[scandium]

This has to be the most bizarre piece of "academic" tripe that I've ever read anywhere:

Human societies can be loosely divided into two groups: those governed by shame and those governed by guilt. Though often conflicting, guilt and shame are both normal functions of the human psyche. In different individuals and societies, how-ever, one or the other may predominate.

I think the good psychology professor should stick to psychology and leave the macro sociology to the sociologists.

In this essay I will use my knowledge as a clinical psychologist and my own experience in Middle Eastern war (as an ex-member of the Israeli Hagana) to consider some of the ways in which these shame-avoidant societies may wage battle against us. Bear in mind that I am not describing all Middle Easterners, but only group tendencies that are prevalent there today.

So the author also happens to be a former member of an Israeli para-military organization - not exactly the disinterested, unbiased perspective that a serious academic essay demands, but that isn't what this is anyway. It is just another piece of simplistic, generalized, inflammatory anti-Islam rhetoric masking as scholarship.

Unless we use the leverage of the Arab shame dynamic, we are not likely to impose the Pax Americana on the terrorist states. Terror--the one form of war in which they outdo the West--is the default military option for Islamic militants, and one which they eagerly take up after their regular armies have been humiliated. Terrorism can be, after all, a more efficient means of shedding and exporting shame than outright war. In the shame calculus, the guerilla is like David talking on Goliath: Morally speaking, he never loses.

Terror is the default option because they have no regular armies, it has nothing to do with a "shame complex", and everything to do with the fact that where there is a will to fight then the fight will be waged with whatever weapons are most readily available.

Thus, defeatist reporters document a “quagmire,” and driven by unmanly fear, the enemy’s civilians may begin to demand an end to the costly struggle. Like the French in Algeria, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Israelis in Lebanon, the humiliated enemy, defeated by a numerically inferior but spiritually superior force, will carry the weight of Arab shame with him as he slinks away

What is this guy on? Iraq is called a quagmire because that is exactly what it is and there is nothing defeatist about calling a spade a spade. And the enemy is neither slinking away nor defeated as far as I can tell, if he was then, in his example of Hezbollah, Israel would not again be fighting the same group it fought two decades ago and will probably always be fighting, though the name and locale of the group may shift around.

America cannot allow such a show of weakness in Iraq. The terrorist organizations must be smashed, and their sponsoring nations made to pay the price. If we withdraw in feebleness, triumphant Islamic terrorism will increase catastrophically.

A little late for the pep talk now. This guy needs to come out of the lab for some air and turn on the news. Iraq is now a failed state, civil war is only unofficial, and widening the front to include say Iran or Syria isn't going to change matters in Iraq one whit at this point. I would argue that it was opening Pandora's Box in Iraq, and now in Lebanon, that will increase terrorism catostrophically (the U.S. will declare victory in Iraq and go home at some point, its no longer an if only a when) but hey - why not completely destabilize the region anyway.

Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their clones will never completely disappear, but like the Afghan Taliban, they can be suppressed long enough for democratically inclined rulers to surface.

You can't put Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaeda in the same category as the Taliban; the first 3 are all loosely knit geurilla/terrorist organizations and with no ties to any one state, but rather are covertly sponsored by multiple states and individuals. The Taliban, on the other hand, was the governing organization - with some recognition as such - of the failed state of Afghanistan, and as such they can (just as they were) be deposed or overthrown while the first 3 cannot. And as to the "democracy" thing, if Afghanistan is his shining example of democratizing the ME then I'd encourage him to take a vacation there and enjoy this new democracy where the Afghani PM is no more than the mayor of Kabul and where we've been bogged down for the last 4 years atttempting to secure a country and having about as much success as the Soviets had.

Secured against the traditional Middle Eastern politics of assassination, more rational leaders could consolidate military power and popular support to the point where they are able to prevail against extremists. The example set by such new Iraqi leadership could spread rapidly across this troubled region.

This guy really is on drugs. What is Iraq on now, its 3rd or is it its 4th PM (and this newest guy they simply appointed)? The only thing the Iraqi leadership is an example of is how vulnerable and powerless they are and I doubt any other country is going to be itching to emulate their "leadership" or what little of it they're able to exert.

I have to wonder, after reading this total pipe dream if the good doctor is self-medicating, because this essay is just.... delusional.