How the West Backs Islamic Fundamentalism

After America won the Cold War, some believed we had come to the “end of history,” and budget-cutters celebrated the so-called “peace dividend.” As a result, we ignored the toxic mixture of militant Islam and terror that ultimately led to 9/11.

—Frank Gaffney1

During the Cold War, the U.S. instituted a policy of sending money to governments in poor countries to buy their political loyalty. While studies show that sending aid to foreign governments creates allegiance, it does not lead to economic progress.

—Iqbal Quadir2

He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.

——Chinese proverb

During two weeks in October, 1962 the Cold War nearly became hot over the issue of missiles in Cuba. The U.S. had just established nuclear missile bases in Turkey and Italy. In April of the previous year an American attempt to provoke regime change in Cuba had ended disastrously in the Bay of Pigs. The Soviets responded by making a secret arrangement to establish missile bases of their own in Cuba. The Americans found out about the arrangement and initiated a naval blockade.

For 13 tense days, the Americans and the Soviets negotiated a way to end the crisis. During this time, American ships had orders to issue warning shots and then board any Soviet vessels trying to run the blockade. An American spy plane was shot down, but rather than issue a military retaliation, President John Kennedy let the negotiations continue. One Soviet submarine, surrounded by American ships and running out of air, came within an inch of arming its nuclear torpedo, but after a heated disagreement among the officers the captain opted instead to surface.3 It was the closest the world had ever come to nuclear war.

In the end, the crisis was resolved by dialogue and compromise rather than guns and bombs. The Americans and the Soviets came to an agreement. The Soviets would dismantle and return any offensive weaponry from Cuba, while the U.S. would publicly declare that it would not attempt another invasion of Cuba. In secret, President Kennedy also agreed to dismantle the U.S.-built nuclear weapons which had been deployed in Turkey and Italy. This part of the deal was not confirmed publicly until decades later.

Imagine if, instead of Nikita Khrushchev, command of the Soviet Union’s arsenal of 20,000 ICBMs had been in the hands of Osama bin Laden. Would such a deal have been struck? Would there even have been a negotiation? Anyone who has lived in the age of global Islamic terrorism knows the answer: bin Laden would have used those weapons.

This story illustrates a basic fact which is too little appreciated by western leaders and politicians. The Soviet Union and Communism was not as significant an existential threat as Islamic fundamentalism. The Communists believed they had a scientific world- view which was dynamic and alterable. But Islam has always claimed that its doctrine is supreme and that not even a single letter of the Qur’an can be changed. Thus, the Communists were ultimately willing to negotiate rather than risk destroying the world. Islam will not negotiate.

RIDING THE TIGER: THE COLD WAR

One of the most curious characteristics of the post-9/11 world is how close the United States remains to the world’s primary seedbeds of terror activity, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. How did the leader of the free world become entangled with these regimes, whose cultures and priorities are so alien and hostile to its own? The answer lies in the Cold War, when America found it to its advantage to nurture Islamic extremism as a counter to the Soviet Union.

The Middle East was left in a state of flux by the First World War. The old Ottoman Empire had collapsed, leaving the British Empire in command of the region. With the end of the war, the British liberated most of the region along the political lines they preferred: monarchies ruled by conservative dynasties. But many of these regimes lacked legitimacy among their own people, and the new national boundaries created issues of divided ethnicities and loyalties among the new countries. The greatest challenge facing the new regimes was left-wing Arab nationalism.

After World War Two, Arab nationalism presented a unique dilemma to the Americans. On the one hand, most Arab nationalists were openly socialist, which raised the possibility that they would align their countries with the Soviet Union. In the case of the oil-rich nations, this was a uniquely distressing option. On the other hand, the nationalists stood for self-determination and social progress, which seemed to place them on the wave of the future.

No regime exemplified both the promise and the threat of Arab nationalism as well as that of General Abdul Nasser, who seized power in Egypt after a military coup in 1952. By this time, the Muslim Brotherhood had already been born—a political organization dedicated to the advancement of fundamentalist Islam. Nasser was not interested in Islamic solutions, and after an assassination attempt against him in 1954 he clamped down hard on the organization. In 1955, though, Nasser’s government made a huge arms deal with the Soviet Bloc.

