It's time for a reality check in the Middle East, writes Arthur Chesterfield-Evans. The Middle East is in crisis.
This article looks at how the current situation developed and suggests why we should not rush into another war.
The ''Islamic State'' (IS) is the current bogeyman rampaging in northern Iraq and Syria.
This group are from the Sunni Muslims who ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein and the Syrian rebels whom the West and Gulf States had been supporting against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, the previous bogeyman.
The Kurds are under siege, and the Turks are standing by watching.
The Kurds are the second-largest ethnic group in the world without a country, being split across Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
They have been demanding an autonomous area from Turkey for years.
Turkey may be worried about separatist Kurds being empowered.
Turkey is 99% Muslim, was sympathetic to the Syrian rebels and already hosts a million Syrian refugees.
The Iraqi Government has requested foreign help to bomb its own country, which suggests it has little control of it, and its borders may not survive in the long term.
The United States claims to uphold democracy. But this claim does not stand historical scrutiny.
In Iran the CIA toppled democracy and reinstalled a shah. When he was toppled, they supported Saddam Hussein to invade Iran.
The US then invaded Iraq, twice.
It has sanctions to weaken the Iranian economy because the Iranians were supposedly enriching uranium.
It trained religious extremists to fight the Russians in Afghanistan then, when the Taliban won, invaded Afghanistan.
It helped the Israelis invade Lebanon (which was the reason Osama Bin Laden gave for the 9/11 attacks).
The US supported rebels in Libya, which has split the country on ethnic lines and created great instability.
It supported the democratic revolution in Egypt, but then helped an army coup overthrow the elected Muslim government.
It has given Egypt a lot of aid, but principally as weapons to the army.
The US has consistently supported the Saudi Government, which is very undemocratic and relies heavily on the secret police to suppress the religious fanatics who are actively supporting the jihadis in many countries.
The US has also supported Israel with money and weapons, including tolerating nuclear ones.
Israel has taken the Bible literally and acted as God's chosen people, pushing most of the Palestinians out of the country into refugee camps and taking the land from those who remain within Israel, a very sore point in the Middle East where all the people are both Arab and Muslims.
Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Egypt have all been massively affected by US action.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have nondemocratic governments supported by the US.
Israel is a democracy, but if the expelled Palestinians could vote they would be a majority instead of about 20% of the population.
Israel borders Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and is now the major regional military power, yet it wisely takes a low profile in all this.
The West has interfered in the Middle East, massively disrupting the emergence of a more unified Arab civilisation, as envisaged by Lawrence of Arabia during World War 1.
It has generally funded anyone who will help with a current problem, which has often led to other problems later.
This is probably why Turkey is reluctant to help the Kurds, and Israel may not want Lebanon funded.
The West has lost credibility, and the idea that Islam has gone mad and hates the West for no reason is a comforting nonsense.
The idea that Muslims or Arab people in the West will be loyal to their new land rather than their ethnic roots is also one that is convenient, but may not be true.
One could see this situation as a cascading series of US policy blunders, but if one asks who has benefited from all this turmoil, the obvious answer is the arms industry and Israel.
The latest panic about the emergence of the Islamic State should not make New Zealand commit to further military action.
It is not clear what would happen even if the Islamic State were defeated militarily.
Who would have power?
Syria with Bashar al-Assad?
Iraq, bombing its own land? It is time for cool heads.
People have spread all over the world, and ideas and opinions are now international.
Terrorism is a military tactic generally used by the weaker side and involving civilians everywhere.
Countering it costs a lot of money and destroys trust and civil rights.
New Zealand does not have a direct interest in the Middle East, and should cease military input and confine its activities to trading fairly and offering humanitarian aid.
• Dr Chesterfield-Evans has been executive director of the Sydney Peace Foundation. He is a former New South Wales MP and lives in both Sydney and Outram.
