On 2011-03-25, at 1:42 PM, Somebody Somebody wrote:
> It's pretty obvious that the U.S. and European powers have selected three, and only three, Middle Eastern nations for regime change. Why else would the Defense Secretary on a visit to Israel only mention this select few of the Arab and Islamic nations recently in revolt? It just so happens that these are nations with histories of antagonism with the U.S.. It's unfortunate some on the left are joining the crusade against this new Axis of Evil.
>
> "Gates cited Syria, Libya and Iran as examples of "authoritarian regimes (that) have suppressed their people and have been willing to use violence against them."
Gates also famously said recently that "any defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined."
The US is, above all, interested in stable access to foreign resources and markets and the political character of the regime is secondary. It didn't hesitate to dump staunch US allies like Mubarak and Ben Ali and before them the Shah, Suharto, Batista, Marcos, Somoza, etc. who had lost political legitimacy and were fuelling popular unrest with the potential threat this represented in each case to American interests. On the other hand, when Gadhafi made his turn to the West, he was feted and removed from the Axis of Evil target list. He has only been reinstated to it lately, not because he reverted to form as an anti-imperialist, but because he refused to go quietly when the democratic wave swept into Libya sparking civil strife which the US and its allies are struggling to control.
Mike Beggs expressed it very well earlier today:
> US geopolitical strategy generally follows a police logic - it has no
> need for direct political domination because economic forces are
> enough to get what the West needs from the rest of the world - it
> primarily wants political order, stability. There are of course other
> forces influencing it, not least ideological ones, but that's the
> baseline. The logic is to take a pragmatic view of the ruling forces
> in particular countries and regions - it doesn't have a preference for
> dictatorship, but if that's what maintains order, so be it.