Alarmed by the prospect of Egypt moving into the Soviet sphere, the Americans tried to push Saudi Arabia as an ideological alternative. The Eisenhower Administration encouraged the Saudi king “to become a political and religious counter to the charismatic Nasser.”4 When Nasser invaded Yemen to support the republican revolutionaries against the royalists, he appealed to the Soviets for assistance. After this, the Americans redoubled their focus on the Saudis. In 1965, the Americans and British sold military hardware to the Saudis for $425 million.5 Cold War gamesmanship led them both to provide arms to one of the global leaders of Islamic fundamentalism.

Under President Eisenhower, the U.S. also began providing military aid to Pakistan. Viewing the Islamic state as a northern buffer against Soviet expansion, the Americans were untroubled either by Pakistan’s religious extremism or by its tendency to lapse into military dictatorship. By 1957, Pakistan was receiving nearly half a billion dollars in military aid from the U.S. This pushed non-aligned India into the Soviet sphere, as Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had no choice given the amount of money America was sending to his nation’s mortal foe. Later, Eisenhower would regard this decision as a “terrible error,” as once the U.S. had embarked on its pro-Pakistan strategy he felt it had become “hopelessly involved in it.”6

Through bonds of military aid and diplomatic support, the United States aligned itself with two Islamic states (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) in opposition to secular governments such as Egypt and India. This would become a template for America’s Cold War policy throughout the Middle East.

The pivotal moment for America’s Cold War strategy came in 1979 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As detailed elsewhere in this book, this was the event that brought the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and militant Islamic fundamentalism together in an unholy alliance. As then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted to Congress in 2013:

The people we are fighting today [in Afghanistan and Pakistan] we funded 20 years ago. And we did it because we were locked in this struggle with the Soviet Union. They invaded Afghanistan, and we did not want to see them control Central Asia …[so we said] let’s deal with the ISI and the Pakistani military, and let’s go recruit these mujahedeen. That’s great. Let’s get them to come from Saudi Arabia and other places, importing their Wahhabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union.7

For the United States, the invasion ended the policy of détente which it had largely followed since the Nixon Administration. President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski instead laid the foundation for a new strategy: “we should concert with Islamic countries both in a propaganda campaign and in a covert action campaign to help the rebels [in Afghanistan].”8 America proceeded to provide enormous amounts of money, and eventually high-tech weaponry, to the Islamic mujahideen. But in doing so, America agreed to work through the intermediary of Pakistan and “defer to Pakistani priorities.” As a result, Pakistan directed American money and materiel toward the advancement of its own political and religious priorities in the region.9

For the Saudis, 1979 was a watershed. The Soviet invasion, coupled with the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamic fundamentalists, shook the Saudi regime to its core. The Saudis viewed themselves as the stewards of Islam’s holy places and the leaders of its community of believers. After the events of 1979, the kingdom’s response was to redouble its efforts in promoting Wahhabi extremism: “All aspects of Saudi Arabian life after 1979 became infused with the spirit of jihad.”10 In the following years, the Saudis would go on to spend $75 billion on global promotion of its own particular brand of strict Islamic ideology.

For Pakistan, 1979 was a windfall. Under the military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq, the country had already fully embraced Islamic fundamentalism as a national policy. Now, it had the opportunity to wage covert jihad in Afghanistan, bankrolled by the Americans and the Saudis. General Zia and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence funneled these dollars not only toward Afghan jihadists but also to the building of Islamic madrasas along the border of Afghanistan. Through these madrasas, the Pakistanis nurtured virulent, fundamentalist Islam for its own ends.11

For Islamic fundamentalists, the Afghan war was a funding and recruitment bonanza. Men and money flowed in. The Americans saw no problems with any of this. Passionate anti-Communists like CIA Director Bill Casey actually saw Muslims as natural allies in the fight against the Soviet Union. Their religious motivation was considered a quality which made them reliable and useful allies, and the promotion of Islam was regarded as a wonderful means to undermine Soviet influence across Central Asia.12 Thanks to America’s anti-Communist efforts, Afghanistan and Central Asia have increasingly embraced violent Islamic fundamentalism. The Soviets may be gone, but the virulent ideology that was used against them remains.

