Tag Archives: FOT

The Alternative to the Run up to War with Iran

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A couple of years back, I remember posting on a number of message boards that I suspected we were being led towards a war with a Middle Eastern country. I pointed out that our intelligence was HORRIBLE in that area of the world, and that most of our evidence and analysis came from people who were hearing everything second hand from other people who had an actual stake in causing problems between our countries. And then there was a whole bunch of “evidence” presented that I indicated only proved that there were buildings that looked like they had stuff in them, but we didn’t know what was in them, although we were being told weapons of mass destruction were in them because trucks drove up to them. Even Colin Powell stood in front of the UN and told everyone that there were definitely weapons of mass destruction because he had a Powerpoint presentation, which obviously had to be true because Powerpoint has never resulted in incorrect information being relayed to viewers. Anyway, people told me I was full of crap, while the other half of the people told me to shut up. And then shortly after, we went to war. With Iraq. But saying, “I told you so” is so deflating after the country has gone to war, so let’s just say that I commiserated with everyone else, once they stopped celebrating that we were at war and realized that we were, in fact, at war.

Well, it’s kind of happening again. Although people will probably say that they don’t see it. And others will probably tell me to shut up. But I see the exact same signs happening again, in that we’re leading towards a war with Iran because they’re some evil axis of power that does, well, evil things. And they hate us. So, we really will eventually have no choice but to go to war against them and change their evil ways by killing lots of their people, occupying them, teaching them government corruption and then spending the next decade figuring out how to get out of there and leave their new regime to their newly found corrupt ways.

But I wanted to write this to say that we should be concerned because this doesn’t have to happen. Sure, Iran hates us, as they probably should. I mean, we’re all infadels that sleep with our goats, or whatever it is they think we do. Basically, I think it can be narrowed down to the idea that they hate us because we don’t worship out of the same book that they do. Meanwhile, we feel we should invade them and educate them because they don’t worship out of the same book that we do. Of course, our Constitution says we really shouldn’t be discussing that book any way, but we haven’t really read that document in awhile, so we’ve kind of forgotten that. But suffice to say, we’ll probably go to war with them because we don’t understand them any more than they understand us, and neither one of us is really patient enough to sit down and listen to the other long enough to realize that we’ve both really stupid and believe really ridiculous things, which if you think about it is something we actually share in common.

Which is really what we should be focused on: What do we have in common? I’ve been talking about this for years, from my original thesis, Friendship Over Time, which basically means that as cultures start to develop similar customs with each other, they build friendships. And as we create more shared customs, our friendship grows until we have an allied partnership. We’ve seen how this can happen over centuries with nations that once hated each other but are now comrades in arms (and without arms…weapons). People learn to get along because they realize they share too many things in common to want to risk those shared activities. It’s why playing Ping Pong with the Chinese during the Cold War probably kept us from firing missiles at the Chinese during the Cold War. Yeah, it’s a lot less simple than that, but you get the idea.

That’s what we need with Iran right now. Build friendships with the people around them. Find the things they like to do that we like to do and see how we can build off of those shared traits. Think about it. What do we share with the Iranians right now besides a desire to build nuclear weapons? Do we both like to fish? Play soccer? Baseball? Stone virgins for talking to men in public? Or what? Are there activities we COULD share with each other if we found some forum to do so? Granted, we’re probably not going to want to approach each other through religion because those are our failings at friendship. So, we’d look for things we both like to do. If we want to employ State Department people to actually pursue peace, THAT is what they should be looking at, not trying to find some way to negotiate for things that neither side wants to talk about. The ways of peace that existed in the 18th century shouldn’t be the way we pursue peace in the 21st century because somewhere back in the 20th century, we discovered that those methods actually led to nonpeaceful things, like war.

So, as you start to hear the run up for war, I’d like to share with you the basic idea that we do have another way. We just have to be active in trying to pursue it. And honestly, it’s never going to happen from our government because our government is populated by people who have all trained in the same Kool Aid for decades of Cold War failures. Peace can be achieved through the people who aren’t in government. And we already have the vehicle to do it.

It’s called the Internet. We’re already conversing with people in countries that used to hate us. The other day, played World of Warcraft with someone who lives in Vietnam. He speaks English, but he plays on a US server because he wants to know more about America. So, he and I went and beat up demons together. Look. We shared something in common. We both liked casting spells against demons in a game that both of us play. Look how hard that was.

