The kingmaker club
By Stephen Kinzer BOSTON GLOBE - SEPT. 4, 2016
VIOLENTLY INTERVENING IN the
affairs of other countries has brought the United States much grief
over the last century. We are hardly the only ones who do it. The club
of interventionist nations has a shifting membership. During the current
round of Middle East conflict, two new countries have joined: Turkey
and Saudi Arabia. Both have succumbed to the imperial temptation. Both
are paying a high price. They are learning a lesson that Americans
struggle to accept: Interventions have unexpected consequences and often
end up weakening rather than strengthening the countries that carry
them out.
Turkey’s
long intervention in Syria has failed to bring about its intended
result, the fall of President Bashar Assad. Instead it has intensified
the Syrian conflict, fed a regional refugee crisis, set off terrorist
backlash, and deeply strained relations between Turkey and its NATO
allies. As this blunder has unfolded, Saudi Arabia has also been waging
war outside its territory. Its bombing of neighboring Yemen was supposed
to be a way of asserting regional hegemony, but it has aroused
indignant condemnation. The bombing campaign has placed Saudi Arabia
under new scrutiny, including more intense focus on its role in
promoting global terror, which the Saudi royal family has managed to
keep half-hidden for years.
Turkey
and Saudi Arabia intervened in foreign conflicts hoping to establish
themselves as regional kingmakers. Both miscalculated. They
overestimated their ability to secure quick victory and failed to weigh
the strategic costs of failure or stalemate. http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/09/03/the-kingmaker-club/aJUUREhSs4AdGNlQxGgoVK/story.html
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