Robert Fisk: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East

After nearly a year and a half, I've finally finished reading this 1,286 page tome (not counting endnotes, a bibliography and index. It is an interesting and must read for those interested in Middle Eastern affairs. Fisk writes from decades of experience as a foreign correspondent for the British newspaper, The Independent. Written in 2005, this book is a retrospective on his work and tries to makes sense of the many conflicts that he has witnessed. His frustration and disgust regarding the many injustices he perceives is palpable. Depending on one's perspective, his judgements can seem understandable or harsh. After reading the last page, and reflecting on the whole book, it seems to me that Fisk's anger stems from a naivety born from a set of flawed beliefs: 1 A western view that all the responsibilities one bears in life are individual in nature that the "sins" of a nation or the leaders of a nation, should not be carried on the shoulders of its citizens. Thus he does little to hold despots such as the Ottomans, Saddam Hussein, the Taleban and Arafat responsible for the suffering of their peoples. 2 The international competition for the world's resources is in some way distasteful and should be avoided. Thus foreign investment in Middle Eastern lands is an illegal capture of an indigenous people's resources. He pays no attention to the fact that that they might have willingly sold those rights to foreigners in return for benefits they would not otherwise have enjoyed. Often these benefits were siphoned off into personal bank accounts rather than distributed for the good of their societies. He does not sufficiently lay the blame for indigenous poverty on indigenous corruption and graft. 3 In war, "civilians" should never die. Any death of a civilian is an injustice. This is a corollary of Belief 1. The belief ignores the reality of war. To Fisk, the fact that Western manufactured arms should result in the deaths of civilians is a grave injustice. He urges that Western arms manufacturers should somehow prevent their clients from using them in a way that results in civilian deaths. His focus is on the West and only the West in this regard. He doesn't try to lobby Chinese, Eastern European, North Korean or Russian manufacturers. 4 In peace, justice should be perfect. Therefore ideas such as modus vivendi have no place in Fisk's world. For him, the creation of Israel itself is an injustice. He cannot see the linkage between the method being, albeit flawed, continuation of the more successful Greek-Turkish and Muslim-Hindu conflicts. In the latter two cases, significant displacement of peoples was accepted as a necessary step toward a lasting peace. He accepts these instances of peace making without question, even though generations of familial history must be broken in order to bring it to pass. The creation of Israel is an attempt to create a safe homeland for an ethnic group that had suffered from considerable prejudice that spanned many nations. Its creation meant the displacement of people so that millions more could live. The current Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a direct result of a flawed nation state creation process that resulted in the creation of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. For Fisk, the fact that Israel's security fence has clearly curtailed the suicide bomber campaign of the early 2000's matters not. He just sees a tool for entrenching Israel's encroachment on Arab lands. 5 World Peace would be achieved if the West would stop interfering in the Middle East and somehow let them get on with their own lives: a form of Apartheid. At a religious level: The Muslim doctrine of Dawah means they will never leave the West alone. Furthermore, the West's liberal lifestyle, means that Muslim adherents will always see the West as a source of moral decay which must be expunged as an affront to Allah. The Christian doctrine of Mission carries the same mandate to actively promulgate the Gospel in Middle Eastern societies. To me: 1. The injustices of the Middle East should be laid at the feet of Arab and Persian leadership. It is their corruption and thirst for power that has led to their own enrichment, the emergence of an elite and the impoverishment and subjugation of their own peoples. Fisk's criticism is heavily biased against the West. 2. The West's desire to trade and to purchase resources for economic development is fair. It is only unjust when the West steps outside the normal bounds of international law. Examples of unjust behaviour should include using armed force to secure resources or to bend the will of an indigenous people to trade or obtain advantageous trading terms. 3. The roots of the Iraqi War of 2003 stem from Hussein's use of biological and chemical weapons on his own people, and his attempts to establish a viable nuclear weapons program. Hussein underestimated the amount of hysteria this could generate in the West. It may be that the Shia and Sunni portions of Iraqi society might be required in order to create a sustainable peace. There is no doubt that there are many tragedies that have resulted from the geo-political games that have been played in the Middle East. Fisk has seen many tragic events first hand. In this, I totally agree with Fisk that these tragic events are due to many injustices. However we differ on our analysis of what these injustices are and the events and motives that led to these events.