Jamal Aliyali
Traditionally, all the regimes in Middle East have in principle prohibited everything within the frameworks of human rights. The effect of this is that the people of these regimes have sought guidance in mosques, their only remaining way of dealing with the circumstances. Most of these regimes are not being supported by the majority of their people, as could be seen in the recent events in Egypt.
Middle East is going through major changes, hopefully democratic ones. Everything is leaning towards the fact that these nations cannot be govern as they previously have been, since the people is refusing to accept it. This means that the new relationships between the new states will cause the rest of the world, and especially the West, to be worried about future developments.
The West has very few alliances in the Middle East, but four of the more important ones are Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia has its own concerns and restrictions towards the Arab and Islamic world; Pakistan has clearly stated that it would rather stop supplying fuel to NATO’s anti-terrorist forces. Turkey considers its own power to be much more important than that of NATO and the West. It has the potential to change positions, and turn against NATO and the Western countries, should it be necessary. Faithful Israel is fully booked with its own errands where it often needs support. Because these relations are not as strong as they could be, it seems that the democratic West needs to be part of the possible alliances which can be formed.
The West should be fully aware that there is a need for new stable allies in the area. Kurds living in the Middle East are about 45-50 million, and their land is being occupied by Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. These states have, through their harsh policies towards Kurds, not even given them the possibility to seek out to the mosques.
The Kurds are a secular people with great potential for change and democracy. The formation of a new state in the area will benefit security and stability, hence democracy. It is time that the Western world makes a different judgement of the new circumstances in the Middle East in order for them to have a chance at creating peace.
Jamal Aliyali
Sweden 24/03-11