In 1848, the new Communist movement issued a manifesto. It began with the opening line:
“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism.”
For our purposes today, this threat might be reworded as:
“A spectre is haunting the Middle East—the spectre of America.
For
example, about a year ago Dubai’s police chief addressed a major
international Gulf Arab security conference. He said that there were
about three dozen security threats to the Gulf Arab countries. But this
well-respected security expert said the number-one threat was the United
States.
Since that time, this American spectre has become vivid. For instance, The New York Times had
a recent editorial which stated that the only protection for Egypt’s
democracy—meaning Muslim Brotherhood participation in the next Egyptian
government—was the United States and Europe. The Egyptian regime,
Israel, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab state were bad for wanting to
protect their societies from Islamic ideology, revolution, and
anti-Western Sharia states!
Might
the United States and its allies rather be expected to battle Turkey,
Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Hamas or otherwise might
support Islamists while Saudi Arabia fought Europe’s and America’s
response as too soft on Hizballah?
But what if a crazy notion seizes policymakers, blessed with the mush of ignorance about the
Middle
East that they can take control of the troublemakers? Perhaps Germany
(World War One and Two jihads), or the or Soviet control of radical
nationalist regimes in the 1950s, or the French rescue of the
Palestinian leadership in the late 1940s or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
in Iran during the 1970s or America in the 1950s (Arab nationalism) or
the 2910 Muslim Brotherhood would turn nominal extremists into friends?
Imagine,
dunderheads in Washington, London, Paris and so on, thinking they are
masterfully preserving stability, making peace, and harnessing Sharia in
the cause of boosting democracy!
How
smug would be the smiles when those who perpetrated September 11, 2001
were supposedly defeated by those mentored into power a decade later by
the West in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 or in the Arab Spring or the
Syrian revolution!
Look at it through the eyes of the Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Kurds, and Israelis who think they will try to impose a new order the
region?
Consider
a famous speech by Winston Churchill at Fulton, Missouri on March 5,
1946. In contrast to the Communist Manifesto 100 years later, Churchill
began, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron
Curtain is descended across the continent.” It might be strange that
these two statements are compared to the current situation in the Middle
East. But actually, they make a lot of sense.
The
assessment of great powers’ tensions was to impose one (European)
system on the region. In the first case it was Communism. In Churchill’s
case, it was anti-Communism he advocated, which in parallel would be
Anti-Islamism.
But
today, what is the system that Arabs, Iranians Turks, and Israelis
think they will try to impose on the region? The answer for those who
have been watching in recent years is revolutionary Islamism.
It might seem strange that this is the thinking. But it isn’t. The question is whether there a system that Western Europeans seem to
want to impose? And the answer is that to the Arabs and others in the
region—although this does not mean it has to be true—is that since the
1979 Iranian revolution, they support radical Islamism. In fact, it
should be understood that after the Arab Spring, Arabs did not generally
identify Western interests with support for moderate democracy, but
with support for Islamism.
Incidentally,
Churchill ‘title was the Sinews of Strength and he favored policy
leading a coalition of Free world which would be welcome today.
To
summarize, in the 1930s Churchill favored anti-fascism and advocated a
united front against Nazi Germany. After World War Two he supported an
alliance of the Free World against the Iron Curtain.
Where is the Churchill of today?
Well, directly his bust was quickly chucked from the White House because he was the symbol for Obama of Western colonialism.
Who was the genuine symbol of anti-colonialisms for Obama? The left wing anti-Western revolutionary ideological
movement represented by the Muslim Brotherhood or Chavez, and other demagogues.
If you favor Islamism y0u cannot be accused of Islamophobia, a U.S,- sponsored movement except for the extremists of al-Qaida.. Not liberals or real pro-democrats or conservative traditionalists or nationalists or communal nationlaists but Islamists.
that also means that non-Islamists can be the enemy.
Consider
this: In Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Turkey, and other countries, Western
powers and especially America were seen to be behind Islamist
governments. And in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and even Iran, they were
portrayed in this way with perhaps somewhat less justice. But here is
the bottom line. The overwhelming majority of Arab governments and the
Turkish-Iranian democratic opposition had many reasons to think that the
Western countries, and especially the United States, were actually
supporting their Islamist foes. In 2013 that view became even more
accurate.
It
should be understood in the current regional picture that the Western
world, and especially the Obama Administration, have taken the
Islamists’ side in the battle between these forces.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA)
Center http://www.gloria-center.org
Forthcoming Book: Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Yale University Press)
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies, http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftur20#.UZs4pLUwdqU
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