A reader adds:
Your equating the situation in the Middle East today with the Thirty Years War is a great analogy. But you must be kidding with trying to push the blame for it on to the US, or the start of it as now.
If anything the opening shot of the "Middle-East 30 years’ war" was the collapse of the Shah of Iran. The stated goals of the imams of Iran established that were would me no peace between them and the US – much like Luther posting his bull on the door of the Cathedral set the 30 years war in motion. It really got going with the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s. Since then it has been stewarded forward enthusiastically by the likes of Al Qaeda and Iran. During this time we have gone from stoking it (Iran-Iraq war) to trying to stop it (policy up until 9/11) to being thrown into the middle of it because of 9/11. We didn’t involve ourselves in their 30’s years war; they involved us in it by attacking us as part of it.
Take out 9/11 and the US goes back to a policy of trying to maintain the status quo in the Middle-East; the very status quo that Iran and al Queda were already working overtime to topple. Iran’s desire to be the regional hegemon and Al Qaeda’s desire to establish a Caliphate over the entire Islamic world are the real drivers of today’s middle-east instability. Unfortunately for them and everyone else, this increases stress on centuries old fault-lines in the region; Shia-Sunni, Arab-Persian, Arab-Turk, Arab-Kurd (noticing a pattern here?).
Unfortunately those stoking this don’t see that there is a much larger chance that it will all lead to a pointless 30 years war type decimation of the entire region and the destruction of both Al Qaeda and Iran, than to either of their desired results. They need look no further that what happened to the once high ideals of the Catholic League and Protestant Union in the historic 30 years war. Once these ideals were mixed with the ambitions of nations and fueled by the barbarity inherent in men who "know" they are doing God’s will, a terrible fate awaits.
My point is that we have every reason not to be in the very middle of this with 130,000 troops. Let the Sunnis fight the Shiites. Let the Arabs fight the Persians. We can play the conflict from a distance, but it would be fatal to be in the thick of it.
Update: Another reader adds:
Your reader who thinks that ‘Luther posting his bull on the door of the Cathedral set the 30 years war in motion’ should check his facts. The Thirty Years‚Äô War started in 1618. Luther by then had been dead for 72 years, having nailed his theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg in late 1517, a full century before the Thirty Years War began.
For three decades every major European power duked it out in Germany, not on their own territories. Life became a living hell of bare survival, agriculture receded, and the dark forests grew back with wolf populations that in time of famine preyed on stray kids – it’s no coincidence that this is the era when the frightening stories set down in Grimm’s Fairy Tales were first told. By the time the war was done, half the population was exterminated, and the rest reduced to poverty and ignorance.
In fairness to my reader, you could argue that the Reformation was the religious split that made the Thirty Years War possible. At least, that’s how I took his email. And yes, it was a nightmare. But it took that nightmare to establish the need for an alternative form for organizing politics other than religion. Maybe the Middle East needs to learn that lesson first hand. Maybe no one can teach it. And in many ways, it has already started. What is Iraq today but a stage for murderous religious passion?
The Dish 