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MinM

(2,650 posts)
Wed Sep 4, 2013, 02:15 PM Sep 2013

NPR sells Syria w/Samuel Huntington

@Rigorous_Intuit: @NPR attempts to resurrect Samuel Huntington in order to sell Syria. http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=520350#p520350

A Look Back At A Predicted 'Clash Of Civilizations'
September 03, 2013 3:00 PM

It was 20 years ago that Samuel Huntington's essay on what he termed "the clash of civilizations" was first published in the journal Foreign Affairs. The essay predicted the next frontier of global conflict would occur along cultural cleavages — most prominently between the Islamic world and the West. Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose and Robert Siegel discuss how perceptions of the essay have changed over time...

CHARLIE ROSE: Well, one of the points that Ajami made in his additional attack on, or response to the "Clash" article, which we've included in the collection, was that states are pretty wily and they can sort of maneuver themselves and be trickier than the civilizations they're supposedly part of. And that Huntington had sort of under estimated the extent to which states make their own destinies, rather than being trapped in a civilizational mode.

But after 9/11 and the war on terror, when it seemed like there were these broad drivers in world politics in which radical Islam had come to play such a role and the West had come into conflict with Islam in various ways, Fouad argued that Huntington had a point about the extent to which some other factors managed to override normal geopolitics in many respects, or could do so. And that maybe the thesis had more staying power and validity than he had given it credit for...

SIEGEL: As you said, Huntington fared better after 9/11, or his ideas did. Twenty years after he wrote, having failed to mediate a Mid-East peace or normalize relations with Iran, after a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, a civil war in Syria, the very fitful revolution in Egypt, does the Mid-East start to look like it's vindicating Samuel Huntington, that their problems are cultural, civilizational?

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/03/218627286/a-look-back-at-a-predicted-clash-of-civilizations
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NPR sells Syria w/Samuel Huntington (Original Post) MinM Sep 2013 OP
And in what way exactly does this differ from malthaussen Sep 2013 #1
This one really stands out with the K&Rs above this one..... Rebellious Republican Sep 2013 #2

malthaussen

(17,175 posts)
1. And in what way exactly does this differ from
Wed Sep 4, 2013, 02:25 PM
Sep 2013

"The ancient conflict between the Aryan and Semitic Peoples" which has been bandied about since, oh, let us say the First Crusade?

-- Mal

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