29 January 2014

Daniel Pipes: The sick Middle East

Daniel Pipes | January 28, 2014

The recent fall of Fallujah, Iraq, to an Al-Qaeda-linked group provides an unwelcome reminder of the American resources and lives devoted in 2004 to 2007 to control the city — all that effort expended and nothing to show for it. Similarly, outlays of hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize Afghanistan did not prevent the release of 72 prisoners who have attacked Americans.

These two examples point to a larger conclusion: maladies run so deep in the Middle East (minus remarkable Israel) that outside powers cannot remedy them. Here’s a fast summary:

Water is running out. A dam going up on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia threatens to substantially cut Egypt’s main water supply for years. Syria and Iraq suffer from water crises because the Euphrates and Tigris rivers are drying up. Growing the narcotic qat plant absorbs so much of Yemen’s limited water supplies that Sana’a may be the first modern capital city to be abandoned because of drought. Ill considered wheat-growing schemes in Saudi Arabia depleted aquifers.

Poor schools, repressive governments and archaic social mores assure abysmal rates of economic growth. Starvation haunts Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan

On the flip side, the poorly constructed Mosul Dam in Iraq could collapse, drowning half a million immediately and leaving many more stranded without electricity or food. Sewage runs rampant in Gaza. Many countries suffer from electricity blackouts, especially in the oppressive summer heat that routinely reaches 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

People are also running out. After experiencing a huge and disruptive youth bulge, the region’s birth rate is collapsing. Iran, for example, has undergone the steepest decline in birth rates of any country ever recorded, going from 6.6 births per woman in 1977 to 1.6 births in 2012. This has created what one analyst calls an “apocalyptic panic” that fuels Tehran’s aggression.

Poor schools, repressive governments and archaic social mores assure abysmal rates of economic growth. Starvation haunts Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

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