Letters: All bets are off in the Mideast
Re “Promises, reality and the Mideast,” Opinion, Sept. 28
Ronald Brownstein doesn’t address the hard truth the Arab Spring represents — importantly, that the prior choices have been thrown in the trash container. The overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, our puppet, illustrated that all bets are off.
It’s no longer a matter of avoiding the worst, for example, to guarantee the safety of Israel. The primary concern emerging in the Middle East is solving the contradictions of domestic conditions, with which we have seldom dealt except when they involve U.S. interests. For most of the Middle East, Israel is being moved to a back burner.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s theatrics and bombast just won’t play the way they used to. We ought to own up to that. Neglecting to do so will only position us more on the sidelines as unpredictable and complex patterns emerge.
F. Daniel Gray
Los Angeles
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