How the Middle East is really being remade

A few weeks prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US Council of Foreign Relations held a dinner attended mostly by thirtysomething PhDs to discuss the intended consequences of the war. The participants were exuberant about the opportunity liberating Iraq presented to remake the Middle East. The "transformation of Iraqi society" would be a model and guide for the subsequent transformation of Arab society en masse, they enthused. Ecstatically, they spoke of how first the Iraqis, then other Arabs, would learn of civil society, and how it could lift them out of the morass in which they found themselves.
The criticism of Iraqi and Arab society was based on pity and academic disdain, rather than vitriol and hostility. The Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula were pointed to as special examples of a blighted society in desperate need of uplifting. These "artificial societies" were regarded as the worst example of what dark turns Arab culture could take. The diners eagerly convinced each other that Arab culture and society needed a sharp and devastating blow that would "shock and awe" them, so that the English-speaking West could get its attention. They also assumed that after its liberation, a supine Iraqi population, unshackled from its old political masters, would lie quietly while American academics worked their magic and miraculously presented them with a new society.
Their reasons were not the ones proffered to the US public. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz confessed to Vanity Fair magazine that the weapons of mass destruction claims were a useful "bureaucratic argument", and "the one issue everyone could agree on". As has been revealed in recent books by former White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke and insider journalist Bob Woodward, the war against Iraq had been on the minds of administration planners probably long before September 11, 2001. The attacks on that day only provided a fillip, allowing the execution of their plans to remake the Middle East. Since the US public could not be sold on a scheme of grand social revision, the marketing strategy relied on fear, and the various imminent threats that Saddam Hussein allegedly posed.
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Now they stand more or less in control of a country seething with resentment and on the verge of open insurrection, and still without a plan in sight. No wonder President Bush launched the Greater Middle East peace initiative as a separate action; achieving his long-term goals of democratizing the region would not happen from within Iraq.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE21Ak01.html

Brief but interesting discussion about what has happened to US relations (including business relations) with Gulf region nations since the invasion.

Amazing how arrogant the neocons are, isn't it?

Lazy, greedy, lying momma's boys! yep, that's the ticket!