How Do We Get Out of the Middle East?

By Alec B.

Since Osama bin Laden died two weeks ago, everyone from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to American director Michael Moore has asked for American troops to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. But is it time? The U.S. has spent ten years and lost thousands of lives. Was it all for just one man? Since 9/11, terrorism has struck dozens of countries and put the U.S. in a tough spot.  How can the United States get out? We have been involved with Middle Eastern politics since the early Cold War, taking an interest in the Islamic countries like Iran and the former chaos-infected Afghanistan. On the other end of the spectrum, we have countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that have found oil and have done extremely well. 

The way to get out of the Middle East is to balance the Iranian power and their nuclear ambitions from threatening our close allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, U.A.E. and Qatar. We can do this by giving our allies new weapons and better, more efficient ways of combating what seems like a mini Cold War: autocrats and ayatollah-imam leadership on one side and the wealthy pro-west nations empowered by the American war machine and weapons on the other. But will they have to fight? The revolts in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia have left questions in Tehran. Will violence have to be used to return to democracy?

When the government of Tunisia fell to democracy as a result of simple protests, Egypt followed. The fall of these once semi- autocratic nations has brought about a new train of thought in the Middle East. Before the revolutions, the process to get a new leader was to shoot, take the capital and enact a coup d’état until the rest of the country surrendered. That process has been effective in Middle Eastern politics for the past century.  It seems a new idea is in play. The effect of picketing outside city hall seems to have more of an impact than using violence and extremism to get what you want. If this is how the Middle East plays out, is the U.S. even needed? Or wanted? 

Americans across the nation cheered and chanted about the death of the Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden. According to intelligence officials and closed door sessions with Leon Panetta, the head of the C.I.A, no one wants to step up to the plate as leader of Al Qaeda. Even Mullah Omar, the head of the Afghan Taliban, seems quiet. After 10 years of combat, all it took was one man’s death.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens now.