At the moment I am re-reading THE GREAT GATSBY – and maybe one of the reasons it is a classic is that it resonates well above the hedonistic world of the Long Island uber-rich, and their Broadway showbiz sycophants, that is its setting. Truly the microcosm reflects the macrocosm.
In the denoument the narrator reflects on the behaviour of the vastly wealthy couple who are at the centre of the book:
“They were careless people Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and people and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ,
And so it is with US foreign policy. In their greed for cheap oil they have literally killed hundreds of thousands of people and smashed up the lives of millions more in the Middle East – deposing a legitimate democratic government in Iran and installing the corrupt and despotic Shah, blindly supporting Israel’s destabilization of Lebanon and annexation of the West Bank, thereby enabling the rise of the Shia Ayatollah and Sunni militant Islamic extremism.
Look at the chaos now in Syria and Iraq caused by America’s naïve belief in their “exceptionalism” and their “Manifest Destiny” to bring freedom and democracy to the world. A belief that smacks all too sadly of the Divine Right of Kings, much as their use of drones to subjugate and suppress anybody who opposes them smacks of 19th Century British Imperial Gunboat diplomacy. (Plus ca Change . . . plus c’est la meme chose). And what will happen when they leave Afghanistan?
But so what? With the discovery of vast deposits of shale oil and coal seam gas America is no longer reliant on cheap MidEast oil. And their focus is now switching to the rise of China that must be contained if they are to retain their exceptional hegemony. And so, like the uber-rich nation they are, they will just walk away and let others clean up their mess.
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I also tried to show the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm. It is a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arena of international significance. But the history of that turbulent period is told through the stories of archetypal expatriates who washed up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf, their lives shattered by the blunderings of US (and British) foreign policies in the region. The proxy wars of the Buraimi Oasis and the Dhofar campaign, and the corruption of the UN in evading the oil embargo in Iraq etc., etc.
You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope you enjoy it.