The Middle East is on fire. I’m not referring to the scorching weather or the drought that has been sucking the region dry for years now. I mean the Middle East is literally on fire. Rockets are firing from fighter jets, tanks and drones; from RPGs and land-based devices, all over the region. Fires rage everywhere.
Those fires are burning the U.S. over and over and over, scalding us with their unforgiving, ever-increasing flames. They have been ever since the late Osama bin Laden decided that he was going to have 19 people hijack four jetliners and fly them into U.S. military and financial infrastructure.
The recent crisis in Yemen has brought us near to our breaking point. We are stretched so thin that Saudi Arabia has to invade its neighbor, a strategically-important sovereign state with a government-in-exile, because we had to leave and can’t do it for them. We are stretched so thin that every time we seem to tamp down one fire to a manageable level, another one, much more dangerous than the one before it, pops up, raging in an environment that is far more hostile than the last.
First, it was Afghanistan in 2001. Then Iraq in 2003. Then Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia around the same time. Then came Libya in 2011. Now Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen have coalesced into one big inferno, an inferno that we can neither control nor let get bigger. Yet, it does keep getting bigger, every day that Americans wake in the morning.
It’s time for the U.S. and all its partners to make a decision, to have a real and genuine conversation about our presence in the Middle East. I don’t mean what we have already had, with the right wing screaming at the left wing for more intervention and foolish projections of American power and the left wing screaming at the right wing for less intervention and equally foolish isolationism. I don’t mean our “strategic partners” and tacit allies continually asking for help and money and aid and never wanting to fix what’s really wrong.
I mean a real conversation in which everyone is included, in every region in which we are involved. I mean a comprehensive strategy with everyone on board, detailing when we will act, how we will act, who we will support against whom and where we will maintain a presence. I mean a real conversation in which we as Americans accept that there will have to be a lot of sacrifice on our parts if we are to keep our strategic interests safe, and if we are to live up to our values when we deal with other nations, especially in the Middle East.
If not — if we continue to let this go — to treat the Middle East as if it’s a Hobbesian, capitalistic trading space — where people should just be left alone to fend for themselves, with laissez-faire policies, a host of private actors with no accountability and criminals openly hostile to any government action — then Yemen will be the future. Yemen, where the government runs in fear for its life and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula continues to grow stronger and more threatening because we are not there to stop them, and where ethnic tensions could boil over and kill thousands in an all-out civil war.
Tragically, we don’t have time to have this very important conversation about the Middle East. We obviously must take decisive and comprehensive action. But more importantly, we have to take action which makes both tactical and strategic sense. As we continue to degrade and destroy ISIS, and as we continue to aid rebels in Syria, we need to understand what that Yemen is more than a sign of impending doom: it’s an opportunity. Here’s how we take advantage of that opportunity:
1. Continue to provide logistical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia and its nine other partner countries as they intervene in Yemen.
2. Send a secret delegation to the Houthi rebels in order to negotiate a conclusion to hostilities and integration into a new government.
3. Assist the newly-constructed government to start a comprehensive economic program which is tailored to Yemen’s unique context. This would bring down unemployment and defeat AQAP’s platform.
4. Maintain a diplomatic and security presence for the long-term.
On top of all of this, we need to develop an even deeper understanding with the Saudis and the rest of the region on the subject of Iran and nuclear weapons, before they do something drastic in that area as well. It’s time for the Middle East to stop burning, with our help.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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