The flip side to “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is “Those who do learn from history can duplicate its successes.”
Five propositions about the Middle East:
1. The Middle East now is like Europe 500 years ago—a mix of religious hatreds, ethnic rivalries, national conflicts, cycles of revenge—along with some elements of reason and humanism.
2. Europe succeeded, by and large, at solving those problems and/or minimizing them.
3. We can identify the methods by which Europe solved those problems.
4. Historically, those are the only known methods by which humans have solved those problems.
5. Then we can and must apply those methods in the Middle East.
Each of those five requires unpacking and argumentation, yet that is our project.
