Middle East Democracy: Blowback Through the Looking Glass

By Robert Weitzel

“If I had a world of my own… nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t.
And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would.”
-Alice in Wonderland

Alice:

Uncle Sam:

Alice:

Uncle Sam:

Alice:

Uncle Sam:

Alice:

Uncle Sam:

Alice:

Uncle Sam:

Alice:

In Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking
Glass,” the White Queen  assured Alice that “it’s a poor sort
of memory that only works  backwards.” A contemporary reader
stepping into the “looking glass”  world of U.S. foreign policy
in the Middle East may well understand  the Queen’s contrariness
as “blowback”-an event that appears to be  without cause
but is the unintended consequence of a past action.  Blowback is
a “sort of memory” that always works forward. 

In 1953, Uncle Sam, at the behest of
his British ally, stepped through the looking glass to attack Iran.
The CIA’s month-long covert war deposed the popularly elected Mohammad
Mossadegh and ended the Middle East’s oldest constitutional democracy. 

To secure a foothold for democracy in
the region-and keep oil flowing at an Anglo-American price-Uncle
Sam placed Mohammad Reza Shah back on the Peacock Throne. The twenty-five
years of oppressive  dictatorship that followed was the “sort
of memory” that came blowing  back through the looking glass
with the Islamic Revolution in 1979,  which resulted in a fundamentalist
Islamic theocracy in Iran and the transmogrification of Uncle Sam into
“Shaytan Bozorg”-the Great Satan. 

The Islamic Revolution brought to power
a group of fanatically anti- Western clerics who have inspired a generation
of new recruits in the  war against the imperialist aggression
of the West; a war that blew  back through the looking glass-and
the Twin Towers-as the “War on  Terror.” 

This June, both presumptive presidential
candidates made their obligatory supplication at the American Israel
Public Affairs  Committee convention in Washington D.C. In the
“looking glass” world  of American politics, candidates for
national office-from federal  dogcatcher to the White House-cannot
get elected without first being  “voted in” by Israel’s representatives
in the United States. 

John McCain told the AIPAC audience,
“The State of Israel stands . . . as the great democracy of the Middle
East. [It has]  thrived and . . . built a nation that’s an inspiration
to free  nations everywhere.” 

Barack Obama told the same audience,
“In a state of constant insecurity, Israel has maintained a vibrant
and open discourse, and a resilient commitment to the rule of law.” 

The White Queen told Alice, “Sometimes
I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” 

In 1948, Uncle Sam was the first in line
to recognize the birth of the State of Israel in the Land of Palestine.
The birth pain of this  “great [Jewish-only] democracy of the
Middle East” is known to the  entirety of the Arab world as the
“Nakhba” (catastrophe)-the murder  of 800 Palestinian Arabs
in twenty-four separate Israeli terror  attacks that were calculated
to initiate the “ethic cleansing” of  700,000 Palestinians
and the destruction of 500 villages. 

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel
occupied and began to illegally settle the whole of the Land of Palestine.
It has since created an apartheid state whose “resilient commitment
to the rule of law” has  forced over four million Palestinians
behind walls and beyond the  reach of human rights. 

In its sixty-years as an “inspiration
to free nations everywhere,”  Israel has yet to draft a constitution,
much less a bill of rights.  To do so would mean the self-destruction
of the Jewish State as  envisioned by the Zionist ideology that
created and sustains it. If Israel is to self-destruct, it will be in
an apocalyptic battle to  save itself from itself. 

Uncle Sam’s implicit support for Israel’s
repressive policies against the Palestinian people and his overt support
of Israel’s aggression against neighboring states has blown back through
the looking glass with Iran’s determination to acquire the nuclear
technology with  which to both power and protect itself. 

As AIPAC-vetted politicians vow to “totally
obliterate” Iran if it continues along a nuclear path, the other side
of the looking glass reveals Uncle Sam offering to help the Shah develop
an Iranian nuclear weapons program in the 1970s, just as he had earlier
given a wink and a nod-and no doubt assistance- as Israel began
developing its now 200-strong nuclear arsenal. 

Uncle Sam’s foreign policy in the Middle
East has created Alice’s contrary world where “what is, it wouldn’t
be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would.” It is a world filled with
the “sort of memory” that always works forward to become the stuff
of nightmares and the roost for returning chickens. 

Alice:

Uncle Sam:

“Well said!”

Alice:

“It would be so nice if
something made sense for a change.”

Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor
to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital
Times in Madison, WI.  He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com