Even after 9/11, which both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia citizens were involved in, the Cold War connections forged between the United States and these two hotbeds of Islamic radicalism have proven hard to dislodge. The socialist orientation of leaders like Nasser helped drive America into the arms of Islamic states, but such states cannot be military or strategic allies. Their fundamental goals and philosophies are an existential threat to democracy and liberty—even more so than Soviet Communism, which is now a dead letter.

In economic and military terms, America has been Islam’s top defender for more than 70 years. Through aid and economic activity the U.S. has enriched Muslim nations. In nearly every conflict between Islam and a non-Islamic force, America has either backed Islam or looked the other way. America did nothing when Turkey invaded Cyprus (an Orthodox Christian nation) in 1974. When the Islamic revolution threatened the Shah of Iran in 1979, America did not defend the Shah. America spearheaded the bombing of Serbia in 1998 in defense of Muslim Kosovo’s survival and autonomy. It backed Afghanistan against the Soviets. It has kept the Saudi regime propped up militarily and flush with enormous amounts of cash. During the Cold War, the American Right was always the stoutest champion of Muslims. Religious faith alone seems to have been the draw, regardless of the content of that faith—as President Eisenhower stated: “our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.”13

ISLAM AND THE LEFT

Since the end of the Cold War, the political Left has taken up the mantle as Islam’s champion in the West. Their support comes in many forms, from armchair liberal apologists to the socialist anti-war movement, to deluded academics. Looking at Islam, they see increasing demographics and imagine a route to political power; they hear anti-imperialist or anti- capitalist rhetoric and imagine a potential ally. They are only deluding themselves. Islam is simply incompatible with the desire for civil liberties and political equality, and it is abhorrent to Marxism (since Islam is founded on metaphysical revelation, which is completely counter to theories of dialectical materialism). Islam does not share power.

Islam is more likely to destroy leftists than to help them. The story of post-colonial Indonesia is illustrative. After the Dutch were driven out, Indonesian rebels split into leftist nationalists who wanted to establish a socialist, secular government and Islamists who wanted to establish an Islamic state. The former were more successful at first and established a left-wing government under their first president, Sukarno. But the Islamists did not go away peacefully. First, one group tried to break away from the government, declaring a separate Islamic state in their strongholds of West Java and South Sulawesi. The main Islamic party, Masyumi, held a convention of Islamic scholars in which it was ruled that Muslims could not be Communists and that the Indonesian Communist Party should be outlawed.14 Unable to achieve their goals immediately, the Islamists played a role in the military coup that brought General Suharto to power in 1965. Suharto cracked down hard on Communists and left-wing organizations, eventually taking more than a million lives. Throughout, the Islamists were enthusiastic supporters of the Suharto regime since he fulfilled their goal of destroying the Left.15

The Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia placed special emphasis on the defeat of both Communism and the Arab nationalist Left. They established and funded the Muslim World League in 1962 with the explicit aim of countering the nationalism of Nasser and his acolytes. They also supported Egyptian Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood with the same aim. As journalist David Ottaway explains, “These Muslim Brothers and their followers would become the foot soldiers of the Saudi kingdom’s religious war against the Arab world’s Nasserites, Communists, and socialists.”16 Saudi funding of the Afghani jihad against the Soviet Union is well known, but few also realize that the Saudis continued to invest heavily after the Soviets withdrew to defeat the left-wing government left behind (an action which eventually created a power vacuum filled by the Taliban).17

But the greatest example of the implacable hostility between Islam and the Left can be found in revolutionary Iran. In some ways, the regime which seized power in 1979 was in the vanguard of political Islam as we know it today. The Saudis, Pakistanis, and Afghani jihadists at that time were still open to pragmatic alliances with the United States. Khomeini declared the United States to be the “Great Satan.” Anticipating Islamic fundamentalism’s pivot toward anti-Americanism by more than a decade Iran appropriated old anti-colonialist rhetoric to condemn America as the number one threat to world peace and Islam.

