Joe Biden Must Seek Genuine Middle-East Peace Through This Means -By Saliu Momodu

Outgoing President Trump attempted some peace moves in the middle-east. His own family-grown model is so deftly mercantile as seen in its utter disregard for the organic sentiments, aspirations and will of the people of the region.

Trump went about cutting deals with privileged royals and callous business politicians under the cover of brokering peace.

Business carbals and opportunists from both the US and Arab states are still having a field day cashing in on the Trump frenzy all with zero population consensus as should be vital when we sincerely seek something as crucial as peace. From Morocco to UAE, Saudi Arabia to Sudan, Bahrain and beyond, the Trump administration succeeded in making “peace” between non-hostile actors guaranteeing weapons, trade and other perks as incentives for those on the negotiating tables. That those forced into bloody conflicts, war, strife and suspicion for almost a century are not even sitting on these ostentatious negotiation tables is yet enough to outrage our modern world.

Saliu Momodu

Never has a US President been so disinterested in meeting or understanding the people for whom he claim to broker peace as this outgoing Trump – assuming all these is really about peace.
Incoming Joe Biden must not be allowed to continue on this path that is sure to suffer terrible blowbacks. Though we would not be surprised. This has been America’s strategy in the region all along: keep the people under authoritarianism so they don’t have to be considered but just their insecured leaders who must guarantee continuous and cheap oil flow while the region goes stale. What this has caused is to effectively leave the vast oil wealth of the region in the hands of Americans and a handful of Arab royals to the expense of the overwhelming Arab population mainly youthful and energetic.

But Biden should seek genuine peace so history can be favourably rewritten for the US and the region. In which case he must first help the Arab population to find their voices, locate their economics and entrepreneurship, as well as recover their socio-cultural and religious freedom that has been monopolize for too long by a few who sway the narrative with ulterior motives. This has played out in many forms, terrorism and extremism not the least among the intractable symptoms. With social-cultural, political and economic deregulation, young entrepreneural Arabs will encounter their fellow Arabs, Iranians and Jewish contemporaries in the field of business and culture, and not on the fields of battle. Civil societies would flourish, and enriching voices brought to the fore for peace when economic and social deregulation constitute a central place in the scheme for pursuing Middle-East peace. As teaming Arab youths and their young people of this 21st century go about exploring, competing and transacting together, they will gravitate more and more towards peace and conviviality. This is the organic, sincere and lasting way to promote peace in the Middle-East – both within Arab states themselves, and between the Arabs and their Jewish neighbors.

Only in that situation would any effort for peace be truly organic and efficacious, and this must be the path to tow by the incoming US president, Joe Biden.

By Saliu Momodu