Syria may be more secular than most, but the whole Israel thing pretty much wipes out any hope of normal relations there. You mention Egypt--I agree with you, and strangely enough we have very little problem with Egypt. In fact, the extremists are blowing up people in Egypt because they are friendly with the USA and moderate on the Israeli situation.
Quite. You still have your sonofabitch running the show in Egypt. Trouble is, his regime is slowly rotting, and the only organized opposition is, you guessed it, the turbans. Why? Because Mubarak has been systematically jailing, exiling, assassinating, or discrediting the democratic opposition -- and because in the Arab psyche "democracy" has come to mean "occupation" and "Zionism."
I do notice a bit of a pattern, though, if we accept your theory. The Israelis (well, the Jews at least) and Arabs have been killing each other for thousands of years.
Completely untrue. The Arab/Jewish hate is purely a 20th century phenomenon, caused by Zionism. The Jews were doing fine under the Arab and Turkish empires.
There's no real sense in it anymore. Both sides are guilty of atrocities and the hatred is ingrained in both sides at birth.
That's true, but, again, it's a much more recent phenomenon than you think -- and it's only become religious lately.
Now, in the last 50 years, you're saying that the Arabs and the USA are killing (metaphorically at first, now literally) each other over a laundry list of sins on both sides. Seems that there's a common theme and a common player. Would you say it's the Arab mentality to look for slights and respond violently until the pot boils? "Us against Them" has always been a great population control technique. So is it a case of the Arab power structure (secular or non-secular as the case may be) manufacturing trouble to keep the masses focused on an "outside evil" rather than the fact that they live in a sand dune with oppressive leaders and not a bikini to be found?
Would you say it's an American mentality to look for slights and respond violently until the pot boils? "Us agains them" has always been a great population control technique. First it was the English, then it was the Red Indians, then it was the Huns, then it was the Commies, now it's the Islamofascists.
Seriously: that type of response isn't typically Arab or typically American. It's typically human. We're a social species of primate. Primates form bands that are hostile to other bands. However, there is a way to combat it, which is education and knowledge. The better you understand "the other," the harder it is to think of him as a faceless evil. There is evidence of this approach actually working, at least in a small way.
Here's how the world looks from the Arab point of view right now (and me trying to step into both the Arab and the American psyche at the same time
Fifty years ago, Saudi Arabia gave New York State to the Zoroastrians, who have now set up a rich, military, nuclear-armed country there. They're occupying New Jersey and have walled off Manhattan Island. Manhattan Island is run by hard-line Baptists who lob home-made rockets into the rest of NYC, while in New Jersey the "Pan-Americans" are in power. The Zoroastrians maintain some kind of contact with the Pan-Americans; their current leader is considered to be their puppet, but is unfortunately pretty ineffective.
There are Saudi military bases housing tens of thousands of soldiers as well as strike fighter and bomber wings, in California, Florida, Colorado, Montana, Texas, and South Carolina.
Canada has a theocratic, authoritarian, Russian Orthodox "Old Believer" regime. They got into power by overthrowing a highly unpopular and brutal Communist government that had in turn been installed through a coup and then lavishly supported militarily and economically by the Saudis. The Canadians are notorious for covertly messing with other countries, are set for regional dominance, and appear to be well on their way to acquiring the nuclear bomb.
There are nuclear-armed Saudi carrier groups patrolling the American coasts both on the Atlantic and the Pacific side.
The President-For-Life of America is the Rev. Fred Phelps. Homosexuality, abortion, selling contraceptives, blasphemy, insulting the President, un-American activities, and a quite a few other things capital offenses. Pre- and extra-marital sex are punished by lashing. A strict public dress code is enforced -- women have to wear skirts down to the ankle with loose blouses that cover their arms and neck; men are allowed knee-length shorts and T-shirts. A cadre of truncheon-armed Virtue Police does the enforcing.
President Phelps got his job from his father. The administration is staffed entirely by family members, with his son Jerry being groomed to be the next president.
President Phelps has a very close relationship with the Saudi head of state; in fact, his son Greg is considered one of his closest personal friends. The basis of the close relationship is a deal that allows Saudis preferred access to American natural resources; the Saudi-American Coal and Uranium Company has consequently strip-mined much of the Rocky Mountains. Consequently, Phelps gets a lot of military (and other) aid from the Saudis. The relationship has begun to show some cracks lately, but is still very close.
Mexico is in civil war, following a disastrous Saudi invasion and occupation four years ago, with about 160,000 Arab Coalition troops in the country. The Mexican president, Ricardo Calderon, is supported by huge amounts of money but manages to really control only a walled-off section of Mexico City. The Zapatistas run the Chiapas region much to their liking and has a de-facto independent state there. Texas and California have been flooded by about 2,000,000 Mexican refugees. President Calderon is trying to maintain good relations with Rev. Phelps's government and has contacts with the Russian Orthodox regime in Canada, but Saudi Arabia has recently been threatening them with invasion or attack.
OK, do you hate the Saudis yet? I could go on for a while, but perhaps you get the picture.