Remarkably, Iranian Leftists bought into this rhetoric. They bought in so thoroughly that even while members of Iran’s Communist party, the Tudeh, were being beaten and executed by supporters of the Islamic regime, their party spokesman could still declare, “as long as we believe, based on our own principles, that the Islamic government is anti- imperialist … we will continue to support it.”18 Tudeh’s reward for helping the Islamists to power was to be destroyed last. All other Leftist parties were crushed by 1983. In that year, Tudeh’s leaders were arrested, tortured, and forced to make humiliating public confessions about the perfidy and bankruptcy of their party and its philosophy. “We tried to solve the problems of Iran with Marxism—an irrelevant ideology,” Tudeh’s leader proclaimed on television. Thousands of party members were arrested and all left-wing parties finally banned.19

Khomeini’s government demonstrated the full consequences of an Islamic state. They appropriated left-wing tactics and rhetoric and encouraged the support of Leftists to help themselves to power. Once the revolution was accomplished, the Left was no longer useful and was accordingly dispatched. As one scholar observes:

The regime considered Marxism the main ideological rival of Islam. Unlike liberalism, nationalism, and monarchism, it challenged religious metaphysics, held out a utopian future, and offered a comprehensive view of the past and the present.20

In other words, the very preoccupations which lured some on the Left to imagine there could be enduring cooperation between themselves and Islam were in fact the reasons why coexistence was impossible. Islam’s claims to authority and power are absolute and cannot be shared. The leaders of Tudeh discovered too late that if Islam is the answer then all other solutions are nothing but heresy.

In the West, the Left has proven itself all too willing to follow in Tudeh’s footsteps. Since 9/11, they have promoted or defended Islamic fundamentalism on the basis of three principles: multiculturalism, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism. Despite the absurdity or irrelevance of these principles to political Islam as it actually is, the Left has been successful in intimidating and silencing critics.

An example of this can be seen in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain. The SWP is a virulent anti-establishment Marxist group which launched the Stop the War Coalition ten days after the 9/11 attacks. From the outset, these Leftists rejected any condemnation of terrorism as resolutely as they opposed fighting and dying for freedom and secularism. This soon led them into the arms of the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Muslim Association of Britain. The SWP has now perfected the art of remaining silent about any evils perpetrated by Islamic states and actors while loudly blaming America and Israel for all the world’s ills.21

In the eyes of men such as MP George Galloway, Islamic terrorism is merely a response to western aggression—something the West has brought on itself. Those who reject this view are called racists, even though Islam is not a race. Nevertheless, even the suggestion of such a charge carries enormous social and political penalties in Britain. In 2013, the British government denied entry to anti-jihadist campaigners Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer. At the same time, the country willingly admits a Saudi preacher who proclaims: “Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer.”22

The issue of anti-imperialism creates significant attraction between the Left and Islam. From her experience with the Islamic Revolution, Iranian activist Maryam Namazie describes this as a fatal attraction born of a vision of Islam as “a force of resistance against imperialism.” The vision betrays a Manichean worldview which sees the Americans as the ultimate imperialists and all its enemies therefore as righteous oppressed peoples.23

The Leftist view of Islam as somehow anti-imperialist is completely ahistorical. Islam’s 1,400 year history is full of almost nothing else but imperialist conquest. Conflating jihad with progressive notions of countering political aggression is a shameful abuse of language. It is sometimes claimed, for example, that Islamists resort to terror in defense of “Muslim lands.” This view is only sustainable if one accepts that whole continents and ancient civilizations with origins in antiquity can be claimed as the eternal possession of a relatively recent world religion. Speaking specifically about the fight against radical Islam in Mali, author Meredith Tax explodes this Leftist talking point:

Like people who see Taliban activity in Pakistan largely as a reaction against drones, leftists who frame the issues in Mali in terms of Western imperialism deny the agency of the people living there, who have been voting with their feet by fleeing jihadi-controlled areas in droves.24

