Vigil,

I finally got around to following the link, and to the extent that my sojourn in Saudi Arabia 17 years ago is still relevant, the viewpoints it expresses seem representative of ME Arab sentiments. It has been, and continues to be, difficult to bridge the perspectives commonly held in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the States with those in the Arab ME. Finding the common ground on which to build a peace there is a very long-term project.

While "the West" stayed the containment course for the 45 years or so that it took for the Soviet Empire to implode, I’m not at all convinced that the current international political conditions will accommodate a strategy of similar duration today.

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Eudaimonia