The West is no innocent in international politics |
Western powers have repeatedly backed or empowered religious extremists when it suited strategic interests, while undermining secular nationalist movements across the Middle East and Central Asia.
The comforting presupposition that the west is always the innocent victim of political violence, but never its perpetrator, has collapsed.
Since 9/11, this argument has been repeated every time a strike – real, thwarted or imaginary – has been launched against the west. The unprovoked and illegal attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel on 28 February put an end to any lingering doubts that the west is a benign force in international politics.
The ‘innocent victim’ illusion also masked a crucial omission that even a cursory study of modern history starkly reveals. The west helped to promote Islamic fundamentalism in many countries where it emerged in violent form by undermining or overthrowing secular nationalist governments.
The internal threats to governments across the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere from local religious extremists have been matched by external attacks led by the United States, Israel and their allies.
These began in the 1950s and 1960s when secular nationalism was ascendant across Arabia. At the height of the Cold War, Britain and the United States opposed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who had repressed religious extremists such as the Muslim Brotherhood, because he was an economic nationalist with ties to the Soviet Union.
The policies of the west towards religious fundamentalism have taken two distinct forms – support of extremists and opposition to modernity, and overthrowing secularists. These are diametrically opposite to what governments........