Feminists have even shown themselves willing to sacrifice their stated aim of gender equality on the altar of deference to Islam. When Amnesty International’s Gita Sahgal dared to question her organization’s connections with a group whose leader openly supported the Taliban and defended known terrorists, she was suspended and then forced to resign. Amnesty then doubled down on its depravity by proclaiming that “defensive jihad” was compatible with support for human rights.25 Such alliances, as feminist campaigner Rahil Gupta points out, “reveal the capitulation on the left to the fascists within while organizing against the fascists without.”26

Even in India, which has suffered numerous terror attacks by jihadists and has a long and violent history of confrontations with Islam, it is eminently fashionable for Communists and other leftists to voice their support for fundamentalist Islam. A typical example comes from Mr. Ganapathy, the leader of India’s Maoist Communist Party (CPI-Maoist). In 2007, he proclaimed that his party, “regard[ed] the Islamic upsurge as a progressive anti- imperialist force in the contemporary world.”27 Ganapathy then goes on to deny Samuel Huntington’s theory of a “clash of civilizations,” arguing instead that despite “the role of Islamic fundamentalists” in various struggles around the world, “these are all wars of national liberation” and part of what he considers as “the beginning of the democratic awakening of the Muslim masses.”28 It is a curious case of mental acrobatics to call Islamic fundamentalists like ISIS “an ally of the people in their fight against the fundamentalist of the free market,” as Ganapathy does.29 In fact, Communists think they can use Muslims in their ongoing war against Hindu nationalists.30

The common enemy for CPI and Indian Muslims is the Bharathiya Janata Party (also known as the Indian Peoples Party)—and above all, its leader, Narendra Modi. Leftists complain that Modi wants to divide India along religious lines, neglecting to realize that India was already divided along religious lines when parts of it were carved off to create Pakistan in 1947. Muslims hate Modi and the Indian Peoples Party because they see them as obstacles to the Islamization of India. Although both the Communists and the Muslims each think they are using the other, history suggests the Muslims will turn on the Communists the first chance they get.

There is another reason why Indian Leftists never criticize the Muslim community: simple pragmatism. No harm will come to anyone who criticizes America, capitalism, or the Indian Peoples Party. But if a Communist were to dismiss Islamic metaphysics as mere superstition—which is exactly what a good Marxist believes Islam to be—he runs the risk of being visited by violent extremists. Attacking Modi or what they call “communalism” (which is really just a blanket term used to critique all Hindu nationalist political parties) is a safe ticket to political power and social respectability.

One of the more remarkable instances of Leftist support for Islam is the Jews Against Islamophobia Coalition. This is a group of progressive organizations united against what they call “anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Arab racism,” formed in the wake of protests against the building of a mosque and Muslim activity center at one of the Ground Zero sites in Manhattan.31 Their activities include complaining about New York City police daring to profile Muslims while attempting to protect citizens from terrorist threats.32 They have also played a role in silencing critics of Islam such as Pamela Gellar, calling her criticism “hate speech” and encouraging synagogues and other Jewish institutions either to avoid letting her speak or to break off existing commitments.33

Leftist support for Islam comes at the expense of people and principles. Islamic regimes around the world are guilty of some of the most egregious human rights abuses in the world today. In Saudi Arabia: “authorities continue to suppress or fail to protect the rights of 9 million Saudi women and girls and 9 million foreign workers,” according to Human Rights Watch.34 Women are still not allowed to drive or to appear in public unless accompanied by a man. Strict clothing requirements for women are publicly enforced. Domestic workers remain unprotected by Saudi labor law, despite complaints from workers about being forced to work 15 to 20 hour days and being denied payments. Public worship by adherents of any faith other than Wahhabi Islam is not tolerated, and Muslim minorities (particularly Shias and Ismailis) are actively discriminated against. Since 2011, 11 Shia protesters have been killed by Saudi security forces.35

