Excerpts from Lyndon LaRouche’s address at Central Connecticut State University, in New Britain, Connecticut, on May 4, 2009:
I shall suggest it is an error to talk a Middle East policy. That is, I think, one of the reasons we have a problem with the Middle East, is, we keep talking about a Middle East policy. Instead of talking about a conflict in the so-called Middle East, we should talk about the Middle East as a conflict, and a conflict that is largely global, especially within the context of nearby European and related civilization.
This is demonstrated, especially, since the British took over the Middle East, in a process which began with the development of petroleum in what is now called Kuwait, by the British monarchy.…
Out of that, the breakup of the Turkish, the Ottoman, Empire, came a new situation, in which the British, with their puppets in France, formed what was called the Sykes-Picot coalition, under which the entire area was intended to be carved up between France and Britain, as a joint colony, as such.…
Now, if you look back on this thing, and look at what the conflict in this region is, since the developments of the late 19th Century, this has always been an area of conflict. But people look at this, and say, “This is a conflict among this person or that person.” And, more recently, since the end of World War II, it’s considered a conflict between Israelis, or Jews, and Arabs—which is also, not quite true.
What we have to do, is think of this area, as I said, as being an area within the world—the Middle East is a part of the world!—the conflict in the Middle East is a part of the world conflict, not the other way around.
But then, look at it from the standpoint of economics: What is important about this area, which is called today the Middle East? Why is it such a cockpit of conflict? Why has it been such a cockpit of conflict since way before anybody knew of a Jew in the Middle East? In the ancient wars, among Egypt, among the Hittites, among the people of Mesopotamia, and similar kinds of wars. The wars of the 7th Century B.C., which involved essentially, the Greeks, allied with the Egyptians, against Phoenicia, and the extension of Phoenicia in the Western Mediterranean, being combatted and controlled by another civilization, there.
So, the conflict is ancient.…
And, in this situation, something happens. You have a culture whose leading characteristic, in this known period, was that of a maritime culture, not an inland culture. There were inland cultures, but they were not progressive, in the sense that the maritime cultures were progressive, scientifically, or the equivalent of science, and culture.
So, what now is the meaning of this area we call the Middle East, at that point? It’s an area between the Mediterranean, which becomes a center of growing culture, and the Indian Ocean, and Asia in general.…
Come back then to the situation in the so-called Middle East. And see the Middle East, not as having its own history, but the Middle East as something within the process of history.
And the other part is, don’t look at the Israeli-Arab conflict. Don’t ignore it, but don’t look at it. Because the conflict is not determined by the Israelis or Arabs. It’s determined by international forces which look at this region. How? As a crossover point between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, the relationship of Europe to Asia, the relationship of Europe to East Africa, and so forth.
Therefore, what you’re seeing is that.
Now, go back and say, where did the British get this idea—as they did with Sykes-Picot—where did they get the bright idea of keeping the Arab population, and what became the Israeli population, at odds with each other permanently? Killing each other over land that wasn’t worth fighting over, in terms of its quality.
Ask yourself, what is the development of this territory? What is the development of the conditions of life of the people? The development of the conditions of life of the typical Israeli? Look at the Israeli of the 1950s and ’60s, and even the ’70s, the early ’70s, where there was progress. What do you see today? You see decadence. Accelerating decadence, and an increase in warfare.
What do you see in the Arab condition? Decadence. And you sit there with despair, and you say, are these people just going to kill themselves into extinction? Kill each other into extinction? What’s wrong here?
Well, somebody’s playing them. Somebody’s playing and orchestrating the situation.…
It’s like the principle of the Seven Years War: Get the other guys to kill each other; then you come in and take over the mess. That’s the way the British Empire has always operated.…
Now, this is easy to do. If you get people who don’t understand the principle of Westphalia, the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, who don’t understand this. Our interest as human beings, is not to kill each other, or not to engage in killing each other for the purpose of trying to get power over other people. Our purpose should be, to set up a system of sovereign nation-states, under which each group of people, using their own language, and their own culture, is self-represented. But these nations, as such, so formed, must have also a common interest, in the betterment of the general condition of mankind.
The only thing that’s worth fighting for, is to prevent evil from happening to this effort, and to promote this effort, for the common aims of mankind.…
The problem, when you look at this thing in the Middle East, you say, this is a disaster. What are these two groups of people going to do with this damn warfare? They’re going to destroy each other. They’re going to destroy civilization by spreading this disease. What are they fighting for? To kill somebody else? To eliminate somebody else?
Or are they fighting to make their own people more successful, as human beings, by finding ways of cooperation with people of a different religious or similar culture?
The principle of Westphalia.
We get so involved with the issues of the Middle East, that we find we can never solve them! The way we’re playing it, we’ll never solve them.
We will make efforts: Maybe the United States, if it had the right President, could force a peace, with the support of other nations. But without some force, there’s no tendency for agreement in this region. There’s a tendency for perpetual killing. And what many of you can do is, to try to ameliorate that thing, and slow down the killing rate, try to keep it from spreading. To get them not to do it for another day. There are no guarantees.
There is a solution, a solution in principle. And the solution is: End this blasted imperialist system! And understand that we, as a people, must develop our spiritual culture; that is, the creative powers of mankind, to carry further the development of mankind, from some brutish character by a campfire a million years ago, or so, into mankind as we desire that mankind should develop today. That’s the issue.…
We have to move, therefore, from thinking about conflict among nations and regions, to the alternative to conflict, by finding that which unites us through our common purpose, as independent sovereign nations, rather than seeking resolution of a conflict we are now enjoying among ourselves. That’s the only chance we have. And when you look at the possibilities for this region, like Southwest Asia, the only chance will come, not from inside Southwest Asia. We will do, and must do, what we can, for that area, to try to stop the bloodshed, the agony, to prevent the war. But we will not succeed, until we change the history, change the world in which this region is contained.
And that’s my mission.
