Dubai: The UAE has proposed a three-pronged strategy to ensure lasting peace in the Middle East, which is wracked by the Daesh insurgency in Iraq and Syria.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, writes for Gulf News to say “ISIS [Daesh] certainly can — and will — be defeated militarily by the international coalition that is now assembling and which the UAE is actively supporting. But military containment is only a partial solution”.
Shaikh Mohammad says an enduring solution requires three bigger ingredients: winning the intellectual battle, upgrading weak governance and grassroots human development.
Terming the Daesh ideology as the greatest danger the world will face in the next decade, Shaikh Mohammad said the solution has three components.
Sustainable answer
“The first is to counter malignant ideas with enlightened thinking, open minds, and an attitude of tolerance and acceptance. The second component is support for governments’ efforts to create stable institutions that can deliver real services to their people. The final component is to address urgently the black holes in human development that afflict many areas of the Middle East,” he said.
Shaikh Mohammad stress-ed the critical need for long-term projects and initiatives to eliminate poverty, improve education and health, build infrastructure, and create economic opportunities. He said: “Sustainable development is the most sustainable answer to terrorism.”
