Open Letters
AN OPEN LETTER
to the People of the Middle East
to the People of the Middle East
by Graham Leonard
28 Dec 07
I propose this letter to the people of the Middle East, on behalf of the people of the United States, as a list of things we believe, recognize, and confess . . .
On Peace
- The interests of the peoples of the United States are with the liberty, equal rights, and development of the potential of ALL peoples, with none oppressing any others.
- We believe peace is preferable to war and the rule of law is preferable to dictatorship by a person or a dogma. People should be able to choose their own governance.
- We regret our ignorance of the Middle East, Islam, Sunni, Shi'a, Kurds, Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Armenians, and Christian Arabs. We propose to learn.
- We are trying to understand the peoples of the Middle East, whose identities lie in family and, through them, in ethnic/religious community more than in self.
- We—for whom history is individually-oriented and short—need to understand better Middle Easterners, whose very survival for centuries has depended on community.
- We believe the resources of the Middle East belong to the peoples of that area.
- We Americans understand honor and revenge (if at all) from literature and movies, as individually motivated. We struggle to realize that to many in the Middle East, honor and revenge for one's community mean more than life itself.
- Most Americans have forgotten the oppressions that brought them to their own country, while Middle Easterners—newly freed from oppression and centuries of denigration of Islam—suddenly have untold resources to redress their rage over real and imagined wrongs.
- We believe Israel and Palestine should be two states. But, neither side has agreed on a permanent settlement over the past 60 years, and could not now agree on any permanent peace settlement in the foreseeable future, if ever.
- With present conditions, both sides might negotiate a truce for the next 50 or 60 years that would be bearable by each.
- If the world wants peace between Zionists and Palestinians (hence in the Middle East), then the resources, education, and jobs must be provided in the years of truce to help the area's peoples develop to economic and individual levels where peaceful co-existence is possible, even necessary, due to mutual interdependence.
- Saddam Hussein was a terrible tyrant, but an enemy of al Qaida. He was not America's responsibility alone, but a problem for the world (i.e., United Nations).
- The United States should not have given Saddam $13 billion in arms for his war with Iran.
- The Iraq War, started in 2003, has increased terrorism and drastically decreased U.S. prestige and the U.S. ability to combat terrorism in the world.
- The United States made an ill-advised mistake by invading Iraq, and was totally unprepared for the resulting disastrous occupation. It was ignorant, or unheeding, of the conflict between religious and ethnic communities which it unleashed.
- Iraq cannot be "fixed" by war—no matter how dedicated our service men and women, nor how many lives we sacrifice, nor how much money we waste trying to use military might to achieve changes in peoples' beliefs and behavior.
- We recognize that Iraqis need a strong leader, but we believe that is the business for Iraqis to choose (with protections assured for minorities and opposition).
- We deplore our mistakes in the past but can only affect the future.
- We support the bi-partisan recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Report, especially the diplomatic steps, as a beginning—with one very large exception: Baker-Hamilton proposed that many nations join to solve the problems in Iraq. Instead, we propose that each problem be solved by Iraqis with only those nations most concerned with each individual problem, and that the United states be seen not to be involved!
- For example, the United Nations could convene all the nations that border Iraq to guarantee it borders.
- OPEC could convene its members to help Iraq settle its hydro-carbon policies.
- The Conference of Muslim Nations could convene to prevent the present Sunni-Shi'a conflict from spreading into an all-out Middle East war—which would cut off all Gulf oil, since 40 to 60% of workers in the oil fields are Shi'a.
- The Gulf States could convene to advise Iraq and assist its reconstruction and development, with billions of Iraq War Bonus to OPEC.
- Egypt, Syria, Iran, Jordan, and Lebanon could convene to discuss a return of the Iraqi refugees—the middle classes—for security in Iraq and to solve other problems in Iraq with the nations concerned.
- We agree with Baker-Hamilton that diplomacy means listening and talking—especially to enemies.
- The United States should send a seasoned ambassador to Syria.
- The United States should re-open diplomatic relations with Iran, instead of threats to bomb suspected nuclear sites, and let globalization and prosperity bring light to the vast, younger majority in Iran.
- The United States should put pressure on Turkey to leave the Kurds in northern Iraq alone, with the promise of Turkey's acceptance in Europe and the threat of returning areas illegally acquired from the French Mandate over Syria in 1938 and the closing of U.S. air bases.
- We believe Baker-Hamilton failed by not addressing the urgency of removing all the 50,000+ over-paid "security" mercenaries from Iraq immediately.
- We recognize nothing can give the Middle East a better future until they get rid of their ex-colonial schooling, which Westernizes without Modernizing. They need education to empower themselves to compete intellectually in the midst of 21st century globalization while still intensifying their Arabic-Islamic cultural roots against increasingly stronger intrusions.
- Middle Easterners could replace their dependent memorization methods of schooling by reviving Abbasid discussion-based, empowering methods of education.
We Americans believe in liberty and equal rights of all people. We want the peoples of the Middle East to develop their own cultures and governments with full realization of their potential in a world where no one is oppressed nor need feel aggression by anyone. Only in such a world can everyone feel secure!
