On February 6, the Japan Times published an article entitled "Why "Other Countries" Reject the West", written by Fawaz A. Jergis, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom. The full text is excerpted below:
As the war in Gaza enters its fourth month, many in the Middle East and the Global South are appalled by the brutality of Israel's military operations and the unwavering support of Western countries** for Israel.
For these "other" non-Western people, the indifference of Western leaders to the scale of the destruction of this war has once again confirmed how cheap Arab lives are in the eyes of Western leaders.
Recent events are all too familiar to those who lived through the Cold War and witnessed how the Western powers treated countries and their peoples after the end of colonial rule. As I argue in my new book, The Real Problem: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East, the United States and other Western countries (primarily the United Kingdom) have pursued interventionist, militaristic, and anti-democratic foreign policies for nearly a century, largely ignoring the interests of the people of the Middle East. Indeed, Western decision-making has historically been driven by the desire to contain communism and ensure the dominance of liberal capitalism.
To achieve these twin goals, the United States has offered Middle Eastern leaders an either/or "zero-sum" option: either join a Western-led regional defense coalition and open the economy to global capital, or be seen as an enemy.
For the people of the region, despite the West's rhetoric about democracy and the rule of law, the lives and rights of the people of the Middle East are insignificant in the West's calculations. This is illustrated by the Western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the decades-long occupation.
Obama was the first U.S. to hint at a different approach. In a 2014 speech at the U.S. Army Military Academy (West Point), he strongly criticized the United States for its perpetual wartime state and tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. The most costly mistake the United States has made in the Middle East, he argued, was not due to restraint, but to "the willingness to engage in military adventures without considering the consequences – the failure to build international support and legitimacy for action, and the failure to be honest about the sacrifices that the American people need to make."
Regrettably, Biden, who belongs to the Cold War generation in the US leadership, does not seem to have such a sober view as Obama.
Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023, exposed the folly of Biden and Netanyahu's approach. Since then, the West has neither restrained nor made an effort to think about the consequences of the current war. On the contrary, Biden and his European allies wholeheartedly support Israel's all-out assault on Gaza.
At the same time, skirmishes on the Israeli-Lebanese border, as well as U.S.-led airstrikes on Houthi positions in Yemen and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, suggest a potential for further escalation. The United States and Great Britain are gradually being drawn into the war in the region again, albeit this time with their eyes wide open (knowing that there will be problems and difficulties).
The Middle East today is more unstable than it has ever been in modern history. The strategy of the West is already a huge failure, and the effects of this failure will be a burden on the world for a long time. (Compiled by Shen Jian).