Saturday, February 5, 2011

Maher Arar, Pundit

Canada: a land of opportunity. Or, in the case of Maher Arar, a chap who sold us all a tale of woe about his torture in Syria--for the bargain price of $10.5 million--opportunism. For where else but in Canada could a fellow like Arar parlay his suffering into punditry status? Here he is in the Ottawa Citizen 'splaining why the U.S. (foolishly) backed Mubarak all those years. (Here's a hint: the Jews are involved, of course):
The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has mainly been guided by three objectives, namely: to guarantee the security of Israel, its main ally in the region, to fight against terrorism, and to prevent Islamists from reaching power. This explains why successive U.S. administrations have preferred the status quo in the Middle East.
Thanks, Maher. That's most insightful.

The U.S. is currently taking its licks from the likes of Arar and media lefties (and some righties, too) for daring to prop up the dictator Mubarak. But given the Arab's world's propensity for authoritarianism (a function of an Islamic mindset: see the Cairo Declaration of sharia-decreed "human rights"), can Arar honestly imagine that anyone--least of all the Egyptians--would have been better off with 30 years of Islamist rule, or 30 years of chaos (the only viable alternatives to 30 years of "status quo")?

Update: Also in the Ottawa Citizen--something of an antidote to Arar's blarney--Barry Rubin explains why "democracy" in Egypt is a non-starter:
Egypt is a poor country with limited resources and a very high population density. Any democratically elected government cannot deliver very much to the population. That means either before or after the balloting, the rulers of this new Egypt will be under tremendous pressure to turn to demagoguery, blaming everything on the West and Israel. Going to war becomes quite tempting. Indeed, this is what characterizes much Middle East history.

Furthermore, in comparison to other Arab countries such as Tunisia, most of the “moderate” and “pro-democratic” forces — not all of them — are pretty radical themselves. Egypt is also the only country where such people often look to the Islamists as allies...

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