Dear Friend,
It seems to me that when a nation state goes to war there is a certain “thirst for blood.” The war will last until one or the other side emerges victorious, or this ‘thirst for blood’ has been sated, at which point both sides are willing to sue for peace. That will bring on the natural end of the war. Interruptions to a war allow the blood that has been spilled to digest. When this happens the ‘thirst for blood’ is increased and the stomach has been stretched.
The Middle East is an example of how interrupting a war only serves to increase the desire for war and the blood of the enemy. But chains in the means so as to make this desire manifest in low scale violence, like terrorism. This slow burn war results in the death and wounding of far more people over far more generations than the original war would have been, had it been fought out. Later generations have to fight and die for a grievance of their grand fathers.
If we look at any of the wars of the modern (1959-1973) Middle East, (with the exception of the Iran/Iraq war), the individual war has always been truncated. The world (UN) has stopped the war short of total victory / total defeat, or until the ‘thirst for blood’ had been sated. Resulting in the slow burn of children in the war of suicide bombers killing civilians scratching for a bite to eat.
Had Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan fought it out to the end in any of these wars and had a democratic republic been installed in these countries in 1959, 1967 or 1973 the face of the world and the lot of the Arab people would be vastly improved. Instead of squandering billions of oil dollars on armaments and sponsoring terrorist organizations these countries might have been spending billions on education for the people, (investing in human capital), on infrastructure, (investing in the means of production), and fostering a healthy economy with low taxes and smart regulation. With the vast energy resources of this region of the world there is no excuse for there to be poverty and random death… but the rapine of the rulers.
Of course the oil in the Middle East was a factor in keeping the worlds attention on these wars. Ironically (as is usually the case) the desire to help (Liberal Internationalism) has resulted in exacerbating the original problem to an unimagined degree. A degree where the USA has tens of thousands of troops active there. Had International Pragmatism been applied, perhaps this could have been prevented, decades ago, and at less cost in blood, treasure, and human suffering.
