![]() ![]() The so-called "global war on terrorism" that this invasion inaugurated provided a spurious but sufficient justification for the occupation of Iraq in 2003. The need to avenge 9/11 and deter a repetition of it led directly to the American invasion of Afghanistan. The 9/11 assault on the United States was carried out by Muslim extremists motivated in large measure by their resentment of U.S. So it is necessary to begin by recapitulating the obvious. It has greatly hampered the development of realistic strategy to deal with the region or the threats it presents to U.S. It has left Americans unable to address Arab Muslim reaction to a core U.S. backing for Israel as a grievance that motivated the 9/11 atrocities in New York and Washington is vigorously disputed and suppressed as politically incorrect. In America, however, any reference to U.S. The centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle to the emergence of anti-American "terrorists with global reach" is undeniable. on the atrocities that America is committing by supporting Israel against the Palestinian people and America's self-serving foreign policy that corrupts Arab governments and leads to further exploitation of the Arab Muslim people." In Osama Bin Laden's annual "address to the American people" this September 11, he reiterated: "We have demonstrated and stated many times, for more than two-and-a-half-decades, that the cause of our disagreement with you is your support to your Israeli allies who occupy our land of Palestine. He said that the purpose was to focus "the American people. interrogators asked Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 atrocities, why al Qa'ida had done the terrible things it did that day, he gave a straightforward answer. The short-term stakes in getting these policies right are large. President Obama has responded with rhetorical "change we can believe in." Still, to date, in the Middle East and elsewhere his administration has made only minimal changes to longstanding American policies that are conspicuous failures. The second President Bush bequeathed his successor a set of thoroughly broken policies in the Middle East and the near total estrangement of the United States from former allies and friends in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The world has long looked to Washington to fulfill these roles. It is also widely recognized as the nation with the greatest capacity to broker the peaceful resolution of the region's problems and to underwrite its strategic stabilization. As a world power, the United States has been a major participant - often a decisive factor - in the evolution of the contemporary Middle East. It is appropriate to begin with an examination of U.S. They have become an American foreign affairs and national security obsession. The region's travails now shake the world. ![]() Jews and Christians with a passionate attachment to Israel play a disproportionate leadership role in the intellectual, political, economic, and cultural life of the United States, Korea's most important ally. It is the precariously reestablished homeland of nearly half the world's Jews. It is the location of the holiest sites of Christianity, the world's largest religion. The Middle East is also the epicenter of Islam, an expanding faith that guides the lives of nearly a fourth of humanity. Its markets, including its capital, arms, and consumer markets, are vital prizes for which the world's great and middle economic powers, including Korea, compete. Its political economy is thus a central determinant of the global future. It is a major source of global investment flows. The Middle East and North Africa region contains well over 60 percent of the world's oil and 40 percent of its natural gas reserves. In the opening years of this century it has spawned terrorists with global reach and provoked military intervention by the United States and its allies, including the Republic of Korea. It was the site of some of the late 20th Century's most brutal warfare and largest scale human suffering. ![]() This is where the trade routes and lines of communication connecting Asia and Europe intersect. What happens there affects the vital interests and foreign and defense policies of great powers on all three continents and hence the world at large. The Middle East is the strategic region where Asia, Africa, and Europe converge. Developments there have a direct impact on Korean interests as well as indirect effects through their impact on Korea's allies, friends, and neighbors. ![]() The Middle East is, without question, a decisive factor in global politics and economics. I join all here today in commending IFANS for its collaboration with the Korean Association for Middle East Studies. ![]()
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