Roger Cohen's "The Arab Gyre": More Inanity from the Master

What does Yeats have to do with Yemen?

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "The Arab Gyre" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/opinion/26iht-edcohen26.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Roger Cohen writes from London (not Yemen, not Tripoli, not Damascus):

"W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet, had a theory of history that centered on the movement of gyres. It was a confused and mystical idea that inspired some great lyrical verse, so the confusion doesn’t really matter. What matters are lines like: 'Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer.'

. . . .

Gyres reflect deeper forces. These revolutions are post-Islamist in the sense that they are driven not by young Muslims seeking an authentic identity and escape from perceived Western humiliation through political identification with Islam — as in Tehran in 1979 — but by young Muslims demanding freedom, representation and the rule of law."

Come again? These revolutions only involve demands for "freedom, representation and the rule of law"?

Notably absent from Cohen's list and vitiating the credibility of his op-ed are jobs, which unfortunately are not being created by any of this turmoil. Quite the contrary: Egypt's economy is dependent upon tourism, which has lost $1 billion a month since the revolution (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/world/middleeast/24iht-m24late.html).

But back to Yeats. What does Yeats have to do with, for example, the tribal conflagration in Libya? What does the Irish poet and playwright have to do with the fact that Shiites, who comprise the majority of the population in Bahrain, object to being ruled by Sunnis? What does he have to do with the revolt in Syria by a Sunni majority against an Alawite tyrant against the backdrop of a drought that has destroyed the agrarian sector of Syria's economy? What does he have to do with the uprising of Egyptians mired in poverty and hopelessness against Mubarak? Answer to all of the above questions: Nothing.

Cohen still can't fathom that all these uprisings and conflicts involve a struggle between haves and have-nots and how the pie is ultimately carved up.

Leaving no rock unturned, I again called my mentor, 87-year-old King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and asked him what he thought of gyres and the relationship between Yeats and Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting a war that has gone largely unnoticed by the West (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/11/middle-east-war-in-yemen-goes-unnoticed.html). After nearly hanging up the phone on me (he was late to prayers), Abdullah politely asked that I remove my head from a certain dark place.

On a more serious note, Britain, France, Germany and Portugal are asking the UN Security Council to condemn Syria's massacre of protesters, whereas the U.S. is finally coming around to considering "targeted sanctions" (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13188920).

Come again? "Targeted sanctions"? Apparently, this is another example of the policy guiding Obama in Libya, i.e. "leading from behind", as just disclosed by one of the president's advisers (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/04/25/obama-leading-from-behind/). I am not joking.

Also, on a more serious note, for the first time this blog is being read by "friends" from Assad's security service in Damascus. Make no mistake, boys, the days remaining to your boss's regime are numbered, and I have it on good authority that Bashar and Qaddafi together plan to go apartment shopping in Tehran.