The Internet completely makes this possible if we’re interested in actually using it to do just that. Sure, we can text each other about how outrageous Snookie and The Situation are, or we can start communicating with the people out there who are interested in actually talking.

Or we can let the responsible adults lead us to war and kill them instead. I mean, really. It’s your choice, although history hints at which one you’ll make. So as you suit up to go play soldier in some Middle Eastern country, I’ll be suiting up to go on a quest with my friend from Vietnam. There are demons to kill, and we’re just the guys to do it.

When You First Begin to Realize You’re Never Going to Change the World

Memoirs, Writing, , , , , , , ,

I was one of those little precocious kids who grew up, convinced that he was one day going to change the world. At first, it was going to be through science, as I studied physics, sure that I was able to see the world in ways that no one else possibly could. I had my ground-breaking theory that re-explained the universe’s creation through a process called neutra-matter (my own invention) that was the embodiment of light, and thus, the separation particle that kept the barrier between matter and anti-matter. It all made sense to me, and actually still does. I worked through college to become a physicist, and throughout my education, I devoted a great deal of time just trying to disprove the theory so I could move onto something better. And I never did. So it might be true. Or not. We’ll never know because I didn’t remain in physics, and even if I did, I hit a point where I started to realize that no one really cared.

Yeah, that was true. No one cared. I had this great idea, and I was convinced it could change science. But again, no one cared. So I moved onto a different field. Genetics.

In genetics, I was quickly invigorated with a new idea that consumed my every scientific thought. I now had a convincing argument as to how the AIDS/HIV strain first emerged, and coordinating this theory with the concepts of archaeology (which I was also studying at the time), I realized that there was a way to use my theory to trace down Patient Zero, and possibly erect a cure for AIDS by creating a genetic suppressor from the origin rather than from the current variation of the virus. And it made a lot of sense to me.

So, as this was during the dawn of the AIDS era, I managed to convince a coordinator of the first AIDS conference to listen to my theory, and she was so intrigued by it that she arranged a meeting with me and a group of scientists who were all part of the first conference. They read my report, called me in and then in a round table discussion, asked me all sorts of questions about my theory. And they were intrigued. And then one of them asked me where I got my medical degree, and I revealed that my education was in physics, and that I did not have a medical degree. Essentially, the discussion was over, and no one was really interested in hearing anything else I had to say. In the end, my theory was shelved, and I went on with my life. Decades later, AIDS is still out there, and unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be cured any time soon. Of course, I can’t say my theory would have done it, but it bothers me that it was never followed up.

Many years later, I was in graduate school after doing the whole Ph.d thing in political science. This time, however, I was pursuing communication. And suddenly it dawned on me that our usual process for conducting diplomacy was wrong. In the middle of the night, I woke up with an additive theory, utilizing political science international theory, interpersonal communication theories, a communication rhetoric theory and a mathematical model I designed in my head that would eventually be completed through computer modeling. This new theory, I predicted, would lead to a brand new way of conducting negotiations and diplomacy. Latching onto one of my fellow grad students with a background in history, we wrote up a theoretical paper on this and then presented it at communication conference. After that, a few people from different organizations contacted me by email asking me more questions, but over time, I starrted to realize that it also required people to really think differently than what they were used to. When I tried to present it to the Obama Administration, I realized no one was really interested in learning. People were pretty satisfied with doing things the way they had been doing them since the days of Caesar, so very quickly I got the impression that I was barking up trees that no one wanted me barking near. So I gave up on that as well.

The point is: At some point, you start to realize that no matter how many great ideas you have, eventually you’re probably going to hit the point where you realize that most people generally don’t care. The status quo is so much easier to stick with, so the amount of work involved in getting anyone interested in change is practically at a ridiculous premium. It’s a lot like the Occupy Wall Street movement that’s going on right now. I mean, they have great ideas and the best intentions at heart. But the reality is that no one is going to listen to them, and mostly what they will receive for their efforts is ridicule and pepper spray. You can’t convince people to change their ways, even if the change is in their own best interests.

So, at some point, you have to realize that as much as you like, you can have all of the greatest intentions in the world, but at some point you need to do the proverbial growing up of reality and settle for mediocrity and, if lucky, a small step after a period of anarchical punctuated equilibrium.

