Why the West Will Continue to Fail In the Middle East

Sunday, April 8, 2007

I have a real problem today in understanding how the western countries over the past many decades have seriously thought that they could change the direction of fundamental Muslim regions and countries. If we go back, only as far as the 1950’s with the US support of the Shah of Iran, the US has continually tried to “win” the Muslim people’s hearts and minds by trying to initiate American values into Muslim theocracies through the country’s ruling families. However, the Muslim culture does not, and will never support the separation of the government and their religion, as do the citizens and governments of western countries.

Using Iran as a first example, the Shah was supported by the US with billions in financing, military support and modern oil drilling equipment so that the US would have someone besides Israel as a friend in the oil-rich Middle East. Billions of dollars were invested in the Shah’s infrastructure. In turn, the Shah had agreed to modernize the country and to open up the laws for allowing Iran’s Muslim women to attend school, to vote, to drive automobiles and to wear western apparel. Of course, all of this was against the traditional Muslim Shiite laws and it took a repressive SAVAK (Imperial Shah Police) to reinforce the Shah’s new modern improvements for the masses.

The US has for years continued to ignore the fact that for over 1500 years, the overall Muslim population has believed that the Koran should be the guide for living for all Muslims. This guide would apply to both their personal lives and to their local and state governments. This is how the religious revolution was able to bring the Ayatollah Khomeini back to be Iran’s leader over a deposed Shah. The people from the western countries did not understand that the number of supporters of the Shah and his modern ways was a small percentage of the total population of Iran. Most of the country consisted of millions of Muslims with a rudimentary education and that were under the direction of their local Mullahs and Ayatollah’s. These religious leaders, with some outside help from the then Soviet Union, brought on an internal religious revolution of the masses that put the Mullahs and Ayatollahs back into power as they had been for hundreds of years. Today, even though there are elections in Iran for individuals that can hold government positions for running the day to day business of Iran, the real power over Iranian oil, the military and the media is in the hands of the religious leaders within Iran.

Some have said that the then US President, Jimmy Carter made a mistake by not supporting the Shah with the US military, which might have helped maintain the status quo of the Shah’s power. However, had the President done so, it may also have ended with a similar outcome as to when Saddam was ruling Iraq; just another strong dictator exercising his power over Iran’s Muslim citizens. Officially, President Carter did not agree to support the Shah due to the Shah’s dismal record on human rights for the way he treated his people. Actually, at the time, the Shah was being no different from most Muslim countries that were or are today being ruled by Muslim monarchs or dictators. Also, with the US having just pulled out of the war in Vietnam, President Carter knew that the American public would never have agreed to sending American troops to fight for supporting the Shah’s regime. Also, the writing was on the wall that the return of the Supreme Ayatollah was what the masses were screaming for and his return to be the ruler of Iran was to become inevitable.

After the Shah of Iran fell, the US then focused on supporting the royal family of Saudi Arabia. The US also chose to support the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein in his on going war with Iran. Once again, the US focus was for supporting the Muslim monarchs or dictators with little regard for the culture of the countries or their millions of Muslim citizens.

As another case in point, the US seems to have such short memories as to what drove Osama Bin laden, a born Saudi, to invest and build the international terrorist group, now known as al Qaeda. (And most of the Arabs that were involved in the 9/11 attack on the WTC were also born Saudi’s.) The tribes of Saudi Arabia are one of the strictest of the Muslim sects known as the Sunni Wahabbi, which are very strict followers of the laws of the prophet Mohammed and the Koran. The Wahabbi still believe that women should always be clothed from head to toe, they should not work outside the home, drive an automobile or attend school. A Wahabbi man can have multiple wives and if he wishes to divorce them, he can just send them away. The Wahabbi also believe that all of Saudi Arabia and the home of the most sacred Temple of Mecca, is sacred Muslim ground and infidels (any non-Muslim) should never occupy any part of Saudi Arabia. The first President Bush however, had convinced the Saudi Royal family in 1991 to allow the US military to occupy a part of Saudi Arabia before, during and after the first Persian Gulf War. This action by the royal family inflamed Bin Laden for the desecration of the Muslim holy land. The royal family chose to ignore Osama’s pleas to have the “infidels” removed, which became Osama and al Qaeda’s focus and was the reason for al Qaeda’s 1996 bombing of 3 US Embassy’s in Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole Navy missile cruiser in 2000 and then the 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

Eventually, after the fact, the US troops were removed from Saudi Arabia. However, the damage was already done. Today, Saudi Arabia’s royal family, the so called “good friends” of the US in the Middle East, are criticizing the current US occupation of Iraq. Saudi Arabia, a supposed close ally of the US and a country where once again the US has invested billions of dollars in a Muslim country’s royal monarchy. Today, the King of Saudi Arabia is admonishing the US for their presence and occupation of Iraq, another Muslim country. King Abdullah recently opened a two-day summit of the Arab League (23 allied Arab countries). The King and the Arab League are currently distancing themselves from the current Bush Administration’s policies in their region. The Monarch’s Arab League speech referred to the “unjust US financial embargo against the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority”. He also supported the latest agreement between Hamas and the moderate Fatah party for trying to form a unity government. He referred to the "illegitimate US occupation of Iraq and an Iraqi sectarianism that is turning the country into civil war". (Of course, the King did not refer to the trouble in his own kingdom where they are having a problem containing the radical Wahabbi Islamic movement that is cracking down on the royal families pro-modern reform activities in Saudi Arabia. )

Earlier this month, the royal family also invited the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a public one day meeting in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Due to the Bush Administration’s known dislike of the current Iranian President, this was a clear example of the Saudi royal family thumbing their nose at the US and President Bush. Once again, the modern western ways are finding a problem in being accepted by the general population of a key Muslim country.

But, in going back to my original statement, what makes western countries continue to feel that they can change the culture and beliefs of millions of devout Muslims? These are a people that for hundreds of years have only had the experience of being led by a repressive dictator or their religious leaders. A Muslim is raised from birth to believe that their allegiance to life should be in the following order: First to their family, then to their religion and tribe or sect, and finally to their country or region. It is well understood that because of their religious devotion, which originated with the Prophet Mohammed in the 6th century A.D., there is no desire to do anything but fulfill God’s will of following the laws of the Koran. When one looks at all the Muslim countries, not one of them produce any material products for the rest of the world except for the “black gold” that lives under their lands. Their lives are committed to their religion. Without their oil, no western government would have shown any interested in their region in the middle east. Without the discovery of oil, the Middle East would probably still consist of a number of regions, ruled by monarchs over thousands of nomadic tribes roaming the deserts. The western world wouldn’t care about what the Muslims did or anything about their religion. And, fewer western soldiers would then have to die on behalf of a conflict in the Middle East.

In many ways, nothing has changed much for the Muslims since the 6th century except the discovery of oil. With that discovery, the western world continues to throw billions of dollars at a region that for the Muslims, they wish that the west would just go away. As long as the west and the world are addicted to oil, they will keep trying and failing to change the “true believers” in the Middle East. More people will die from both sides and God help those from the west if the Muslims ever acquire a nuclear device. Everyone must remember, the Muslim religion says that martyrdom is the supreme ending to a Muslim’s life. That fact will probably always be their truth and their key advantage over modern western culture and technology; an advantage that western civilization will never understand.