Parts 1 and 2 of this essay concentrated mainly on the geography of the Middle East and the politics that flows partly from it. Part 3 concerns the hard part …the stubborn people, high and low and whether they can actually see their own best interests.

The key is Turkey: The Turkish ruling group are the political descendents of the great Kemal Ataturk (the Turkish general who slapped our little white bottoms at Gallipoli. Gallipoli is Turkey’s Kokoda.) He was a non believing muslim who wanted a Western Turkey. He secularised Turkey to a broad degree; however the unspoken prayer of this group was always to be accepted as Europeans. The rise of the European Union gave them their opportunity and they have pursued entry relentlessly.

 Turkey will be refused entry to the EU. When this final refusal comes (because they are not Christian Europeans, they are muslim Turks), the Secular Agenda in Turkey will experience a defining existential crisis. To salvage this serious situation (and turn the refusal of the EU into an opportunity for the people of the Middle East) the European Union must, with American help, propose for the area covered by this map, a ‘Middle East Economic Community’, (MEEC). This is an organization below the level of political union which exists now in Europe; rather, it is a union which concentrates on economics, as did the original EEC, the European Economic Community. In short, a resurrection of the economic unity that existed under the Ottoman Empire, without the political control by the Turks.

The starting point for this is the endemic and peace threatening poverty in which almost all the muslim peoples in this area live. This poverty must be eradicated both for the sake of the people there and for the safety of the West. Straight after the end on WW1 intelligent leaders in the West saw that Communism had to be opposed by raising the standard of living of the entire West, to cut off any appeal that Communism might have on people living in grinding poverty. That program of steadily rising living standards paid off, especially after 1945. We now need to do the same for the muslims in the Middle East, lest their poverty result in (nuclear?) destructive messianic Islam or tidal waves of muslim economic refugees into Europe. This is not identical to the Marshall Plan, because the finances for such a ‘Middle East Economic Community’ are indigenous…oil and gas.

This will not be easy because there are seriously powerful Western interests who would oppose such a scheme, principally the arms merchants (2nd biggest business in the world?) and the oil companies who want oil prices to keep rising, rather than settle into a sensible band of $40-$50 per barrel. This project to raise Middle East muslim standards of living would require the same level of grim determination that the Western bourgeoisie showed in gutting the power of the aristocrats and Kings in the18th and 19th centuries. Today’s ‘aristocrats and kings’ are the arms merchants, oil companies and illicit drug traders. All three put their own personal interests (like true aristocrats) ahead of the long term interest of the West. Why should the core of Western civilization …the bourgeoisie, the middle class, the mittelstand… keep silent while the current ‘aristocrats’ endanger everything we have gained? (Yes, Operator, I can hold on for Madame La Guillotine…)

A perfect administrative centre for this MEEC is Baghdad. This city is a famous venue, of almost mythic standing in the soul of the Arab Nation. (Intelligent readers can surmise how upset and vengeful the average Arab becomes when he sees this city ruthlessly bombed by Outsiders). If Baghdad was a city state, its only real business would be the running of the MEEC. Your average Baghdadi is educated and secularist (in a muslim sense); these people could make a success of administering such a program. A city without other interests like armies and oppression would be able to concentrate on Tomorrow, and not exhaust itself trying to justify a terrible Today with appeals to Yesterday.

To prevent backsliding, the MEEC would have to include Christian Armenia and Jewish Israel. Both are indigenous to the Middle East in a way that Turkey is not indigenous to Europe. Shia and Sunni Islam would both have to, finally, adopt a vital element of ‘human modernity’, that is, ‘live and let live’.

The oil and gas revenues are paid to the Middle East by their customers in the Modern World. Modern World standards of accounting (not HIH standards) would have to be introduced, with a substantial percentage of the revenue going to Baghdad directly, to pay for the broadly determined and strictly economic programs to raise living standards.

None of this can be done with Sharia Economics. Crushing this poisonous snake will be the first job of the statesmen from Europe and America (when they eventually emerge; not one is on the horizon as we speak). Progress is only possible with Euro/American laws on banking, property, starting a business, commercial contracts, private property, labour laws, real human rights, freedom of speech and religion (or lack of it), right to privacy and a personal life (young men and boys of a gay-ish persuasions are still, in 2006, being publicly hanged in the streets of Iran, and murdered by ‘police’ in Iraq).

The MEEC would require a Parliament, elected by all, similar to the European Parliament. However, this MEEC Parliament (sitting in one of Saddam’s palaces?) would only deal with economic projects. Leave each country in the MEEC to have its own laws and customs. By having free movement between the MEEC states, like the EU, people who don’t like Law X, Y or Z in their locality, will be able to move to more congenial climes. Needless to say, the death penalty will have to go. Full Stop. End of Story. (If this could be done, maybe an effort could then be made to end the death penalty in truly bestial and savage jurisdictions like Texas).

I consider that this type of project is the only project which could have any real success on a long term basis. The Middle East has had 60 odd years of ceaseless turmoil and bloodshed; the internet is relentlessly breaking down the isolation which was always the sine qua non for the success of backward Islam; millions of muslims are stranded in Europe, unable to move forward into societies which do not want them, and unable to return to deathly poverty back home. Something has to be done to break the ongoing fall of all of these people, if not for their sake, then for ours.

A project like this, requiring the rearrangement of frontiers to satisfy the more pressing needs of the local peoples, could attract the wider support of the ordinary people  once they saw that it was serious about fighting poverty. It is clearly in the immediate cultural, social and political interests of the West for the (never-ending) ‘Middle East Crisis’ to start winding down and basic prosperity for ordinary Arabs to start spreading out.

Not every group currently in a saddle today will have a place in the MEEC. Wahhabi Islam, like German Fascism, has absolutely no future at all. It would have to go, root and branch. The Saudi ‘Royal’ Family, parasites sans pareil, would also need to join their ‘cousins’ the Romanovs and Bourbons at fashionable European watering holes (or, perhaps, return to their synagogues in Baghdad); other ruling groups in the area would have to take their luck at the polls. Most likely these others would all hang on, as the reformers in those families would, at last, come to power. The reign of the imams would have to come to an end. The establishment (and enforcement) of the modern principle of ‘live and let live’ would kill off the worst of the imams. The howls of the losers could only be drowned out if there were obvious improvements in everyone’s standard of living. Backward social norms would see the immediate exodus of the skilled manpower from the backward state, making economic development difficult. A few elections would solve that problem.

The stoking of the ‘growth furnace’ would stop the endless outrush from the Middle East and would also promote the return of many now abroad. (Speaking personally, the Middle East is a damn fine place to live if one can get a few ‘necessaries’ in order. Many Arabs whom I met outside the Middle East would love to return, ‘if it was possible’ as they all said. The West suits us. Arabs are not Westerners, by and large. It is always a strain for them to live here.)

This sketchy outline is presented as a stimulus to thinking on a matter which touches Australia. Many other factors could be mentioned in this account, but space constrains us all. The current international paradigm of ‘thinking’ on the Middle East is obviously utterly bankrupt. Neither Europe nor America has anyone in elected office remotely resembling a statesman. The American Presidency and the administration of that Great Republic has degenerated to moronic and criminal levels; the seven leading European leaders could all get work in a production of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’. It will be essential to have real leadership on this matter, 1945 standard leadership. The finances are available, the terrible, easily repeatable, histories are there as warnings, and the internet steadily, day by day, destroys walls of separation between people, exposing what we have and they don’t. Can this really just go on, without, some day there being some truly awful collapse?

All that is needed is leadership.

Sir Wellington Boot
Menzies Mews
Ben Chifley Drive
Prosperity  NSW.