That’s where I am now. There are so many things I wanted to do with my life, so many things I thought I would do with my life, but in the end, I realize that it really didn’t amount to much. No fame. No fortune. No changing of the minds of the masses or even a few leaders. Not even a really cool career or a stable girlfriend (or an unstable one for that matter). At some point, you begin to realize that all you really have is an apartment full of friendly stuffed animals, a shelf of unpublished, or crappily published, novels, reruns of Star Trek and a World of Warcraft account. Had I known that a long time ago, I probably would have chosen a much easier route to get here.

When is it Okay to Steal Another’s Ideas?

Business, Economics, Memoirs, Politics, Social Networking, Writing, , , , , , , , , , ,

The other day, I was reading through different blogs, specifically looking for information about a political theory that’s always been one of my pet projects. Because my theory has never made it into the mainstream as theories go, I’ve always followed the ideas that resonate around it, wondering if the political atmosphere of academia will ever change to where my idea might start to have a bit more merit. Anyway, the other day I was following a conversational trend on a particular economic impact on international negotiations when I came across a drawn graph that immediately struck me as very similar to my theory. Well, to be honest, it was not only similar, it was the exact same graph I had drawn five years ago as an explanation of my theory.

I checked for attributions on the graph, wondering where my  name would appear, but none was given. As a matter of fact, the “author” indicated through lack of any information that the graph was completely of his own doing, that he had come up with the economic graph to prove a point that he was making.

I just stared at it, flabbergasted that someone would actually take my own work and claim it as his own. I read through the rest of his theorical post, and what I discovered was that he didn’t even use the graph correctly. So there was my information, used, abused and done so wrongly.

I sent off an email, asking for clarification of where he got the information, but never received a response. I sent off another, and still got no response. I posted a comment on his blog following the article, asking for some clarification, and a few days later, my comment was deleted. No explanation.

I had heard there were people like this, but I never believed it would ever actually happen to me. I mean, my theories are generally nuts, or so out of the mainstream that I don’t expect anyone other than a deranged scientist to ever agree with me. But there it was. Right in front of me. I sent one more email asking for any type of clarification, and the next thing I saw, the whole post just disappeared. The author never responded to me once.

What bothered me the most was that the “author” is somewhat respected in the field, which means that if the two of us were ever in the same room together, everyone would have wanted to talk to him and probably would have ignored me completely. Personally, I have no desire to drag someone’s name through the mud for reasons that really substantiate doing so, but an inner feeling asks me how many others this guy probably does the same to as well. For all I know, my situation is a very isolated incident. But who knows? Certainly not me. Or I. Never really got that grammar rule right.

As a writer, I always assumed that somewhere down the line someone would probably steal one of my ideas, but as an academic, I never actually believed it would happen in academia, or from someone who actually has a lot of respect in the field. Dont get me wrong. I’m not bitter, and I have no desire to go after someone for something like this. Personally, I’ve always accepted that most of my political theories will die with me before they ever get implemented by anyone with the ability to use them.

So I guess I’m just ranting. That’s what blogs are for, aren’t they? I mean, what would Charlie Sheen do? Don’t we always ask that when stuck in a dilemma?

Solving the Middle East Problems is like Dating a Supermodel Who Sees You Only as a Friend

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It’s 2010, and politicians are still trying to solve the “Middle East Crisis”, and they’re doing so by doing exactly what everyone has done before and hoping for different results. As we all know by now, by the overused analogy by Einstein, doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results is the definition of insanity.

We really need to face it: We’re not going to solve the crisis in the Middle East by doing what everyone has tried to do in the past. Getting people to talk is not a solution. It’s not even a stop-gap until we come up with a solution. One side hates the other so much it wants to kill everyone on the other side. The other side is so angry at the other side for hating it throughout history that they’ve pretty much resorted to the same tactics of killing those guys as well. Everyone involved remembers EVERYTHING bad that ever happened, and wants justice and retribution for every bad thing that happened. Neither side remembers a single bad thing they have done, so they don’t seem to see any problems but the ones being caused by the other side.

A major part of the problem is that everyone who tries to negotiate peace does so as if everyone involved has the goal of actually achieving peace. That’s not what they want. Maybe 60 years ago that might have been the case, but some decades ago, it became much more about achieving small, specific goals. All peace negotiations were centered around not achieving those goals in hopes of achieving peace. Bad idea. Not sustainable. Obviously, because now they’re back to killing each other again.

So, how do you solve the problem? Well, here’s what you don’t do: Don’t act as if getting them back to the negotiating table is actual progress. Both sides are usually willing to talk. Neither side is actually willing to do anything to create an atmosphere of peace. They both want their own gains and the demise of the other side. You really don’t have much room to negotiate when it comes down to that.

