How and why the West supports Muslim extremists – a double-edge sword

First of all, happy New Year everyone.

    Unfortunately, we closed our 2017 fearing terror attacks. It has not been the first year this happens.

    Then let us ask ourselves:

are Muslim extremists a threat?

    The honest answer is yes.

    After the 9/11/2001, in theory the War on Terror was an attempt to answer some of the actions they inspired and carried out. 

    However, the War lead to even more instability in the Middle East and in the world at large.

    Something did not work out. How? Why?

    Was - and is - the West really serious and dedicated to fight and counter Muslim extremists?

Muslim integralists' communities in Western cities

First, let's consider what happens in our own cities. There are many communities inspired to fundamentalist teachings of the Quran all through Western countries. These communities are tolerated to varying degrees. They are Muslim enclaves in Western cities, where it is not always clear if Sharia prevails over the civil law or viceversa. Molenbeek, in Brussels, is just a famous example of such neighbourhoods¹. Extreme forms of Islam are often preached in those environments, creating the right conditions for indoctrinating people andrecruiting potential terrorists. From many of these communities dispersed throughout Europe, hundreds of 'foreign fighters' departed to reach the battlefields in Syria and Iraq and strengthen the ranks of the Islamic State².

We democratically allow them to

protest against democracy. The

alternative? Islam.
from www.catholic.org

    We know - and we knew for many years - that such a situation is dangerous. How could it not be? We are allowing terrorists to be relatively safe next to our homes. Why are we not taking more serious and drastic measures to oppose this state of things? Are those our efforts of integrating immigrants, are those our successes at making our society a multi-ethnic one? Our political correctness is being combined with the other interests to suicidal degrees, adding yet another factor to the destabilization of our own society.

The Middle East cauldron - where Muslim extremism coagulates with Western interests

Then, let us examine how it goes far from us, in the countries where indeed Muslim extremists fight, where the Islamic State was established, where our Muslim allies are supposed to be 'moderate' ones. For the West, the war against the Islamic State mostly overlapped with the Syrian civil war. There the Arab-Western coalition - guided by the USA - had two apparent main goals: defeat the Islamic State and obtain a regime change in Syria. It was never clear on which of these two objectives the priorities relied.

    Even more, with Assad's government of Syria being still functional, and supported by other international partners and regional powers such as Russia, Iran and Lebanon, it would have been safer to reach an agreement between the different coalitions and focus on annihilating the Islamic State. Then, the political future of Syria could have been discussed in more peaceful conditions. This did not happen, raising doubts about the war actually being used to carry out the USA's strategical interests in the area rather than to properly defeat the Islamic State threat. 
  
  Similarly, we supported the Arab Springs. Those regime changes - and the attempted ones - left several Muslim States in chaos, contributing to the instabilities in North Africa and in the Middle East. We already knew the risks of the sudden overthrowing of authoritarian regimes in Muslim Countries exposed to the risk of extremism. We saw the consequences of the Iraq invasion in 2003 and we chose to repeat the same mistakes. This happened in Libya and Syria, touching Egypt and Tunisia and so on. We accepted the potential rise to power of Muslim extremists in order to destitute governments we did not like.

This and more we find acceptable in order to enforce

our own interests. www.newsela.com

We are allies with who supports the Islamic State

In line with our strategy of morally dubious compromises, we are allies with some of the most oppressive theocracies in the world. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the (rival) guides of the Sunni Arab front. They forward the Wahhabism as the reform of Islam, going back to its fundaments – thus terming itself a fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia itself is one of the most strategical partners the West have in the region, again rivaled by Turkey on the Mediterranean side of the Muslim world. Turkey itself is living difficult times of increased authoritarism, where laicism in the society gets progressively reduced in favor of more religious views³.

   Saudi Arabia and Qatar are major responsibles in supporting the complex galaxy of ‘moderate’ rebel groups, particularly in Syria⁴. Saudi Arabia and Qatar actively supported several organizations whose members eventually fought for the Islamic State⁵. Turkey allowed trades and foreign fighters for the Islamic State to go through its border⁶. All these things were not secrets to the West governments, even if news often are not reported as they should. Under President Obama, even the US administration consistently helped the supposed Syrian ‘moderate’ rebels. They insisted with that strategy even after it was clear that such rebels were not contributing to quench the terroristic threat⁷. After all, a common name to define Syrian ‘moderate’ rebels is indeed anti-Assad rebels.

   What we conclude is that the important result was not the defeat of terrorism in the Middle East or elsewhere. A regime change in Syria was more important and it was a goal shared by the USA and their Arab allies. In that respect, the Arab-Western coalition effectively lost the war in Syria. The outcome of the war in Libya is still pending.

Muslim extremists are used to create instability and open regions to Western ingerence

So is the result of our politic and our choices. Those are the allies we sided ourselves with, looking forward to compromises to improve the gains of some. Not to improve the Middle East stability and peace; not to improve the general and immediate interests of the West. Instead, we are losing resources and reputation. Stubbornly following our political schemes, that are proving themselves inefficient over and over again, we are preventing stability in the Middle East and farther. The refugee and immigrant crisis are in large part our responsibility. We contribute in raising chaos, to which aim? We are not really eradicating Muslim terrorists, because we are too busy using them however dangerous they are.

As long as the publicity
is good, States can
be manipulated.
Religious extremism is
one of many tools.

    This is situation is undoubtedly due to a combination of factors. For sure, we are trying to enforce old strategies and old alliances into a world that is evolving very fast and we are outpaced. Then, we are most likely making some bad evaluations and even worse calls. We have hard times in distinguish between our friends, the ones we should guard ourselves from and the ones who are outright enemies who should be attacked. And then, delving in the deeps of the human variables, we had and have people making genuine, dire errors. And of course we had and have people who are criminally corrupt and take decisions not answering to their Country's interests.

    Is something changing, is the USA attitude towards these matters steering in a right direction? Maybe. But possibly it just coincides with the end of the war in Syria. Other crisis are on the horizon, one evident with Iran mostly benefitting Saudi Arabia. With Saudi Arabia losing its proxy war in Syria, and not rapidly winning the other war in Yemen, the conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims risks to escalate.

    Is the West ready to acknowledge its mistakes in respect to its relationships with Muslim States and with Muslim extremists? Or are we going to see those same errors repeated over and over until the cycle breaks?

References

¹: Cohen R., The Islamic State of Molenbeek, The New York Times, 04/12/2016.

²: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/isis-british-members-foreign-fighters-cities-london-portsmouth-worst-europe-belgium-paris-ctc-report-a7422371.html

³: Ackerman E., Atatürk Versus Erdoğan: Turkey's Long Struggle, The New Yorker, 07/16/2016.

⁴: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-saudi/saudi-arabia-and-qatar-funding-syrian-rebels-idUSBRE85M07820120623

⁵: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html

⁶: Arango T. and Schmitt E., A Path to ISIS, Through a Porous Turkish Border, The New York Times, 03/10/2015.

^7: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/30/politics/syrian-rebels-pentagon-training-isis/index.html