Time & Perspective Quote by Alexander Haig

A blunt diagnosis masquerading as historical common sense, Haig's line does two jobs at once: it explains Middle Eastern turmoil as if it were an inherited condition, and it quietly licenses a certain kind of Western posture toward the region. By choosing the register of "history" and the cadence of inevitability, he frames politics not as a set of decisions by governments (including his own) but as a long, almost geological accumulation of dysfunction.

The phrasing is telling. "In particular" signals expertise, an insider's briefing. "Failure and frustration" offers emotional color without naming agents. Then come the loaded categories: "feudalism and tribalism". Those aren't neutral descriptors; they're a Cold War-era shorthand for societies imagined as pre-modern, irrational, and therefore resistant to liberal institutions. It's a taxonomy that collapses wildly different states, movements, and class structures into a single story of backwardness, making complexity feel like a footnote.

Context matters. Haig was a U.S. general turned diplomat operating in an era when Washington wanted stability, oil security, and containment more than democratic experimentation. Casting the region as trapped in "tribalism" nudges responsibility away from external interventions, borders drawn under colonial pressure, and client regimes propped up for strategic convenience. The subtext is less "let's understand" than "don't expect too much" - a rhetorical lowering of the bar that can make hard-nosed policy seem like realism rather than choice.

It's persuasive because it sounds like a tough-minded appraisal. It's dangerous for the same reason: it turns history into an alibi.