So, again, what is the solution?

Work it out over time by investing in the future of both entities. This means just giving up on the current actors involved because face it: They’re not going to do anything to further peace. But that doesn’t mean their offspring can’t be influenced. But you have to do it by setting a new paradigm and a new way of looking at things. You also have to go out of your way to not engage the parents in any way, to show future generations that we don’t reward bad people for doing bad things. Until we start to engage this way, we’re always going to be stuck with the current generation that is only going to continue to think in the ways of the erroneous past.

So, how do you do this? I mean, the parents are still around. You can’t just ignore them, right? Actually, I think you can. That’s not to say we can’t still engage them in the hopes of getting them to see the light, but we should go into every negotiation with the belief that the parents are really the problem, so we’re probably not going to achieve any success from them any way. However, we should constantly let it be known that we’re investing in their future, not in them because we’ve already seen that no matter what we do, they’re just going to screw up the future regardless.

This doesn’t mean we just disengage. What it means is that we take a different approach in all things foreign affairs. Our goal should be to start influencing neighbors everywhere by a process of dealing with foreign countries on an honest, straight-forward approach. I know this is a lot different than the old CIA-overthrowing dictators technique we used before, but it may take a generation or two to convince people of our resolve, but once on that path, we’d have a chance of influencing the rest of the world in a new way of handling international affairs. This might also bring to the table the future generations of these countries in the Middle East whose parents we gave up on after realizing that they are never going to understand anything but hate.

I know I’ve made a lot of jokes on how to handle international affairs (Puppy Diplomacy and the Elmo Theory of Containment), but I’m pretty serious about this. I originally called this approach the Friendship Over Time (FOT) Theory, and it’s a mathematics-based foreign affairs approach that involves iterative contacts with countries rather than incremental approaches and our current method of unilateral tit for tat (but never following it up) diplomacy.

As the title of this post indicates, our current process is a lot like dating a supermodel who is only capable of seeing you as a friend. It sounds like a great idea, and it might make you look good when you’re out on a date, but in the end, you’re going to go home every night hating yourself, wondering why she can never see you as anything better. For women, it’s a lot like dating me. Okay, that doesn’t make sense, but I assure you there’s a really funny joke in there somewhere.

Right now, Secretary of State H. Clinton is trying to make a name for herself by deluding herself into believing that bringing the Middle East heads of state to the table is actually accomplishing something. Instead, what it is going to do is set up a new process of disappointment that will most definitely lead to hostilities, broken promises and further deterioration of potential peace in the Middle East. I really wish people could see that instead of leading us down a false path of hope, thinking that somehow people who hate each other are somehow going to change their natural way of being.

This just in: Beating Your Head Against the Wall Leads to Results…a bruised head and a broken wall

Politics, , , ,

I’ve talked about this before, but no one really seems to listen or care, but here it is again just for the fun of it. It appears that North and South Korea are rattling sabers and could be moving from posturing to actual fighting. The North Koreans may have (most likely) sunk a South Korean warship, and right now everyone is going nuts trying to get the North Koreans to admit their crime. Secretary of State H. Clinton says they have to own up to their deed. South Korea says they have to admit what they did, because they now have proof. North Korea says “make me!”. In other words, it’s business as usual on the Korean Peninsula.

You see, this has been going on ever since the two halves of one country decided to separate. Or someone decided to separate them. They both want to be back together, and but neither one of them is ever going to happy until the other one is gone. It’s kind of a bizarre set of circumstances, but that’s where they are.

What is NOT working is how we’ve always handled this. Our foreign policy approach to Korea has always been the old game theoretic model of tit for tat. It’s such a simple strategy that even a monkey can play it. Actually, they do. Give a monkey a banana, and he eats it. He might even do some tricks. Or throw poo at you. Monkeys aren’t really good at responding the way you’d want them to. Neither are North Koreans. And technically, they’re a lot smarter than monkeys. Can monkeys fire torpedoes? I don’t think so. So, yes North Koreans are a lot smarter than monkeys. So tit for tat is one of those great strategies that should work because North Koreans are smart enough to respond in a good way when you act in a good way towards them.

Well, that would work if North Koreans were computer programs that respond in a game theoretic fashion. And that’s the problem with game theories. They’re designed for a rational world, where people do what is in their own best interests. There’s no such thing as pride and prejudice (or other Penguin classics for that matter) in the rational choice world. People do what they do because it’s in their best interests. Or so we’d like to believe.