In Pakistan, the situation is worse. Terror attacks have led to a breakdown in law enforcement. Police have been accused of torture, unrestrained abuse, kidnapping, and extrajudicial killings.36 In 2012 alone, more than 300 Shia Muslims were killed in sectarian violence. In one horrific case from August, gunman attacked four buses passing through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, checked the national identity cards of the passengers, and “summarily executed 22 travelers whom they identified as belonging to the Shia community.” The Pakistan Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack.37 In July 2012, an angry mob attacked a police station holding a mentally disabled man accused of destroying a Qur’an and proceeded to burn him alive.38

The six Gulf states are still routinely guilty of human rights abuses—most notably the mistreatment of their enormous populations of foreign workers. Exploitation of migrant labor includes brutal living and working conditions, failure to pay workers, and confiscation of passports to prevent people from moving around or leaving. Violations of labor law are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. Female migrant workers are particularly vulnerable, since local labor laws often do not cover domestic working situations and exploitation and sexual abuse is known to take place.39 Such abuse and mistreatment would never be tolerated in a Western country, but Leftists remain largely and collectively silent when an Islamic country is accused.

A generation of left-wing thinkers and activists around the world has willingly sacrificed progressive principles for the sake of an ultimately self-defeating alliance with modern political Islam. In doing so, they have been guided by an outsized obsession with Western imperialism and Western faults as well as a simplistic division of the world into oppressor and oppressed. The end result is an alliance between Western progressives and some of the worst misogynists, homophobes, racists, and murderers in the world today.

Such temporary and expedient alliances are part and parcel of Islam’s history. They have been doing it for 1,400 years. Fundamentalist Muslims, one might say, imbibe this kind of treacherous politics like mothers’ milk. As the history of Indonesia and Iran show, however, such alliances will surely end in the destruction of the Left as soon as Islam has no more need of it. Confronted by such a situation, we would do well to heed the advice of the late Christopher Hitchens, spoken in disgust at the flurry of left-wing apologism for 9/11: “The very first step we must take, therefore, is that acquisition of enough self- respect and self-confidence to say that we have met the enemy and that he is not us, but someone else.”40

THE ARAB SPRING: GLOBAL SUNNI FUNDAMENTALIST REVOLUTION

The most recent support for Islam has come in the form of the so-called “Arab Spring.” The Western media portrayed this for a time as some sort of liberation movement. It is nothing of the kind. In fact, this movement is part of a global Sunni revolution aimed at installing fundamentalist religious regimes in power.

The danger here lies in the fact that jihad does not rely upon groups or leaders. The idea of jihad is rooted in fundamental Islamic doctrine. It is so ingrained in the consciousness of even moderate Muslims around the world, that what we call “radicalization” is often imperceptible, only recognized once it’s too late. The step to terrorism is often relatively easy and short. We now have countless examples of independent jihadists—such as the Tsarnaev brothers involved in the Boston Marathon Bombing—carrying out devastating attacks with little money and few resources.

Western governments seem to think that the war against jihad can be won by targeting big names like al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. The problem is deeper. Al-Qaeda itself is little more than a brand name for jihad, not an organization in the conventional sense. The so-called mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (KSM) was himself only loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda, and proclaimed his allegiance to bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The focus on brand names produces terrible misunderstandings and ineffective policies.

What’s going on in the Sunni Arab world right now could be characterized as a revolution. The revolutionaries want to reclaim what they regard as Islam’s birthright: unification of the former Islamic caliphate and then domination of the world. The first step in reclaiming this birthright is the establishment of genuine Islamic rule in Arab states that have fallen under the sway of what the revolutionaries consider to be apostates.

Wherever the “Arab Spring” appeared—Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria—a top priority was always the removal of the government. While many secular men and women participated in the popular protests, their views were eventually subsumed and drowned out by the revolutionaries—that is, by jihadists. The full consequences have yet to be seen, since the situation is still in flux. The Sunni revolution suffered a setback in Egypt, when the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power and military supremacy reestablished. For the most part, however, the jihadists have been successful in overturning governments. What replaces them is never pluralism or democracy, but religious fundamentalism.

