I’m not going to bother to write too much about this as it happens again and again and they never learn, or maybe they actually do and it is the price they have to pay in order to keep their seats. Proof really that the US President and his whole government enchilada are simply the best salesmen and women the world has ever known.

We give them oil at preferred rates, they allow us to buy their weapons which we can’t use but are very adept at obsoleting before we even learn they are actually in our stores and someone (or more) keeps a fat commission – which is a wholly legitimate business practice of course.

This sales cycle this time has been aided and abetted by our dear beloved big neighbour to the East with dickheads like Shariatmadari fanning the flames and the pipers shriek and point their fingers across the swamp dancing frantically about like lunatics: “see they want to take us over, we have to protect ourselves from those Safawi turbaned mad men!” Completely forgetting that the best way to solve perceived problems with neighbours is discussion and engagement, not buying more useless weapons which will undoubtedly escalate mistrust and lead to an arms race the only winners of which are the arms manufacturers.

“Yeah,” they say, “look they are supporting Hamas, Hizbollah, Nahr Al-Bared, Al-Qaeda, and more that we don’t know about. They want to topple our governments, we have to prepare for them attacking us!”

You fools! They don’t have to attack us. They are not the danger. The real danger is your geriatric autocratic non-participatory and exclusionary rule!

What “they” might to do is just egg our people on by simply (and ironically) pointing out that we should demand that our regimes be made more democratic. Come on admit it, the prospect makes you shake in your Jesus boots, doesn’t it? Well, get used to it guys because inclusion and sharing power are the only factors that will allow your tenuous rule to last.

So what are we to do? Beg the Americans to arm us to the teeth, completely and docilely acquiescing to their requests, or should we think for a change and apply logic to our relationships, or should just plonk down our and future generations much needed funds to buy weapons of no use? That’s always the easiest well trusted option isn’t it? Throw money at a problem and hope that it will go away; if it doesn’t, just throw more money at it.

Shouldn’t that money be used for infrastructural projects, for education and health, save it for the future generations who will not enjoy the benefits of the oil dollar?

Nah, throw it at Mr. Bush and Co. and beg like dogs with tongues lolling about, paws up, waiting for that absent minded scratch on the head and the occasional pat with the soothing growl: “good boy, down, stay!”

Why is it so difficult for grown men – those we choose to call “our leaders” – to engage, sit around a table with a genuine will to solve problems rather than exacerbate them? Is it too difficult to comprehend that discussing regional problems sincerely provides lasting peace much more than whatever weapons could provide?

Didn’t we have enough of wars in this God forsaken region?