North Korea has rarely responded successfully in this fashion. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s not because the game theory is wrong, because it’s pretty good and one of the few theories out there that consistently gets great results when used properly. That’s the problem right there. We don’t use it properly. In order to succeed with tit for tat, it requires both players to be involved in the game. And surprisingly, the wrong player is the one who never plays. We start the game, throw out a carrot, get a reaction from North Korea, and then we respond appropriately. BUT (and this, like JLo, is a big but) when they don’t respond appropriately, we go nuts and kill the game. The solution to tit for tat is to continue the game as if it was still happening, to actually escalate further in a positive manner, but we don’t. Instead, we throw a fit and wonder why North Korea never responds favorably. So that leaves us at a point where we have to start the game over again. And wonder why it fails soon after. We’ve created a second level tier of tit for tat where we’re not even playing the same game we’re starting. North Korea is still in Game 1.0, and we’re starting Game 5.7, wondering why North Korea is responding to inputs from a previous game instead.

So, what’s the solution? Stop playing tit for tat. We need a new “game” that works, and this is another one of those FOT responses I keep throwing out there. If we ever want to get at North Korea so that they become partners for peace, we need to stop trying to change them like Sandra Bullock wondering why her man keeps cheating even though she “reformed” him. FOT puts forth the simple idea that the best way to change a potential partner is to head towards a goal that both members desire. If you look at North Korea from the perspective of what makes NK tick, you can probably find something they need and want, like sustainable food. They don’t want handouts because that makes them reliant on others, something they seem to fall apart with. But find a way to make them self-sustaining, like create a program for helping them deal with very little arable land, possibly by focusing on crops that can be grown in mountainous terrain or to enhance the strategies of fishing (I mean, it is a peninsula that is not by any stretch of the imagination land-locked). For everyone else, a stable, peaceful NK is probably the end goal already. For even longer term strategies, an economically viable NK means a trading partner and potential market for future goods. The possibilities are endless.

The importance of FOT is that both partners have to be willing to change over time, not just expect change from the other member. That’s where we keep failing. We want others to be more like us, or reliant on us. But very rarely are we willing to undergo changes ourselves, even though such changes might mean the future of stabilization in more spheres than one.

Or we can continue to try to make four party talks where we focus on what we want and how our “enemies” must comply, OR ELSE. Not a lot of rational thought in that premise when you think about it. The only way to really win in that scenario is by zero sum economics (one destroys the other). Not a pretty picture.

But it’s not like anyone listens to me anyway. I’ll check and see if anything good is on TV instead.

The Difficulties of Pursuing Peace in the 21st Century

Politics, , ,

Unfortunately, the news is not good. It rarely is.

You would think that after the Cold War ended that the world was in line for peace and prosperity. So why are there still so many people killing each other all over the world? Why hasn’t peace broken out in the Middle East? Why are people still running around the streets of Africa with machine guns and grenades? Why is the United States still mired in conflicts all across the globe? Why hasn’t war been eliminated as a natural progression of relations?

Perhaps that’s the problem right there. War has become so institutionalized in society that it is no longer seen as the last course when dialogue has completely broken down, but it is seen as a part of negotiating strategy, almost as if there’s a blueprint none of us believe we’re following, but we all use it nonetheless, and eventually when we’ve stopped talking, tanks will roll and soldiers will start marching. And perhaps it’s always been somewhat this way, but we’ve been so convinced of our own moral superiority that we’ve forgotten that when man is brought back down to base natural values, war always seems to be one of the easiest methods of resolving our differences.

Think back on history. It wasn’t that long ago that foreign policy WAS war. Look at the continuous conflicts that erupted in Europe, and you see nations that followed self-important leaders who used war as a natural part of their personal foreign policy. Quite often, they used war as their personal basis for responding to perceived slights from other powerful leaders. Not surprisingly, that usuallly led to large groups of mobilized soldiers heading off to fight wars that were nothing more than brutal responses to angry rebuttals.

But we would like to think that war has evolved so much these days that we’re no longer the primitive societies we once were, a few hundred years ago. Now, we have huge brokered alliances, econonic treaties and defense pacts that no longer seem to be the whims of powerful men and women who treated foreign affairs as tokens of their egos.

So why are we participating in so much war and killing these days if we’ve become so enlightened?

I put forth the thesis that we’re not that much different than we used to be. And that we believe otherwise is probably equally as dangerous as the fact that we’re still the same brutal followers of momentary passions that if experienced by an individual, we might actually have that person in therapy. So how does knowing this help us in any way? Or does it?