Foreign correspondent and Middle East expert John Bradley has observed:
While most Western reporters considered unrest in the Middle East a step in the direction of democracy, I thought the opposite. It is the Islamists, who wish to create Islamic states and impose Islamic law, who will emerge triumphant from the present chaos.41

Unable to distinguish between tactics and actual strategic aims, gullible Westerners have assumed that Islamic forces getting involved in elections heralds a new progressive orientation in Muslim politics. The Muslim Brotherhood knows that they can rely on intense motivation and participation from their supporters to give them the edge at the ballot box. For the jihadists, “elections are a necessary evil, but at the same time useful, providing cover for more radical change.”42

Tunisia was ground zero for the chain of events that came to be known as the Arab Spring. Contrary to the media narrative, prior to these events Tunisia was “Ruled by the most secular Arab regime and was the most socially liberal and progressive Muslim country in the Middle East. As such, before its revolution it had been the last bulwark against the Saudi-funded Wahhabi form of Islam.”43 Although the Tunisian government restricted political expression, it was a bastion of liberalism in comparison to the governments favored by the jihadists. The veil was not mandatory, personal freedom was protected, and Islamist ideology was not promoted. The jihadists hated Tunisia and regarded it scornfully as westernized.44

Since the regime change, Saudi-funded Sunni ideologues have moved in. Wahhabism has been spread quickly across the country, and “the more radical Islamist groups are becoming visibly aggressive, resorting to violence during demonstrations, and threatening women.”45 There has been a sharp increase in violence and intimidation against any who depart from strict Islamic dogma. A Tunisian television station which dared to show an animated movie with a visual representation of God was the center of a firestorm in October 2011. Imams preached against the supposed insult. The home of the station chief was besieged by hundreds of men, some throwing Molotov cocktails, forcing the man and his family to flee for their lives.46

There is now an atmosphere of simmering Islamic intimidation unheard of under the previous regime. It sometimes breaks out into spectacular outrages such as the murder of Mohammed Al-Brahmi, the leader of the liberal opposition group. Islamic militants have also killed police officers and soldiers, while terrorists imprisoned by the previous regime have been set free. The leading party is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and keeps up a steady campaign of public deception—presenting a sanitized message to the media while telling a different story in the mosques.47 Far from being the romantic success story portrayed in the media, Tunisia is losing its secular legacy to Sunni Islamic dogma.48

In Egypt, the Arab Spring removed a stable but autocratic leader (Mubarak) in favor of an autocratic and jihadist organization (the Muslim Brotherhood). In the year following the February 2011 regime change, Egypt saw more restrictions placed on religion than any other country in the world saw in the previous five years.49 But The Muslim Brotherhood did not retain their grip on Egypt. Everyone knows that the Egyptian military stepped in and removed the Brotherhood and leader Mohamed Morsi from power. Ridiculously blaming the persecuted Christians for this turn of events, Muslims launched a fresh wave of pogroms against the Copts. The Christian Copts, who make up about ten percent of Egypt’s population, endured a wave of brutality not seen in years. In one particularly brazen attack in October 2013, gunmen crashed a Coptic wedding, killing four people, including an eight-year-old girl.50

It is little appreciated the role the Saudis played in encouraging this. Despite its sponsorship of jihad and Muslim fundamentalism, the Saudi regime is detested by many Sunni fundamentalists like the Muslim Brotherhood because they are considered impious frauds who are trying to “modernize” Saudi Arabia and undermine the Islamic way of life.51 For their part, the Saudis are perfectly willing to export Wahhabi Islam around the world, but they have no interest in a fundamentalist regime in power in Egypt. Such a regime could serve as a rallying point for anti-monarchists and prove a serious threat to their grip on power. As an American analyst detected more than a decade ago:

Today the Royal Family does not enjoy total support from the Wahhabis, particularly among the younger religious clerics … This rift between the Wahhabi leaders and the Monarchy is potentially serious.52

The Saudi regime uses fundamentalist Islam to provide a cover for its own decadent activities, but they have no interest in falling victim to fundamentalist Islam themselves.

