You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular.

Host: The desert was endless — a vast canvas of sand and silence, painted in the colors of dust and memory. The sun was falling, bleeding through the horizon like a wound that refused to close, and the wind carried the faint echoes of an ancient lament — the kind that time could not erase, only repeat.

Among the ruins of what was once a citadel, two figures stood — Jack and Jeeny — their silhouettes dark against the glow of the dying day. Around them, the remnants of empires slept: broken walls, eroded columns, shattered mosaics, all speaking of greatness that had fallen and forgotten itself.

The air was heavy, ancient, alive with the ghosts of civilizations that had once believed themselves immortal.

Jeeny: (her voice soft, reverent)
“Alexander Haig once said, ‘You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and frustration, of feudalism and tribalism.’”
(She turned, her eyes deep as dusk.)
“But I wonder — is that really all it’s been? Failure and frustration? Or are those just the names we give when we don’t understand what survived?”

Jack: (his voice low, steady, shaped by reason)
“History doesn’t care about survival, Jeeny. It only records what’s built and what’s broken. And when you look at this region — at its wars, its betrayals, its revolutions — you see a pattern that never ends. It’s like the desert itself: it shifts, but it never changes.”

Host: The wind rose, lifting grains of sand that whirled between them like time itself, grinding, erasing, rewriting. The sky was austere, the color of smoke and ash, the kind of twilight that makes truth feel both infinite and impossible.

Jeeny: “You see the sand, Jack — I see the roots beneath it. You call it tribalism, I call it memory. These people — Persians, Arabs, Turks, Kurds — they remember their past not as failure, but as heritage. It’s the Western eye that calls it broken because it doesn’t fit the Western idea of progress.”

Jack: (frowning slightly)
“And what’s wrong with wanting progress? If the tribes had learned to unite, to modernize, to adapt, maybe this wouldn’t have been a history of wars and despots. Feudal loyalties, religious divides, dynastic greed — that’s not heritage, Jeeny. That’s the blueprint of stagnation.”

Jeeny: (her voice rising, fierce but sad)
“Stagnation? You stand in the birthplace of mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and law — and you call it stagnant? The Middle East gave the world its language of thought long before the West knew how to dream. What you call tribalism was once community. What you call feudalism was structure — built to survive when empires fell.”

Host: The sun slid lower, casting a crimson glow over the sand. The shadows of the ruins stretched, long and tired, as if the stones themselves were listening, remembering the arguments of centuries past.

Jack: (sharply)
“I’m not denying their past, Jeeny. I’m talking about the present. Look at the fractures — the civil wars, the dictators, the endless cycle of control and collapse. History becomes a burden when it chains you to what you were, instead of what you could become.”

Jeeny: (turning toward him, eyes glistening with light)
“And yet, what are we without our chains? Our stories, our scars — they’re what make us human. You want the Middle East to erase its tribes, its faith, its memory — but those are the threads that hold it together. You don’t heal a culture by removing its wounds.”

Jack: (coldly, but not unfeeling)
“Then how do you move forward if you’re still bleeding?”

Jeeny: “By acknowledging the blood, not burying it. By saying, yes, we failed — but we learned. The West calls it failure. The people who live it call it continuance.”

Host: A moment of silence fell, deep as a canyon, filled only by the wind’s murmur through the ruins — as though history itself was whispering, You are both right, and both wrong.

Jack: (his voice quieter now, touched by thought)
“I’ve walked through Baghdad, through Damascus, through the shattered streets of Beirut. I’ve seen the markets, the mosques, the children playing among the rubble. And yes, I felt what you call memory. But I also saw fatigue — a kind that no poetry can heal. You can’t live forever on glory that’s a thousand years old.”

Jeeny: (softly, but with fire underneath)
“And you can’t live without it, either. Those children you saw — they play because they still believe the world can be rebuilt. That’s the miracle of this place, Jack. The West writes it off as a failure, but somehow, despite everything, the Middle East keeps singing.”

Jack: (watching the horizon darken)
“Maybe. But a song isn’t enough when the world keeps burning.”

Jeeny: (looking at him, her eyes full of sorrow and hope)
“Then let the song become the fire.”

Host: The wind shifted, cooler now, carrying the scent of the coming night — and with it, the faint echo of a distant call to prayer, melancholic and beautiful, rising from a village unseen.

The sound was both ancient and eternal, rooted in the same soil that had known conquest, faith, and forgiveness alike.

Jack: (after a long silence)
“You really think they can change? After everything?”

Jeeny: “I think they already have. Just not in the way we define it. Change doesn’t always mean Westernization, Jack. Sometimes it means rediscovery — remembering who you were before the world told you who to become.”

Jack: “So… you think the future of the Middle East is in its past?”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly)
“No. I think the past is the key to a future the rest of us have forgotten. The West built its future on individualism; the East built it on belonging. One has freedom, the other has meaning. Maybe the world only works when both learn from each other.”

Host: The stars were emerging, one by one, faint sparks against the velvet black. The moon rose, white and calm, illuminating the sand like ashes turned to silver.

They stood in silence, listening — not just to the wind, but to history itself — the echo of empires, the cries of prophets, the laughter of children still playing in the dust.

Jack: (quietly, almost reverently)
“Maybe Haig was half right. Maybe it’s been a story of failure and frustration — but maybe that’s what makes it human. Because that’s the story of all of us, isn’t it?”

Jeeny: (nodding)
“Yes. The difference is, the Middle East never stopped trying to believe in something greater than itself — even when the world stopped believing in it.”

Host: The wind calmed, the night deepened, and for a moment, the ruins no longer looked like decay, but like remnants of an unfinished prayer — the kind that has no ending, only continuation.

Host: In that hushed expanse, the truth of Haig’s words found its balance —
perhaps it was a history of failure,
but it was also a history of endurance.

And as Jack and Jeeny walked away, their footprints vanished into the sand,
but the echo of their conversation remained —
a reminder that the story of civilization is not one of success,
but of persistence,
written over and over again by those who still believe the world can rise from its own ruins.