Western intervention discredits its own proposed solutions in the Middle East

Evidence

In what has gone before I have tried to raise the conflicts of the Middle East from the level of a quarrel between states to that of a clash between civilizations. But civilizations can have no foreign policies, and governments must. The ques­ tion therefore remains: What action should the Western states take in the present Middle Eastern situation? My own answer would be: As little as possible. The peoples of the Middle East are going through a crisis of transition, which we helped to precipitate, but which they alone can resolve. The United Nations has the limited but overtaxing duty of keeping the peace or at least of curbing the appetites of violence. We of the West can also do something to help, on non­ political levels, but should beware of proposing solutions that, however good, are discredited by the very fact of our having suggested them. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1198

Categorization

• XREF: Lewis, writing in the 1950s, frames Huntington’s later ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis directly — yet draws the opposite policy conclusion from Huntington. Useful contradiction within the Orientalist canon.
• QUESTION: Who exactly is this book’s audience and era? The passage reads like advice to Eisenhower-era policymakers; worth pinning the original publication date to contextualize.