By Nicholas A Biniaris
Many well-informed and open-minded analysts in Asia
Times Online and elsewhere have for several years described the conditions of
Islam and of Muslim states. It goes without saying that these individuals had
no agenda and were sincerely studying the social and political events triggered
by the Iranian Revolution and the first Afghan war.
Up until now no clear sign of a coherent plan
can be seen in the actions of the West, China and India, all of whom are
willingly orunwillingly involved in this historic drama. To its credit, Russia
kept a consistent real-politic attitude to all events happening in the Muslim
world.
However, in this article I shall argue that a
pattern of action or inaction, (inaction can be a policy also) emerges as what
I shall call the West's policy of creative destruction and deception,
internalized as self-deception (CDSD).
This pattern is mostly ad-hoc and formed as a
sort of a spontaneous outcome of four causal factors: disruption of the West's
economic order, fear of terrorism, fear of a nuclear war and finally fear of
sectarian war which may spread in Muslim areas but also in West's own home
ground. Moreover, Western policies are driven by the advent of democracy, the
rule of law and human rights which also include minority rights. These policies
intertwine and enmesh with the four pragmatic factors of insecurity and create
an incongruous and contradictory set of policies which are at least ineffective
and at most self-destructive.
At this juncture of a historical maelstrom in
and around Islam, we reached the ludicrous point of naming meat as fish, so
that the pious monks could consume the forbidden food during fasting. We cannot
name the Egyptian's army coup as a "coup" for various reasons, one
being the possible abrogation of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Another
reason could be the "meeting of minds" between Washington and the
Egyptian Army about Morsi's acts and plans concerning his policies about Syria
and Iran.
The view of this author is that the generals are
as incompetent as Morsi was. They deposed him as the scapegoat for the looming
bankruptcy of the country. Instead they secured a lifeline of US$12 billion
from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which I shall call the untouchables. At
the same time Syria's Bashar al-Assad has declared that political Islam is
defeated and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is lamenting the
demise of democracy in Egypt. We definitely need an Aristophanes to write an
Oscar winning comedy for the foolish West versus the unfathomable developments
in the Moslem world.
Turkey, in particular, the model of
"moderate" Islamic government was surprised to experience the first
full scale attack against neo-Ottomanism. This was an assault on the
"disposable idiots", as Burak Bekdil, the influential Turkish
journalist, refers to the secularists who repeatedly voted for Erdogan. [1] The
premier's holier than thou attitude has enraged the young and educated Turks
who perceive that their way of life and choices for the future are diminished
by his grand visions of world influence through a Muslim agenda.
Beyond any attempt to lighten up the ambiance
of the recent events, what is emerging is a bleak and dangerous future for all.
The stable, ironically speaking, the untouchables, are major suppliers of gas
and oil worldwide with Saudi Arabia exporting about three million bbl/day to
China. For that matter, plus the fact of their investments in Western bourses
and corporations and the lavish procurement of weapons from the West, the two
pillars of a make-believe stability are untouchables by Western, Chinese and
other governments and world media.
Actually, the untouchables are the attested
sources of instability and strife. These are the bankers of Islam's extremist
views. They propagate and disseminate Salafism and Wahhabism which steer Islam
to its most incongruous path with modernity that is science, technology and
political and individual rights.
They profess an Islam in direct conflict with
freedom and human dignity. In addition, they propagate hatred and intolerance
for other Muslim traditions, as the Shi'ites, the Sufis, and the Ahmadiyya of
Pakistan supporting a religiously inspired apartheid. Christians are targeted:
Copts, Orthodox, Catholics and other denominations. Most of them are abandoning
the war torn areas. This is a total abrogation not of Koranic Verses preaching
peace but of the West's professed belief in minority rights.
Never before in human history, so few held in
captivity so many, with such an obscurant credo and way of life. This unholy
alliance of the West and the untouchables is practiced through deception. We
deceive ourselves by aligning with the perpetrators of all we consider to be
unacceptable: terrorism, bondage, laws of the desert and the tribe, cultural
exclusion and intolerance of the other.
Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, in Mali,
blacklisting Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda as terrorist organizations -
embargoing Iran - is just deceptions. All these acts deceive the citizens and
planners themselves into believing that we fight terrorism and we propagate
democracy and human rights.
What the West actually practiced was primarily
reactive creative destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq and very lately in Libya.
We fought asymmetrical wars, which we were bound to loose anticipating the
creative part to emerge in due time if and when societies attain the
consciousness of a working democracy according to our standards.
Foreign policy and its implementation has one
purpose: to protect its vital interests and safeguard the well-being or the
actor. We, and for that matter China and India are faced with the stark reality
of a protracted conflict of all against all where the two paragons of stability
will be sucked in one way or another. The Untouchables are fighting for their
survival paying huge amounts of their easy gained money to support Sunni
jihadists, paying for the overthrow of Gaddafi, the Muslim Brotherhood, or the
Egyptian Army against the Brotherhood, keeping American bases and mercenary armies
for their protection.
