle Eastern regions. Many Arabs and Middle Eastern nationalist still consider the British left the Middle Eastern regions because of their efforts to gain independence however the fact remains very evident that the British and the European powers were never willing to stay in the Middle East after the Second World War because of the changing global scenarios and the new revolutions in the international economy. The British with the help of various individuals and families who helped had established these states and they could even control the affairs of the states after leaving the regions could easily ensure that their interests were being fulfilled through the new leadership of the regions who were still loyal to the British in one way or the other. The most important incident or the most significant issue in the history of the Middle East which defined the future scenario of the world politics was the issue of Palestine and Israel. The British with the approval of the League of Nations gained control of the Palestinian region in 1917 and from the very beginning the British supported a Jewish state in the Palestinian region, publically and diplomatically (Peterson). This motive of the British was formally announced in the Balfour Declaration which states that the Jewish people have an inherent right to have a separate state for themselves in the Palestinian regions and they will be granted their fundamental rights in the form of a separate state in the Palestinian regions, where they are in a considerable majority. The Arabs soon realized that the motive behind this step of the British is to divide the Middle Eastern state and establish a strong hold in the Arab and Middle Eastern regions in the form of a Jewish state. The British proposed a solution which was practically impossible and was based on the assumption that the Muslim and Jewish population of the newly formed Jewish state will live together peacefully. The division of Palestine and the creation of Israel in the Palestinian regions gave rise to various conflicts which have not been resolved till date. Although the actions, behavior, policies and strategies of the local actors, Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews including the Israeli Zionists are greatly responsible for these conflicts but there are various actions associated to the United States, the Great Britain and the United Nations which ultimately lead to the current situation. Aggrieved with these actions of the Western powers, the Arab neighbors of Palestine also played a remarkable role in aggravating the conflicting situation. The issue of Palestine gave rise to Arab nationalism and the Arabs decided to fight the Western powers against one common cause (Stewart). The personal interests of various countries associated with the Palestinian regions were also the motivating force behind this struggle but the West was always considered as a common enemy. So there were many external powers involved in the Palestinian issue and ultimate partition of Palestine. The United States, the British and the other Western powers seek to establish a state in the form of Israel which will ensure the safeguard of their interest in the Middle Eastern and the Arab world. While the Arabs knew that if the state of Israel is formed, the threat of the US dominance in the region will always be there (Louis). The situation of the Middle Eastern regions became very complex and complicated after the Palestine-Israel issue and the discovery of world’s largest and most easily accessible reserves of oil in the Middle East greatly magnified the conflicts. With the industrial progress and ever increasing demands of oil the whole world and the West in particular found great interest in the Middle East. The establishment of the new industries increased the demand of oil by the western countries because they were technologically and industrially the most advanced countries then. The discovery of oil and the dependence of the West on the Middle Eastern oil reserves strengthened the Middle Eastern states that were now in a position to establish relations with the western world on their terms and interests. The discovery of oil changed the region altogether, the wealth from the whole world started flowing towards the Middle East because of global industrialization and need for low-cost crude oil. In the post World War II scenario, the US emerged as a new super power and started to exert influence in the Middle East to ensure easy and continued supplies of crude oil from these regions for its booming economy. The later incidents showed that the Middle East, Saudi Arabia in particular threaten the west to withhold oil from them and in this way exploited the political advantage of growing dependence of the industrialized west on Arab oil. The American oil companies tried to resolve this issue by initiating campaigns to support the Arabian cause in Palestine however the distrust among the people in the Middle East towards the west and in the west towards the Middle East only increased such a situation. The power of oil was very evident; Saudi Arabia emerged as a major power that could easily control the international economy with the production of oil. It was during the Arab-Israel war the Arabs decided to exercise the power of oil when King Faisal bin Abd al Aziz proclaimed at a rally in Riyadh that the kingdom would cut off oil supplies to all those states who will aid Israel in the war. For the first time ever since the discovery of oil in the Middle East, the West thought of discovering and utilizing other oil resources and the alternative was soon achieved as the Iranian and Venezuelan oil reserves but these were also not reliable. The US and the west soon realized that the Iranian option of oil is not reliable and with the fall of the Shah of Iran and hostage crisis, the anti-western motives of Iran were evident. With the unreliable sources of oil and increased open depiction of rivalry by the Middle Eastern countries towards the West, the US and the West looked for newer options to exercise control over the region to ensure the stability of oil dependent economy. The changing world scenario the US was looking for an opportunity to invade some Arabian territory and establish a strong hold in the Middle Eastern region. The prevalent dictatorship in Iraq and the nuclear arm threat it posed to the world provided the US with a very good opportunity to convince the world that the Iraqi leadership is not reliable and is a threat to global peace. The United States and the United Kingdom governments asserted the possibility of Iraq employing weapons of mass destruction is a threat to the national security of their respective countries and the neighboring countries in the Middle East, including Israel. Iraq was invaded and occupied by US led allied forces and the government was handed over to new Iraqi representatives and the personalities were selected by the western powers considering the fact that they will safeguard the western interests in the region. The brutal killing of Iraqi population and migration towards the neighboring countries during the war enraged the whole Middle Eastern population and the