Dennis Ross's Recipe for Disaster in the Middle East | Middle East Eye

Dennis Ross's Recipe for Disaster in the Middle East | Middle East Eye:

 

A collective sigh of relief was almost audible across Washington and other western capitals when Abdel Fattah el-Sisi accomplished the mission and successfully staged his blood-drenched military coup. They could all go back to business as usual with the Arabs. No need for the newly devised strategy of containment. No need to sing the praises of freedom, or pay lip service to the emancipation of nations or the popular will. Sisi's US-furnished tanks and Gulf Sheikhdom petrodollars took care of tarnishing and demolishing the unwelcome Arab Spring. Time to rewind to pre-January 2011 and reconnect with old friends and companions. They have been sorely missed, indeed!

Ditch the new rhetoric of "change", "transition", "democratisation", "the popular will" and "mutual respect", and pull the worn out familiar dictionary in constant use since World War II out of the drawer. It's now back to "stability", "security", "our interests", and all the other euphemisms for forced political stagnation, active obstruction of change, and the coercively imposed status quo.

 

As
US and European patrons look on, petro-dollars and manufactured anarchy
may succeed in delaying change in the Middle East, but not in the long
run, writes Soumaya Ghannoushi