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Does this mean Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations will go bankrupt after their state sponsored funding dries up? I don't mean this in an inflammatory w

Does this mean Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations will go bankrupt after their state sponsored funding dries up? I don't mean this in an inflammatory way. All I can see from this is more instability in the Middle-East which means more bad news in the years to come... Perhaps Turkey will take up a bigger role in the future for policing the Middle East as they have a more diversified economy?

DSingularity 6y ago
Yeah I agree with your conclusion. Instability in the present is due to western interest maintaining their dictatorships. Instability in the future will be as the western policies shift and they cut and run for whatever reasons. I’d like to think that will come when we realize the immorality of our policies but it will probably just be when our interests shift. Maybe that’s why Israel is ramping up their annexations and colonization of the West Bank. If the west loses interest in the Middle East they may lose interest in maintaining Israeli geo-political supremacy.
- ilstormcloud 6y ago
  >Maybe that’s why Israel is ramping up their annexations and colonization of the West Bank. This is probably because they don't expect Trump to be reelected. Now is their chance.
- benja123 6y ago
  You are mistaken to assume the west is the reason for the present instability in the Middle East. You can argue it plays a large part, but it's part is no bigger than Russia, China and Turkey (I am intentionally leaving out Iran and Saudi Arabia, although both countries are presently creating havoc in the middle east) who are all busy propping up dictatorships in the middle east. For a counterpoint I am going to argue the opposite. The west and the other major powers are possibly one of the reasons the middle east is relatively stable today (all things considered) and without them the Middle East would actually be in a much worse place. If we were to assume that if the west and others never propped up the current set of dictators and we would have instead ended up with some type of democracies or at the very least relatively stable regimes than you would probably be right. But who is to say we wouldn't have ended up with an endless cycle of civil wars or regimes that are much worse than the ones we have right now? The middle east is a very religious and tribal place in which the borders were badly demarcated (thank you France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia). The poorly planned division of the middle east + the sunni/shia divide have been the main driver of the current conflicts and instability in the Middle east. Oil has been the curse that has brought in the world powers and has provided funding for most of these conflicts. Oil has also prevented these countries from seeking alternative, modern industries. I do agree if oil revenue dries up and major powers pull their support for the current dictatorships, it will be a disaster, at least in the short to medium term. You will get civil wars in one of the most militarized places on earth. I would also argue that contrary to popular belief Israel has been a stabilizing factor in the middle east. There are two main reasons for this. 1. Hatred of Israel is the one thing that unites the arab world. 2. Dictatorships need a way to distract their population. There is no greater distraction than a mortal enemy. In fact if you compare the arab-israeli conflict to other modern conflicts in the middle east, it has been pretty minor in terms of costs, damage and casualties. The middle east is an interesting place, a place I call home and a place I love, but extremely complicated. And last point: with regards to Bibbi and his plan to annex parts of the west bank. What he is planning is really not that popular here in Israel. For the right wing, he isn't annexing enough and the annexation will still allow for a palestinian state. For the center and left wing it's not really going to change anything on the ground but will cause a lot of damage to how we are perceived internationally. Even if the annexation does go through it does not mean that the "annexed" territory can't and won't be given up in the framework of a peace agreement. IMO Bibbi is trying to do it for internal political reasons and he knows he won't be able to do it once Trump is gone so this is his chance (another possibility is he wants to make it look like he tried to annex parts of the west bank, without the intention of actually doing so. He will blame someone like Gantz saying they stopped him, which will get him some more right wing votes while not antagonizing the center voters - it would be very Bibbi like).
curiousllama 6y ago
No - it'll increase, actually, as regional leaders take more of a zero-sum view. View them as paramilitary proxies and it makes more sense to fund them in your neighbor than fight a well-organized neighbor.
csomar 6y ago
> Does this mean Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations will go bankrupt after their state sponsored funding dries up? Yes. > All I can see from this is more instability in the Middle-East which means more bad news in the years to come... No. I predict more stability. There is less financing for violence, and less wealth to fight over. > Perhaps Turkey will take up a bigger role in the future for policing the Middle East as they have a more diversified economy? Too expensive. Also the fact that they are after Libya means they are not imaginative enough for a post-oil economy. So probably no.
- zippy5 6y ago
  Look around the world. The countries that have the most violence are: 1) Poor (Less to lose) 2) Have high levels of ideological radicals (beliefs strong enough to rationalize their worst actions) 3) Have a violent history. (Vengeance oriented)
  - akimball 6y ago
    "Less to lose" is a pretty coarse attribution. While true tautologically, I would argue that it is misleading. The poor lack the power to institutionalize violence. The overwhelming bulk of violence is institutional. Large populations of poor imply small, threatened, populations of rich, who institutionalize the violence required to preserve their power, and then use their control to insure that their violence is left out of the accounting.
    - zippy5 6y ago
      You’re right. Poverty is more likely caused by violence than violence is caused by poverty.
gumby 6y ago
Well, I think this will lead to a different kind of resource war (as opposed to mass migration from, say, drought-stricken regions fight for access to water) in which distributed proxies are used for reasons of efficiencies and reach. BTW these proxies tend to be like poison gas: hard to manage strategically and often blowing back on their source (as with al qaida itself). BTW al qaida can’t really be thought of as an “organization” — it’s a movement, more like World Communism in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. D’aesh (aka ISIL/ISIS in the USA for some reason) is an actual organization.
- akimball 6y ago
  Migrants don't do the violence. Refugees are victims, not perpetrators. The infrequent counter-examples are "man bites dog" stories, which leave out the causal history.
  - gumby 6y ago
    Thanks, that’s an important though subtle distinction. People merely crossing a border don’t constitute a “war”, much less “invasion” in any sense and I hadn’t intended to imply such. I edited it to “mass migration” with the intent of addressing both refugee population as well as associated, perhaps “non-civilian” is the term, people either/both pushing and accompanying.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  The Syrian civil war migrations will pale in comparison to resource / global warming migrations
einpoklum 6y ago
> Perhaps Turkey will take up a bigger role in the future for policing the Middle East as they have a more diversified economy? Let's hope that regional powers take up lesser roles and don't dominate the locals in other countries (e.g. like the Saudi occupation of Bahrain or Turkey's control of areas of Northern Syria).
enilakla 6y ago
This may not be meant to be inflammatory, but such a strange comment.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
Like Yemen and other wars, oil money flows into Saudi Arabia and Iran funding proxy wars in the Sunni / Shia divide, and against Israel. Money dries up, so will a lot of military funding for these.

