Reordering the Middle East

A few days back Bush termed Ahmedinejad as the next Hitler. The statement came six months after the Iranian hardliner vowed to free the world of Zionism. I ain’t sure if in hindsight Ahmedinejad would have regretted saying that but he undeniably gave the strong Jewish lobby in the US the perfect excuse to pressurize Bush into bullying Iran not that they needed a pretext to do so. Ahmedinejad’s provocation couldn’t have come better for the Jewish backed foreign policy hawks in Washington whose clout was on the decline following the outcome of the Iraqi war. In a quest to reorder the Middle East, they would now go all out against the nuclear craving Islamic Iran.

If you ask me I would sympathize with Mr. Bush clearly because he can only act as he is told to. Unfortunately for the US, such is the weight the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) throws around in matters of US foreign policy in the Middle East that America’s own security and broader interests in the region could be compromised in the process. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, faculty from two reputed US universities have undertook an in-depth analysis of the forces that drive the US foreign policy in the Middle East in their paper titled THE ISRAELI LOBBY and published in the London Review of Books.

The paper goes to the extent of dubbing America’s relationship with Israel as a strategic liability and a case that is morally weak. The authors have castigated the grounds on which this relationship stands – ideas like Israel is the underdog faced by hostile Arabs, a democratic institution, a nation that needs compensation for war crimes of the past and morally superior to the evil Arabs. It also throws light on the composition of the lobby and its source of strength. Interesting to note is that the Israeli lobby, the strongest in the U.S., contains a large proportion of non American Jews like the Christian Evangelicals and the Neo Conservatives. The lobby succeeds in shaping the US foreign policy by commanding a huge influence in the Congress and the Executive, manipulating the media, policing the academic institutions and silencing any candid attempt at a debate on Israel’s alleged role by branding it as anti- Semitism.

A biased foreign policy adopted by the U.S in the Middle East has wider ramifications for the world due to the region’s strategic importance and its hydrocarbon production. With resentment in the Muslim world already running high with Iraq and the cartoon episode, the world would become even more insecure if Iran is to be attacked. Iran definitely poses a much more serious challenge to the U.S. due to its sheer size and dispersion of its military and so-called nuclear facilities and its distance from Israel. In a bid to enhance their energy security and find a suitable alternative to the unreliable middle east, the U.S. and West have over the past decade managed in diverting the huge hydrocarbon reserves of the Caspian Sea (most of it yet to be exploited) towards the European markets through the South Caucasian – Black Sea corridor away from Russia and China. These oil facilities would be the softest targets of an Iranian retaliation and would deal a severe blow to the oil and gas exploration in Central Asia. With oil prices already $70 a barrel and the lobby's unrelenting pressure, one can just hope that Bush keeps his calm and so does Iran.

What's the fuss about crying???

Do we expect men who hail from Mars to cry or is weeping one attributes solely to the femme? These where questions put up by a friend of mine who suggested I blog on this subject. My reply to her was that it would be foolish to believe that crying - the most spontaneous of human expressions for grief would have anything to do with gender. I doubted if it would be worth penning my thoughts on something as trivial as crying but once I paused to mull over this subject and turned to the web seeking answers, it occurred to me that by and large crying still remains a complex jigsaw puzzle to be put in place by theories from physiology, psychology, evolution and sociology (to a lesser extent) and was well worth a post. Stats say men do cry but not as much as women and we would investigate how gender makes the difference. Physiologically, tears can be classified as basal (the ones continuously produced to lubricate our eyes), irritant or emotional. It is the emotional ones - the ones that flow in huge volumes that are possibly unique to human beings and also the most mysterious of all.

Let’s start from the time we were born. A child cries irrespective of its gender and when it does so it carries a message. It could be anything from discomfort due to wet dipers, missing a routine nap, indigestion, hunger to fear of something thus establishing that infants tend to cry for reasons other than grief rather it is their own sweet way of drawing attention towards their needs. As the child grows up it may become stubborn and demanding. Any effort in the direction to make it yield and they willingly turn their lachrymose glands on. Crying as we see now turns out to be a form of protest or rebellion and has nothing to do with gender.

