Monday, January 5, 2004
This speech by Kenneth M. Pollack, author of The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, [You read that, didn't you? I rushed to get it read before the invasion, but believe me, it's still relevant.] and current Director of Research for the Saban Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the Brookings Institution given last Novemeber is a good read. Pollack starts with a run-down of some of the social and economic problems in the Middle East with some of the hows and why's for why the Arab world is so lagging, and then swings into why success in Iraq is so imperitive for changing this landscape and fighting terror.
Draining the Arab Swamp By Kenneth M. Pollack
The Arab states are broken. They are absolutely stagnant, politically, economically, and socially. And their people know it. Arabs are deeply angry and frustrated with the situation they find themselves in because of the stagnation of the Arab world. We hear about how angry the "Arab street" is, but I don't think most people realize what is really wrong in the Arab world...
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