Middle EastIs it fair to blame the West for trouble in the Middle East?
For at least a decade, attempts to understand why some young Muslims living in Western countries turn to violence in the name of religion have raised questions about Western foreign policy in the Middle East. Many blame the United States’ foreign policy. The Islamic State uses anger and grievance against Western intervention as a powerful recruiting tool. There is some truth to the argument that anger at foreign policy and the West’s engagement with the Arab world is at the heart of Muslim anger, as well as a driver of radicalization among Muslim youth, but the current state of affairs in the Middle East is not simply an outcome of Western intervention and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Western foreign policy in the region has no doubt influenced the current situation, but the conditions for the spread of militant Islamism have come from attempts to deal with the crisis within: a crisis that is as much political in nature as it is religious.
For at least a decade, attempts to understand why some young Muslims living in Western countries turn to violence in the name of religion have raised questions about Western foreign policy in the Middle East. Many blame the United States’ foreign policy. The Islamic State uses anger and grievance against Western intervention as a powerful recruiting tool.
But is it really fair to blame Western foreign policy for the state of affairs in the Middle East?
There is some truth to the argument that anger at foreign policy and the West’s engagement with the Arab world is at the heart of Muslim anger, as well as a driver of radicalization among Muslim youth.
The “war on terror” — a phrase first used by President George W. Bush just after the September 11 attacks in 2001 — was arguably a dismal failure.
American and British intelligence agencies have both reported that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has actually increased the number of Islamist terrorists. The belief that the war on terror was a thinly disguised attempt to attack Islam was no longer limited to conspiracy theorists and 9/11 “truth seekers.” Instead, it became popularized among Muslims around the world.
However, to solely lay blame for the rise of a global and increasingly violent Jihadi movement on Western intervention ignores other crucial factors that allow extremism to take root and spread.
The origins of extremism
In his book A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the emergence of Islamism, Dr. S. Sayyid describes five arguments that explain the spread of what is commonly called Islamic fundamentalism, Islamism or militant Islamism.
- Islamism is a response to the failure of Arab leaders to deliver meaningful outcomes to their people.
- Lacking opportunities for political participation, Arab citizens turned to mosques as public spaces for political discussion. As a result religion became the language of politics and of political change.
- Post-colonialism also failed the Arab middle class, as the ruling elite continued to hold power and wealth.
- Rapid economic growth in the emerging Gulf States increased the influence of conservative Muslim governments. At the same time, the expansion of the oil-based Gulf economy brought about uneven economic development, the response to which was growing support for Islamism as a mode of expression for internal grievances.
- Finally, the spread of Islamism has also been due to the effects of cultural erosion and globalization contributing to a Muslim identity crisis.
