The Times
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
Keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
There’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
The loser now will be later to win, for the times they are a-changin’
Is it over-the-top to quote Bob Dylan, who surely had different changes in mind? Maybe, but hyperbole has its place.
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
Keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
There’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
The loser now will be later to win, for the times they are a-changin’
Is it over-the-top to quote Bob Dylan, who surely had different changes in mind? Maybe, but hyperbole has its place.
In the 1980s, JINSA described the goal of Soviet influence in the Middle East as a pincer surrounding the oil fields. It was anchored in the invasion of Afghanistan, with the northern arc across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The southern arc was less successful, with a base in Yemen and meddling in The Horn of Africa. Egypt was a partial setback. Although Sadat threw the Russians out after the 1973 debacle, he remained a leader of the pro-Soviet “nonaligned” movement.
The American reaction was to hold close the oil-rich dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States and Sudan, plus the non-oil dictatorship in Jordan; support Iraq in the war it started against Iran; support the mujahaddin in Afghanistan; and bribe Egypt with American military equipment. Lebanon was written off in 1984.
Despite the collapse of the USSR, the results for the United States, frankly, stunk. The oil dictatorships including Iraq – plus Jordan and Egypt – remained dictatorships. Lebanon was occupied by Syria. The pro-American dictatorial Shah fell, replaced by the anti-American dictatorial mullahs. Sudan went from secular dictatorship to Islamic dictatorship, producing drastic suffering for the non-Muslim populations. Afghanistan went from Soviet to Taliban occupation – from awful to worse.
Dictatorship is the common thread – whether a government was supported by the Soviets or the Americans during the Cold War, the people were consigned to the scrapheap. They were the “losers” of whom Dylan said “later would win,” though don’t for a minute think he knew it. Hindsight is a marvelous tool.
At Whitehall in 2003, President Bush admitted the chief shortcoming of Western politics. “(We) have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time; while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold… we (cannot) think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.”
Speaking this week in Brussels, President Bush called the old pincer “an arc of reform from Morocco to Bahrain to Iraq to Afghanistan.” Throw in Lebanon, where Druze leader Walid Jumblatt credits the American invasion of Iraq for opening Arab eyes to the promise of democracy, and the times they surely are a’changin.