[walden]

"I wouldn't say that the West has a very good record in any of these countries. Western influence has been hugely destructive in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has largely been irrelevant to the development of Jordan and Syria. "

American interference in Afghanistan was pretty much non-existant prior to its invasion by the Soviets-- and even then, the money we sent was funnelled through the Pakistani intelligence agencies because we wanted plausible deniability. Anyway, people who argue about how wrong we were in Afghanistan are just like the people who argue how wrong we were to support South Vietnam. Interestingly enough, all of the actual South Vietnamese immigrants to this country that I know think our only sin was to desert them. I agree with them. Our fault in Afghanistan was not that we supported those fighting the Soviets, but that we pulled out and left them to be preyed on by their Muslim neighbors.

I'm not aware of anything we've done in Iraq, other than stomp them out of Kuwait. Likewise, I don't think we've done much of anything in Syria. Jordan is another case, though: haven't you seen their young king on television? Very reasonable, very moderate, British-educated, and very interested in advancing his country into the modern age. Seems like pretty good western influence to me.

As for Saudi Arabia, you may think it's just fine to abandon them to two generations of Islamic fascism, but besides turning their lives to misery and creating a flood of refugees into the west, I think it's likely to make them more virulent sponsors of international terrorism than they already are. Bad idea, in my book.

[Architect]

You have a curious habit of using the word West to refer to Western civilization when it serves your purposes and using it to refer to - roughly - the NATO countries when that it helpful.

Re: Afghanistan
This about western influence. western I think we have established the fact that communism is western. Besides, Afghanistan was (relatively) better off under Soviet rule than under the murderous thugs funded by the US.

Re: Iraq
In the Gulf War, the west could have decided to leave things alone, or to liberate Kuwait, or to take overthrow Saddam. All of these decisions would have been reasonable. The actual choice: to murder a hundred thousand soldiers attempting to withdraw from Kuwait and to follow up with the destruction of the country's infrastructure and a cruel and senseless embargo is, to say the least, obscene.

Re: Saudi Arabia
Their country. Their problem. Stop supporting corrupt monarchies and let them worry what the next step is.

Re: Jordan
The West has not meddled much in this country at all, like Syria. Some places get lucky in their choice of monarch. Syria has done less well than Jordan. Hopefully, they'll do better after the old buzzard dies. Like Portugal did, for example.