Middle Eastern dictatorships need conflict to justify domestic oppression

Evidence

In the same way, the dictatorships that rule much of the Middle East today will not, indeed cannot, make peace, because they need conflict to justify their tyrannical oppression of their own people, and to deflect their peoples’ anger against an external enemy. As with the Axis and the Soviet Union, real peace will come only with their defeat or, preferably, collapse, and their replacement by governments that have been chosen and can be dismissed by their people and will therefore seek to resolve, not provoke, conflicts. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1803 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Middle Eastern regimes may keep the Israel conflict simmering as a safety valve; Middle East dictatorships manufacture external conflict to justify internal oppression. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1803; Military oppression of a nation also needs the politico-military terrain to be explained — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 765 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Middle East dictatorships manufacture external conflict to justify internal oppression. #corroborates (1.00) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1803