"Clean breaks" and false dawns

/ reality / middle east /
A very interesting analysis of recent developments in the Middle East by Khader Khader:

"..To understand what is happening in the Arab world these days and not to rush into romantic analyses about the strong desire of the Arab masses to enjoy democracy, as some Arab intellectuals tend to believe, one needs to look back at a 1996 policy paper prepared under the supervision of now-US vice president Dick Cheney and his neo-con task force of Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David and Meyrav Wurmser, et al. Entitled 'Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm', this paper outlined a scenario whereby the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PA would be torn to shreds, and, first Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Iran, would be targeted for military assault and political destabilization. The outcome of the regional convulsions provoked by the 'Clean Break' doctrine was to be a new Middle East, with Israel hegemonic in the region, presiding over a series of newly balkanized states run by puppet regimes...

...The fragmentation of the Arab world will serve at least two goals: it will serve Israel to a great extent when it engages in final-status negotiations with a weaker Palestinian side stripped of support from any Arab hinterland, and it will serve the US in replacing the current Arab leaders who have been exhausted with a new group of indebted "young democrats".

This is not a defense of any of the current Arab leaders or regimes. It is a warning to the romantics, those who advocate reform and democracy in the Arab world and see the US as the necessary conduit for such change. One day, when they have outlived their usefulness, they will face the same fate as their predecessors. "