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Hazem Sagheih      Al-Hayat      - 30/04/07//

US intellectual and historian Edward Luttwak does not belong to the
hard-core neoconservatives, but he is not very far away from them either.
More importantly, he sometimes comes up with surprising points of view that herald and pave the way for a certain era or orientation.

The senior adviser to Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies has recently written an article entitled "The Middle of Nowhere", which might later on be called one of the most important pieces written between the launch of war on Iraq and the election of a new US administration.

Luttwak built his article on the idea that 'backward societies should be
left alone'. The most important of his arguments are the following: There
is a school; among its most outstanding figures may have been late King
Hussein of Jordan and his successor King Abdullah II, which never gave up
calling on the West to intervene to resolve the Palestinian/Arab-Israeli
conflict. But what threat does this continuous conflict pose on the West and
world security?

Since 1921 till now, the toll of this conflict has not reached 100,000 victims - what equals the casualties of a single killing season in Darfur. Strategically this conflict does not have the least impact on the courses of other conflicts in Algeria or Iraq, or the Muslim-Hindu conflict in Kashmir or Muslim-Russian conflict in Chechnya. With regards to oil, this 'weapon' was used only once in 1973. The link between oil and politics has been cut for years; and any oil boycott has become disastrous for the countries whose economies depend on oil revenues. Therefore, it was not insignificant that the Gulf wars and the Palestinian Intifadas (Uprisings) did not affect the West negatively in this respect (today's skyrocketing oil prices are low compared to inflation rates).

The region currently produces less than 30% of the world's crude oil compared to 40% in 1974-75. In 2005, only 17% of US oil imports came from the Gulf compared to 28% in 1975. In addition, the US may work to cut its oil imports from the Middle East by 75% in 2025. Then there is the 'Mussolini syndrome' represented in the belief on the eve of the Second World War that Italy had a huge army, which, when the war began, proved very poor. The Mussolini syndrome was applied to Gamal Abdel Nasser, about the strength of his army much was said. But this army collapsed tragically in 1967. The same was done in a more tragic way with Saddam Hussein in two successive wars. Now it is being repeated with Iran, while no one seems aware of the fact that backward societies could spawn 'excellent' insurgents but cannot build a modern military power. We may as well remind here that most of Iran's warships are over 30 years old. As to its aircrafts, most of which are F4, Mirage, F5 and F14, they have not flown for years due to lack of spare parts.

Actually, describing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as 'elite' recalls to the mind the descriptions that had been given to the Iraqi Republican Guards.
Iran entered only one war against Iraq; and it had been defeated. As to what
is being said about its defeating Israel through Hezbollah, this claim is
easily refuted by the fact that the party has lost one quarter of its best-trained men in this war and, therefore, remained tight-lipped about it.

Iran's terrorism does not scare the US. The terrorist operations Iran was
directly responsible for are not more than a single operation in Khobar,
Saudi Arabia, and two operations in Buenos Aires as well as some
assassinations in Europe. All this is nothing when compared to the threat
the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany had posed to the West. No. Even if Iran
develops nuclear power, the actual worry resulting from this act will only
produce a quantitative, and not qualitative, change in the general equation
regarding its danger.

As to Iran's consensus over its regime's nuclear policy, it is a myth refuted by the fact that the Persian ethnicity constitutes only 51% of the Islamic republic's population. The rest are Azeri Turks, Kurds and Arabs, the majority of them are opposed to the current regime. To sum things up, this region's strength could be disturbing but not scary. This does not mean to adopt force against it since it has cultural, religious and historical backgrounds that would not let it surrender when defeated. It does not mean adopting a lenient policy with the Arabs, either, because the same backgrounds would not allow them be friendly to the US. Hence, it is a region that should be left alone until it makes peace with itself and stops living in the past.
 
Meanwhile, all attention must be given to the future-obsessed regions of
Central Europe, India and East Asia where the pace of economic and cultural
dynamics is certainly greater and faster. This point of view is, of course,
controversial and very debatable. Up till now it is not official, yet it is
very dangerous because it represents an 'isolationist' trend (only
toward us) that may grow - at least in the US as shown in the stances of
the US public opinion and Congress toward withdrawal from Iraq.
http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/04-2007/Article-20070430-423501d2-c0a8-10ed-01b2-ede87840799f/story.html