Prophecies

Nothing Beside Remains

Violence between Muslims is exploding again across the Middle East--adding to the internecine destruction already taking place in Syria.  Welcome to the Arab Spring.  Hail the wonderful new beginning--at least as announced by useful idiots in the West, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom should have known better.  Ah, well--at least it generated a couple of headlines and photo ops. 

The most likely prognosis in Syria these days is that it is shaping up to devolve into three separate regions run by warlords who will (literally) snipe at each other in perpetuity.  The regions will be, respectively, one run by Assad and his Alawite and Shi'ite supporters; the second will be a territory controlled by the Islamist rebels, supported by Sunni nations; the third will be a region controlled by Kurds. 

The smartest thing the West has done in this conflict in Syria is not to get involved militarily (something for which we have Russia to thank).
  The moral obligation to provide humanitarian aid to refugees and the suffering, however, remains compelling.  As is normally the case, private (non-governmental) charities will do a far better job and will create less resentment, provided they are allowed access.

Meanwhile sectarian intra-Islamic violence is exploding across Iraq.  The account below comes from Al Jazeera:

Tribal leaders in Iraq are warning of war unless the country splits into a federation amid a deadly new wave of apparently sectarian violence.  Monday's car bombings across Iraqi cities left at least 77 people dead and more than 240 others injured, police and medics say, pushing the death toll over the past week to above 200.  The worst attack occurred in Baghdad, where 10 car bombs struck open-air markets and other areas of Shia neighbourhoods, killing at least 47 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said.
In the bloodiest incident, a parked car bomb blew up in a busy market in the northern Shia neighbourhood of Shaab, killing 14 and wounding 24, police and health officials said.

The bloodshed still cannot be compared to what reigned during the dark days of 2006-2007, when armed groups carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood.  Even so, the latest attacks have heightened fears that the country could be heading towards civil war.

The havoc and devastation being wrought in people's lives is hard to conceive.  Less dramatic, but equally sobering is a report in The Guardian about the future of Bamiyan province in Afghanistan. This will particularly interest our New Zealand readers because the NZ army has been primarily responsible for "nation building" in that province.  It has recently withdrawn (having experienced the loss of ten army personnel to insurgents) but making what appears to be significant progress in neutering insurgents and building up Afghani capabilities.  Its work has been hailed as a model.

But, as feared, these are just stories we tell ourselves for our own comfort.  They defy reality.  Here is a more sober assessment from Emma Graham-Harrison:

Bamiyan is a magical place, where the ghosts of long-lost power and opulence haunt a valley of spectacular natural beauty. Near the university lie the ruins of a citadel untouched since Genghis Khan sacked it in the 13th century, and although the giant Buddhas lie in fragments, frescos painted over a millennium ago still cling to corners of monastic caves that honeycomb the cliff around them.

It is also haunted by more recent spectres, memories of those killed in Taliban massacres barely a decade ago. Home to a heavily persecuted ethnic and religious minority, it has remained one of the safest places in Afghanistan, partly because the memory of that suffering fuels profound hostility towards the insurgency. . . . That was fine when Afghanistan's insurgency was largely contained, Taliban fighters still focused on areas like Helmand, and Bamiyan was left to its peaceful existence. It was probably the only place in the country where diplomats wandered freely and met Afghans beyond blast walls and security checks that constrict embassy life elsewhere. Even soldiers visited spectacular historical sites in the area, confident they would not be targeted, unthinkable on any other base I have visited in Afghanistan.

So great was the sense of security that Bamiyan was chosen by Nato to be the very first place in the country where Afghan forces officially took over from foreign troops, although the ceremony in 2011 was just a nominal shift to pave the way for real changes this year. But since then the insurgency has spread and violence lapped steadily closer to this virtual island of calm, isolated by mountain peaks rather than water. First one, then both roads to Kabul became a dangerous lottery. The head of the provincial council, a popular man who had done much to help development in a desperately poor area, was abducted and slaughtered in 2011. A US engineer is among the many others killed on the roads since.  The security of the province itself was next to crumble, with fighters pushing in heavily from the east but also testing boundaries to the west. Half of the New Zealand troops killed in combat during the decade-long mission died last August in the Do Ab area bordering Baghlan province, and their April departure was six months earlier than originally planned.

For those left behind, the threat is tangible. "I don't see any Taliban in Bamiyan, but when the foreign soldiers leave they will return and be strong," said Haider Mohammad, a 37-year-old who sold souvenirs to New Zealand troops for six years. Watching as preparations for the farewell ceremony got under way, he added: "When they go, I will leave as well."

One can only hope that these civilians may find some refuge and security.

But once again the New Zealand Bamiyan experience will underscore the reckless millenarian folly of trying to "nation build" halfway around the world in an Islamic "nation".  At least the New Zealand government had the compassion and decency to allow its Afghani interpreters and translators and their families to settle in New Zealand as refugees, since they would have been one of the first targets of the Taliban had they remained. 

Meanwhile, what do we think will be the actual tangible impact of Western interventions in the Middle East and Afghanistan in thirty years time?  Shelley's immortal words will be a prophetic epitaph of that disastrous utopian adventure, we believe:
 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.