DSingularity 6y ago

Yeah I agree with your conclusion. Instability in the present is due to western interest maintaining their dictatorships. Instability in the future will be as the western policies shift and they cut and run for whatever reasons. I’d like to think that will come when we realize the immorality of our policies but it will probably just be when our interests shift. Maybe that’s why Israel is ramping up their annexations and colonization of the West Bank. If the west loses interest in the Middle East they may lose interest in maintaining Israeli geo-political supremacy.

ilstormcloud 6y ago
>Maybe that’s why Israel is ramping up their annexations and colonization of the West Bank. This is probably because they don't expect Trump to be reelected. Now is their chance.
benja123 6y ago
You are mistaken to assume the west is the reason for the present instability in the Middle East. You can argue it plays a large part, but it's part is no bigger than Russia, China and Turkey (I am intentionally leaving out Iran and Saudi Arabia, although both countries are presently creating havoc in the middle east) who are all busy propping up dictatorships in the middle east. For a counterpoint I am going to argue the opposite. The west and the other major powers are possibly one of the reasons the middle east is relatively stable today (all things considered) and without them the Middle East would actually be in a much worse place. If we were to assume that if the west and others never propped up the current set of dictators and we would have instead ended up with some type of democracies or at the very least relatively stable regimes than you would probably be right. But who is to say we wouldn't have ended up with an endless cycle of civil wars or regimes that are much worse than the ones we have right now? The middle east is a very religious and tribal place in which the borders were badly demarcated (thank you France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia). The poorly planned division of the middle east + the sunni/shia divide have been the main driver of the current conflicts and instability in the Middle east. Oil has been the curse that has brought in the world powers and has provided funding for most of these conflicts. Oil has also prevented these countries from seeking alternative, modern industries. I do agree if oil revenue dries up and major powers pull their support for the current dictatorships, it will be a disaster, at least in the short to medium term. You will get civil wars in one of the most militarized places on earth. I would also argue that contrary to popular belief Israel has been a stabilizing factor in the middle east. There are two main reasons for this. 1. Hatred of Israel is the one thing that unites the arab world. 2. Dictatorships need a way to distract their population. There is no greater distraction than a mortal enemy. In fact if you compare the arab-israeli conflict to other modern conflicts in the middle east, it has been pretty minor in terms of costs, damage and casualties. The middle east is an interesting place, a place I call home and a place I love, but extremely complicated. And last point: with regards to Bibbi and his plan to annex parts of the west bank. What he is planning is really not that popular here in Israel. For the right wing, he isn't annexing enough and the annexation will still allow for a palestinian state. For the center and left wing it's not really going to change anything on the ground but will cause a lot of damage to how we are perceived internationally. Even if the annexation does go through it does not mean that the "annexed" territory can't and won't be given up in the framework of a peace agreement. IMO Bibbi is trying to do it for internal political reasons and he knows he won't be able to do it once Trump is gone so this is his chance (another possibility is he wants to make it look like he tried to annex parts of the west bank, without the intention of actually doing so. He will blame someone like Gantz saying they stopped him, which will get him some more right wing votes while not antagonizing the center voters - it would be very Bibbi like).