Part of the problem in fixing this situation is that it is very difficult to fix something within the very paradigm that needs to change itself. In other words, we know there’s something wrong, but as long as we exist within a system that sees war as part of its solution process, it is really hard to come up with better alternatives when we don’t change the fact that what we’re doing is wrong in the first place. In order to change the natural order of war as a solution, we have to change the paradigm to reflect that war is never a good thing, no matter how much we have been raised to think otherwise. As long as anyone sees war as a positive vessel for change, no one will ever benefit by trying to eliminate it.

This means we need to start seeing things through the eyes of people who want to institute change without having to come to blows to do it. You can’t do this by forcing thoughts on others, which is exactly what war requires. If everyone isn’t interested in pursuing a specific ideology, then perhaps the ideology needs to change to match current needs, or current needs to be changed to fit into the particular ideology. The former is easy; it requires a new thought process to achieve, but it is capable of being achieved through an open mind. However, not always is an easy solution to this problem available, so while it may appear easy to achieve, achieving it without new ideas is not so simple. The latter possibility is problematic only because it requires time and patience. People aren’t very good at waiting for change; they want things right now and right here. Communism is a good example of a particular ideological change that needed time to be seen as relevant, but instead of wait for it Lenin and company tried to force a square peg into a round hole, and they ended up with a dysfunctional system that they kept hoping would eventually fit into that round hole. Some European countries, specifically Eastern European countries, seem to be going through the former type of ideological change, which is taking time, so the results may eventually yield new results. Or they may not. That’s the problem with incremental change: You don’t always know it’s happening until it already has happened.

Part of the difficulty of this whole exercise is that there are too many people with egos that represent nations that have egos of their own as well, and no one is interested in common good solutions but in zero sum solutions that benefit only one side. In the old days of empire diplomacy, some of the greatest crafters of negotiations were those who were capable of bringing benefits to all sides. The United States claimed it was above this whole zero sum empire benefiting process with its condemnation of European posturing during the xyz affair, yet years later, we’re still going out of our way to craft international diplomacy that speaks only to hegemonic power and self-beneficial desires. And when things don’t work out as we plan, we then resort to the “unfortunate” rationalization that war was all we had left. That was the argument we used for Afghanistan, and it was the strategy we invoked for dealing with Saddam Hussein.

The answer to this dilemma is simple, but no one is interested in changing the current status quo because often the ones who need to change things are the ones who have so much already staked on the outcomes of dealing with things the old way. The United States right now would lose a lot by deciding to go with a communal strategy in international diplomacy instead of the old tit for tat game theoretic we have been using for a century now. As long as we keep seeing the future as “what will we lose” instead of “what will everyone gain” then we’re never going to achieve peace in the world.

And why is that? Well, to begin with, as long as others are always under the impression that they have nothing to gain by mutual negotiations with a hegemonic power, then their only recourse is to avoid negotiations or to take the underground as a policy of process improvement. Right now, so many countries in the world right now deal with the United States and mainstream Europe through terrorism, piracy, protest and taking hostages/prisoners. They do this because they realize that this is the only way they can possibly deal with a set of powers that have no qualms about launching cruise missiles from the ocean and blasting away at anyone they perceive as an enemy. No nation can possibly emerge from negotiations in this manner without taking a serious loss because they realize that they have practically nothing to bargain with. Even countries that do have assets for bargaining, like the Middle East, have chosen to avoid direct negotiations and confrontation because they realize that to antagonize a powerful hegemony can result in losing the very asset they once had in their favor. Look at Iraq for an example of that.

I wish I had a simple answer for what needs to be done, but as an unimportant non-cog in a wheel that doesn’t need me to move, I just don’t see a future of anything happening any differently than they have been. There are too many people, businesses and entities invested in the process of keeping things as they have always been, and as long as this is the case, expect decades of people wondering why peace can never be achieved. Unfortunately, the smartest men in the room are not always the wisest men necessary for the task. And to make matters worse, too many people are interested in making a career and a name for themselves that they have lost the bigger picture and see only where they can add their name to the roster. That’s politics, and as long as politicians are the ones negotiating the future, you have to remember that their best interests are not always the interests of the bigger picture, even if they are go into the matter thinking they are after the best alternative for everyone.

As long as the current paradigm remains the active one, it’s hard to expect anything different than the direction we’ve grown so used to traveling.