Arabian plights

The Arab footprint on our world is profound -- from Islam to astronomy, from oil to Osama bin Laden. But can the threads of a shared language, a mostly shared religion, and overlapping historical experience equip Arab states to the meet the intense pressures of the twenty-first century? The demand for food, water, education, and jobs -- all driven by huge population growth -- plus the big-picture issues of global warming and national and regional security are the stuff of nightmares. Osama bin Laden's attacks on America made him popular on the Arab street, but it was an admiration of despair. Former Australian diplomat Peter Rodgers argues that the most direct way of cleaning up the mess that is today's Middle East is to remove the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the prop both for Arab illiberalism and for foreign meddling. He challenges those who baulk at the idea of putting serious pressure on Israel, of dealing with Hamas, or talking to Iran under the mullahtocracy, to explain how they see the Middle East in 20 years' time. The region's problems, he says, will continue to stain the wider world. The West will continue to guzzle Arab oil at an ever-increasing rate, to wring its hands over the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to fret about Iran, and to decry the shortcomings of the Arab world, while ensuring that no arms sales goes unclosed. Perhaps the real problem of the Arab world, Rodgers concludes, is that it too closely mirrors the hypocrisies of our own.