Saudi Arabia is paying huge subsidies bribing
its idle population, student stipends and social handouts to keep its people
quiet and uses a heavy hand against the Shi'ites who sit upon the main oil
sources of the kingdom. In the south, Yemen is in total chaos, with
secessionist movements and subject to drone attacks against jihadists. This
situation is inherently unstable. Tribal affiliations and family alliances rule
with Sharia as the legitimization of their rule.
This deceptive stability is threatened by the
selfsame jihadists and Taliban (students of the Koran) who are educated and
subsidized by the Untouchables. These jihadists hold them hostage to their
pathological views about an Islamic Caliphate, a return to the days of the
Prophet, an ossified society where girls seeking education are shot and schools
(carriers of western ideas) are destroyed. [2] World history is replete with
examples of groups of mercenaries or fanatics who were used by states and
political systems to defend and support them. The end result was the
overturning of the masters by their guards. Whoever has the resolve to fight
and die is far ahead in the game of power grabbing. The future of these
Satrapies is bleak and so is ours.
What will happen when and if the flow of oil is
disrupted by acts of terrorism or by acts of inter-state wars or civil strife
in these areas? We have already put in place an embargo for Iranian oil. Iraq
is in a "low intensity" civil war with 1000 people blown up only in
May this year and most of the fabulous oil riches some 7.5 million bbl/day are
still lying in the desert.
If the feared but fully expected -it is a
matter of time- upheaval reaches the sands and shores of the sanctum sanctorum
of Islamic orthodoxy and the supply of oil, then the West shall be forced to
take extreme and painful military and economic measures at a period where its
economy is still shaken by the mindless banking collapse of 2008. Europe in
particular, with an austerity program and several countries virtually bankrupt,
will collapse as a house of cards. The cost of energy, mostly a deficit of
current accounts, will skyrocket; industrial production will be cut with
millions of unemployed joining the ranks of the already army of millions in
Europe's south.
It must become clear that the West and the rest
of the rising world powers had not planned to stem or channel the Muslim
conundrum to a less self and world-wide destructive path. Preventive diplomacy
and intervention, creative destruction and the doctrine of democracy and human
rights were applied haphazardly and incoherently.
Human rights and democracy are part of the
Western narrative about the telos, the inevitable moral purpose of history. Messiahs
and Paradises are the telos of Abrahamic religions. Can the two world views be
reconciled? The Western narrative is an advancement of our humanity towards our
fellow man. We strive for compassion and solidarity for the victims of
inhumanity and humiliation. The three religious traditions profess that they
also espouse the same program. Why do we have such a difficulty communicating
with each other the same humanistic ideals?
In this context we have reached the point of
bitter debate about Syria's civil war. Our option to support the democratically
inspired opponents of Assad was blocked by the rise of the Brotherhood,
jihadist and the Sunni-Shiite divide. The Syria terrain is a war of all against
all, and recently the latest incident is a war between the FSA and the local or
the Iraqi Al-Qaeda. At the same time Pakistani Taliban are setting up camps in
Syria to fight against Assad and forge ties with local Al-Qaeda. [3]
Turkey feels threatened by this new
development. [4] Centuries after the great Ottoman, Arab, and the Mogul
Empires, the Muslims should be responsible for their own future.
All the same the issue of a nuclear Iran and
the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites brings forth two nightmare
scenarios: a nuclear war and a possible nuclear terrorist threat and a war
among states. The Saudis can purchase a couple of nuclear bombs from Pakistan
or elsewhere as a move against a nuclear Iran, if Israel doesn't act first.
Up to now the turmoil is limited to civil wars
and uprisings. However, on May 31 the highly influential Imam Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
in a Friday rally in Doha declared that: "anyone who has the ability, who
is trained to fight . . . has to go; I call on Muslims to go and support their
brothers in Syria". Presently there are 5,000 foreign Mujahedeen in Syria.
There were 10000 after ten years of war in Afghanistan.[5]
The heart of the matter is that Syria is
becoming the battle ground of Sunni jihadists against the Shiites. The
pernicious doctrine of "Shiites are worse than naked women"
proclaimed in Egypt's Sura by a Salafist cleric is characteristic of the
mentality surrounding the issue. All around the Muslim world. Shiites are blown
up in Egypt, Pakistan, in Iraq, in Indonesia, in Yemen.
Concomitant to this is the relationship between
Islamic utopian absolutism and the West as they cohabitate the same area,
Europe. Recently, an article was written about 1,000 jihadists fighting in
Syria from 14 different European countries. The crucial question is what will
happen when they return home. The problem of future conduct of people
influenced by extreme interpretations of Islam and hatred for the West, people
who were born, live and work amongst us is dreadful. [6]
The inertia imposed by stark necessity for oil,
the delusional beliefs about the West's invincibility and mastery of the
political game world-wide, has produced an inchoate ad hoc policy. The West has
painted itself into a corner.
Notes: 1. Hurriyet, April 5 2013
2. Young Malala speaking at the UN. Also,
Reuters: July 14, about Boko Haram and terrorism in Nigeria.
3. Reuters: July 14, 2013
4. Zaman: Taliban involvement may further drag
Turkey into Syria's quagmire, July 15, 2013
5. Foreign Affairs: How Syria's civil war
became a Holy Crusade, July 7, 2013
6. Foreign Policy: "Europe's new time bomb
is ticking in Syria", July 9, 2013