No situation better exemplifies the connection between what is called the Arab Spring and the reality of Sunni revolution than the Syrian civil war. The Syrian regime and its President, Bashar al-Assad, are certainly no friends of democracy and freedom. Assad’s support of Hezbollah and willingness to massacre his opponents make him an enormously unsympathetic figure. But in this case, the Sunni militants who oppose him are much worse. Areas of Syria which have fallen under rebel control paint a chilling picture of what a Sunni-dominated Syria would look like. Whether or not the radical Islamists are the majority isn’t even the point, since they do not require a majority to impose their will on the political scene.53

Under Assad, Syria’s religious minorities—Christians, Shiites, and other groups—have been free to practice their faith free of repression and intimidation. The governing sect, to which Assad’s family belongs, are Alawites—an Islamic group considered heterodox by most Muslims. Wherever the Sunni rebels have gained the upper hand in Syria, those minority groups have found themselves in mortal danger. Christians in particular “fear extinction if Bashar al-Assad falls,” according to journalist Kirsten Powers.54

The incident in Maaloula is instructive. This ancient town has a large Christian community with 17 churches. Some inhabitants still speak Aramaic, the ancient language spoken by Jesus in the first century. In September 2013, members of the Nusra militia entered the town, murdering ten Christians, destroying religious artifacts, and plundering local homes. One man was ordered to convert to Islam, and when he refused his throat was cut. 12 nuns were kidnapped from a nearby monastery by militants in an effort to terrorize the Christian population into leaving the region.55 Such efforts have been successful, as more than half of Syria’s Christian population has reportedly fled the country.56

A similar fate is befalling Shiites, who are also fleeing Syria by the thousands. Armed and militant Sunnis are keen on “purifying” the country, which means even the “wrong” Islamic sects must go. An elderly mother among the Shia refugees who had lost her son to a rebel sniper recalled to a journalist how the local imam in Damascus had called for jihad against Shiites and Alawites. Her neighborhood in Damascus was subsequently terrorized by Sunni militias who abused and killed the local people. Another of this woman’s sons who worked at a Shia mosque was told to leave town within 72 hours or his head would be cut off and hung on a local Shia shrine.57

The war against non-Sunnis in Syria shows no sign of ending. Influential Sunni cleric Yusef al-Qaradawi, a supporter of the Syrian jihad, weighed in to declare that Alawites were “worse infidels than Christians or Jews,” and to encourage Sunnis to go to Syria to fight against Alawite and Shia forces. “There is no common ground between the two sides,” he went on to say, “because the Iranians … want to eat the Sunni people.”58 Just a few weeks after al-Qaradawi’s statement, a congress of Sunni clerics in Cairo called for jihad against the Assad government and its allies.59

It is clear that Christians, Shiites, and Alawites would have no future in a country governed by Sunni purists. These same purists are seizing control of rebel forces with an eye on enforcing their deadly will on the Syrian population.

In those countries where the Arab Spring has had its greatest effect, freedoms have been lost, security has eroded, and atrocities have accumulated. Bad regimes have been toppled in favor of worse ones. The common element in every country has been the dominance of fundamentalist Sunni forces over the others. As Israeli professor and historian Benny Morris has observed, “the main result of the ‘Arab Spring’ will be—at least in the short and medium terms, and, I fear, in the long term as well—an accelerated Islamization of the Arab world.”60

The sequel to the “Arab Spring” has been a Sunni Winter—in the form of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Born out of the removal of one secular dictator (Saddam Hussein in Iraq) and the attempted removal of another (Bashar Assad in Syria), ISIS has quickly emerged as a force on the world stage.61 And this is not a force for “democracy” or human rights. In addition to documented massacres of civilians, ISIS has “released a guide to the capture, punishment and rape of female non-believers. It outline show to use them as their sex slaves and also justifies child rape.”62 Already, the group has kidnapped over 2,500 women, and is suspected in the abduction of another 4,600 more. Of course, the justification for its behavior is all taken from the Qur’an and the Hadith.63 “There have been reports that doctors have performed illegal abortions on pregnant girls as young as nine,” with many of the victims coming from the Yazidis, who are an Iraqi religious minority.64 At one time, Western powers believed the groups which formed ISIS could be controlled—and now the people of Iraq and Syria are paying the price for this delusion.