It is in the teens that one first observes a stark contrast in the way males and females react to extreme emotion. Can you figure out what would bring about this change? I can see two changes (one physiological and the other sociological) occurring during this phase: girls achieving puberty and boys becoming conscious of the “unmanliness” in shedding tears. But what would puberty have to do with secretion from the lachrymals or for that matter could cultural factors help men exercise restraint over the tear glands. To comprehend the logic behind this abnormal behavior one needs to dig deeper into biology. Since I haven’t dealt with biology elaborately in my younger days, I had to turn towards the search engines to help me figure this out.

Whenever human beings are subjected to intense emotions such as physical or psychological pain, there is a significant build up of stress hormones which need to be secreted to prevent build up of high toxin levels in the body. The body has different channels to release stress and secretion of stress hormones can happen through tears, sweat or urine. Crying is one form of releasing these stress hormones and tears have known to contain a stress hormone called prolactin in fairy large proportion. Psychologists thus refer to crying as a healing process which can be physiologically explained by the reduction of the level of stress hormones. This also corroborates findings of a recent study in the UK which claims that depressed people tend to shed lesser tears than those who aren’t. Incidentally prolactin is not only released during crying, it is also believed to be play a vital role in tear formation. And guess what?? Women have shown to possess prolactin in much higher quantities than men (as much as 60% more) and why not….they need prolactin for synthesizing breast milk. It is the high concentration of prolactin in women that correlates with their frequency of crying.

But the above argument is flawed in light of today’s fast paced environment where many a time men are found to shed tears as easily as women. The argument can be refined if one assumes that there definitely exist stress hormones other than prolactin and probably with a higher concentration in men, their favored channels of release being the alternate pathways of sweat and urine. This also makes sense from an evolutionary aspect as prehistoric man the natural hunter wouldn’t have liked blurry eyes impeding his vision during the age old tribulations of hunting. But then women wouldn’t have liked a blurry vision either. How could one explain the existence of emotional tears in today’s man had evolution been working all these years? May be it’s a work still in progress. May be today’s man can afford impediment of vision as long as tears help him de-stress. Folks, lachrymology is yet in a nascent stage…there’s a lot left to be known!!! Guess its best to allow our body to take care of the emotional tears and even if you are a man, you rather be happy if you can readily turn ‘em on. There is no shame in crying, it’s not only normal to cry, it’s good too.

Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Just finished reading Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini is a truly gifted narrator and must admit it’s one helluva novel for a debutant. The story spanning two continents and almost a generation and half provides us a wonderful insight into Afghan culture. Hosseini is blessed with the gift of irony as he leaves no stone unturned in plucking every cord of the heart with the complex web of emotions he weaves. I liked the manner in which he brings about the guilt in Amir that ultimately transforms an escapist into a hero. The story is beautifully divided in two halves – the first half of Hassan’s unflinching loyalty and Amir’s betrayal set in free Afghanistan and the second half of Amir’s journey of redemption in his war-ridden home land. It is with aplomb that Hosseini juxtaposes the extremes of sacrifice and betrayal, the Occidental and the Oriental, gentleness and terror.

The title of the book also makes me kindda nostalgic. It reminds me of my childhood days spent in eastern U.P. when we used to fly kites in the neighborhood and spoke words like “dheel”, “manja” and “lootna”. Kite running was then quite a passion among the boys. Sad it is to see today’s fast paced life leaving no room for the dying art of Kite Flying. Also wonder what it would be like for a man to be raped by a man. The very thought sickens me but the truth is it does happen in some parts of the world.

Starting all over again!!!

Ever since I entered the fascinating world of blogs in Dec '05, my posts have revolved merely around events concerning my life. However, I now find a new found urge to take my blogging a bit more seriously and switch from personal ramblings to something more comprehensive. So here I go!!!