This is one way of looking at things:
“A “coalition of the willing” that mainly comprises Anglo-American militaries that shatter Arab lands, along with Arab and Asian autocrats in whose jails the seeds of Al-Qaeda were incubated in the 1980s, is not a serious venture to fight Islamist military and extremism. Such a combination of states is the very force that has given birth and sustenance to them.”
Another way of looking at things is to ask if a militant and backward-looking form of political Islam has made things better or worse for the people who live in Islamic countries. They must, after all, contend with the world as it is, and the real world has global powers and multinational energy corporations, and a nuclear-armed Israel. We might fantasize about an alternate world where foreign non-Islamic powers don’t have financial and national security interests in the Islamic world, but that alternative world does not and never will exist. There are people who finance the growth of militant Islam, and people who preach it, and those people have agency. They have to take responsibility for their actions, too. They can’t just point at the Russians and Europeans and Americans and say “you made us do this.”
America, for example, may have broken Iraq, but we didn’t advise or encourage Sunnis and Shiites to kill each other in droves. That was a decision that other people made, some of whom may be in positions of power in governments that are formerly allied with the United States.
Frankly, America takes the blame when we intervene and we take the blame when we do not. When we help autocratic regimes maintain order, preventing their countries from shattering, we are hypocrites. When we stand by and watch Syria fall apart, we are heartless.
Rami G. Khouri is correct to recommend that foreign policy advisers stand back and think about the success rate of combating Islamic militancy. We absolutely should do that. We definitely need to do an honest assessment of what works and what doesn’t.
But the exact same thing is true of anyone who thinks that supporting this particular kind of militancy is the best way to defend Islam or create better societies in their own countries. If you’re going to tell me that it’s unrealistic to ask for this kind of introspection, I will respond that it’s unrealistic to think that the West and other global powers are going to stand by and watch the Middle East turn into a Sunni Caliphate that eradicates anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their fucked up version of their religion.
Some things that are unrealistic need to become realistic. On both sides.