Islamic world (Copson). The people in the Middle East did not totally deny the fact that the Saddam Husain regime was not according to the wishes of the Iraqi people and posed a threat to regional peace to some extent but the objectives of war were never achieved and this is a reason of distrust towards the west which cannot be evaded until the stability of the country is restored and the Iraqi population is given proper rights for which they suffered. Most of the leaders and the general public in the Middle Eastern world considered a diplomatic solution far better than war and supported talks to resolve various issues (Vatikiotis). A general perspective is that a diplomatic solution would have been preferable with the war reserved as the last resort. The absence of weapons of mass destruction, which made the reason behind the military action against Iraq, has complicated the situation further and it is a general impression that the US attacked Iraq just to get hold of the Middle Eastern oil. The continued stay of the western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is considered as a threat to regional peace by the Middle Eastern population while the US has failed to give a clear cut plan of complete pull out of forces from Iraq and Afghanistan; this is changing the feelings of mistrust to hatred while the foreign policy of US is not helping the situation and is only worsening it. The US is issuing regular warnings to states like Iran and Syria that a similar military action can be taken against them if deemed necessary. This provides the anti-US elements in the Middle East to further magnify the distrustful sentiment in the Middle Eastern population towards the West who repeatedly maintain that this the US forces will not stop and the final motive of the West is to recapture the Middle East and exercise direct control over it. Another major issue related to the mistrust towards the West in the Middle East is the continued support of the West to the dictators in the Middle East for the fulfillment of their own interests. While US does not provide direct military aid to oil rich Saudi Arabia, it maintains extremely close ties to the government which actually is a monarchy led by King Abdullah. The new US administration has ensured its continued support to the Saudi royal family and various new agreements regarding defense and military have been signed between the Saudis and the US. The royal family of Saudi Arabia belongs to the Sunni sect of Islam whereas there is a large Shiite population living in Saudi Arabia, which is very often discriminated on grounds of being Shiite. The continued support of the US to the Saudi family has very negative effects on the sentiments of general public a majority of which is turning towards a demand of a democratic government in Saudi Arabia (Lewis). The Saudi population is generally against the monarchial government in the country because of gross misconduct with regards to human rights, each year thousands of people receive unfair trials and the rights of women and girls are being violated very frequently. The US and the West is supporting dictators in various other Middle Eastern countries including Jordan and Egypt. The Egyptian population hatred towards Hosni Mubarak was very evident in the recent Egyptian revolution and the US support to Hosni Mubarak in the early days of his regime was never deemed good by the Middle Eastern population in general and the Egyptian population in particular. The US has also supported the tyrant Jordan king and government who have denied the basic rights of freedom of speech and freedom of expression to the population. In such a scenario distrust towards the West is changing into hatred towards the West. The western culture has influenced the Middle Eastern youth and has actually changed the perception of the West in a specific group of population but this group is very small in numbers as compared to the ones who deem the influence of western culture as immoral and against the ethical and moral values of the people of the region. Majority of population in the Middle East is Muslim and the cultural and moral values of Islam are totally against those practiced in the West. Religion plays a very remarkable role in the lives of the Muslims who follow the religious practices very frequently and regularly. Muslims and Islam put certain bindings on its followers and a set of rules stated in the religious books of Muslims govern their affairs of life. These bindings include covering of body by the women and the biggest concern of the Muslims with regards to introduction of western culture is that their women will start following the western women in terms of their dressing patterns and freedom which they deem is totally against the teachings of Islam (Tamimi and Esposito). Moreover the radical Muslims and a majority of population in the Middle East consider means of entertainment such as music and movies against their religious teachings. In such a scenario the people of the Middle East do not want to interact openly with the west and consider the social and moral values of the west against their religious beliefs and values. The conduct of western leaders towards the Middle East has been controversial from the very beginning and there is a long list of events in which the western leaders did not fulfill the promises they made so the west is itself responsible for the mistrust in the Middle East towards the west. The role of Middle Eastern governments and the leaders is not encouraging as well who are involved in initiating and financing campaigns to deteriorate the image of the west and the US in the Middle East and as a result the people think of the Western leaders as the flag bearers of the Israeli interests (Strawson). This distrust is moving towards hatred and the current incidents of terrorism depict this hatred. The west has also been involved in human rights violation in the Middle East, the Iraq war is a big example moreover the support of Israeli violations of human rights in Palestine is also worsening the situation. The solution to the problem lies with the moderate Muslims and sensible Western leaders. The West needs to address the grievances of the Middle Eastern population because the continued distrust and instability in such an important region of the world is not good for the world peace and stability and in order to ensure economic, political and social stability in the global scenario the Middle East and the West need to revise their policies towards each other because this region of the world plays the pivotal role in the international politics and economy. With the largest oil reserves in the world, stationed terrorist bases and being a connection between the West and Asia, Middle East is perhaps strategically the most important region in the whole world and the West cannot afford this mistrust to grow any further. Works Cited Brown, Leon. Internatinal Politics and the Middle East. N.p.: I. B. Tauris, 1984. Print. Congressional Quaterly. The Middle East: U.S. policy, Israel, oil and the Arabs. N.p.: Congressional Quaterly, 1979. Print. Copson, Raymond. 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