We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts--excluding Israel, per capita patent production of countries in the middle east is one fifth that of sub-Saharan Africa. The people of the middle east (only about five per cent of the world's population) are remarkably unproductive, with a high proportion not in the labour force at all.He may be right...but since when was geopolitical conflict caused by the arts? When was the last time we went to war with a country because they produced a lot of patents?
At Passport, cooler heads prevail:
The Middle East seems to produce terrorists. Even if the West withdrew from the region and left it to its own devices, there's no reason to believe this trend would stop. As long as countries like Saudi Arabia breed guys who feel it necessary to murder large numbers of U.S. civilians, the United States will have to take a strategic interest in the region.Well said. The Middle East is important precisely because it is such a backwater. Backwaters with high fertility rates - and the Middle East has some of the highest - are sources of instability (note: Pakistan is even worse). And backwaters with money are by far the most dangerous, because they have the means to export that instability. The Middle East has a lot of oil money to export its instability.
Which is why removing world dependence on oil - especially Middle Eastern oil - is such a high priority. That won't fix the economies of the Mideast, but it will transform it from an explosive backwater into an implosive one. In the current political climate, that's probably the best we can hope for.
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