curiousllama 6y ago

No - it'll increase, actually, as regional leaders take more of a zero-sum view. View them as paramilitary proxies and it makes more sense to fund them in your neighbor than fight a well-organized neighbor.

csomar 6y ago

> Does this mean Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations will go bankrupt after their state sponsored funding dries up? Yes. > All I can see from this is more instability in the Middle-East which means more bad news in the years to come... No. I predict more stability. There is less financing for violence, and less wealth to fight over. > Perhaps Turkey will take up a bigger role in the future for policing the Middle East as they have a more diversified economy? Too expensive. Also the fact that they are after Libya means they are not imaginative enough for a post-oil economy. So probably no.

zippy5 6y ago
Look around the world. The countries that have the most violence are: 1) Poor (Less to lose) 2) Have high levels of ideological radicals (beliefs strong enough to rationalize their worst actions) 3) Have a violent history. (Vengeance oriented)
- akimball 6y ago
  "Less to lose" is a pretty coarse attribution. While true tautologically, I would argue that it is misleading. The poor lack the power to institutionalize violence. The overwhelming bulk of violence is institutional. Large populations of poor imply small, threatened, populations of rich, who institutionalize the violence required to preserve their power, and then use their control to insure that their violence is left out of the accounting.
  - zippy5 6y ago
    You’re right. Poverty is more likely caused by violence than violence is caused by poverty.

gumby 6y ago

Well, I think this will lead to a different kind of resource war (as opposed to mass migration from, say, drought-stricken regions fight for access to water) in which distributed proxies are used for reasons of efficiencies and reach. BTW these proxies tend to be like poison gas: hard to manage strategically and often blowing back on their source (as with al qaida itself). BTW al qaida can’t really be thought of as an “organization” — it’s a movement, more like World Communism in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. D’aesh (aka ISIL/ISIS in the USA for some reason) is an actual organization.

akimball 6y ago
Migrants don't do the violence. Refugees are victims, not perpetrators. The infrequent counter-examples are "man bites dog" stories, which leave out the causal history.
- gumby 6y ago
  Thanks, that’s an important though subtle distinction. People merely crossing a border don’t constitute a “war”, much less “invasion” in any sense and I hadn’t intended to imply such. I edited it to “mass migration” with the intent of addressing both refugee population as well as associated, perhaps “non-civilian” is the term, people either/both pushing and accompanying.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
The Syrian civil war migrations will pale in comparison to resource / global warming migrations

einpoklum 6y ago

> Perhaps Turkey will take up a bigger role in the future for policing the Middle East as they have a more diversified economy? Let's hope that regional powers take up lesser roles and don't dominate the locals in other countries (e.g. like the Saudi occupation of Bahrain or Turkey's control of areas of Northern Syria).

enilakla 6y ago

This may not be meant to be inflammatory, but such a strange comment.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

Like Yemen and other wars, oil money flows into Saudi Arabia and Iran funding proxy wars in the Sunni / Shia divide, and against Israel. Money dries up, so will a lot of military funding for these.