I believe that we are going to be engaged throughout the Middle East for decades to come. People will do their best to believe that one event has nothing to do with another, but ultimately everything we have done has everything to do with what exists between Cairo and Islamabad. But we aren't a people (Europe and the U.S.) that like to see things for what they are. We want everything to fit into our definitions. We want the international laws we created over the centuries to be upheld by the rest of the world. We want their perspectives to equal our perspectives. This is why when Sunni fighters were entering Iraq from all countries to slaughter Shia, we only see "Iraq." This is why when we learned publicly that Al-Queda is made of the region's citizens, we only see Afghanistan. We want everything to be defined and packaged into neat borders and a uniformed enemy. The problem is that we are wrong.
I'm not sure what you're basing the assumption "that one event has nothing to do with another" from. It has become the dominant narrative surrounding the ME since the initial Afghanistan invasion, that Al-Qaeda has drawn from across the region. This is a recognized fact by 'Hawks' and 'Doves' who both use the fact for their respective position. International law is unequivocally a 'Western' concept based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Under this declaration 'Rights' become codified, and normative. The contention arises from states not following such a declaration (many ME nations). One declaration that glaringly highlights non-compatibility has to be equality between men/Women. Thus, some commentators identify this platform within 'Culture' and cultural specificity and issues become insurmountable without challenging ideology and domestic structures (Tried within Iraq, though to early too comment on the outcomes).
We want to protest a "war for oil" and then bitch that gasoline and the price of bread is too much. We want to preach about freedom and liberty and criticize our relationship with Cold War dictators and then criticize a move to rid ourselves of one. We want to declare that we were at war with Nazis...not Germans. That we are at war with terrorists, not Muslims. We put more energy into denying truths and upholding our illusions than we do facing the world for what it is. In the mean time, the rest of the world laughs as they get away with breaking our rules of international organization and codes of war. Perhaps this is because, unlike nations in the modernized West, their borders make no sense and very much rely on oppressive dictators to maintain a sense of stability? Perhaps its because, unlike nations in the West, their populations have not had the chance to sort themselves out behind natural borders?
I believe that we are in a constant state of war and we fool ourselves into believing otherwise because we can afford to make ourselves stupid and ignorant. And because of this, the country will never be on the same war footing without a Nazi, Soviet, Japanese, North Korean, or North Vietnamese uniform to oppose. And don't let them try to make sense of their inabilities to process the world they live in. Whenever they whine about Afghanistan or Iraq not attacking us, as them to point out the American cities that Germans and Soviets attacked. Or ask them what American city Saddam Hussein attacked when he crossed into Kuwait in 1990. Or what American city Somalis or Bosnians attacked. Protestors are often self deluded and convenient about what they protest...and when they protest it.
You're simply describing the position set out byThomas Hobbes in the 17th century who was the first to offer some clarity on International Order. Hobbes suggested 'the international system is anarchic in nature (dog eat dog) and private citizens look to domestic leaders for protection. So, it is not original thinking looking at international order in this way. Looking more contemporary (although based on Hobbes), Realism comtexulises international order in such a way. Realists avoid looking for a Utopian ideal (this is the main split from the Liberalism thesis) and comment as things are, here and now, and not what one would like things to be. Proponents of such an approach look to Henry Kissinger.
