The Problem with Creating a Democracy in the islamic Middle East

I am not renewing my Economist subscription when it runs out 2/14/15 because it is priced for people who have income and I am now retired.  Also, my compulsion to read it cover to cover has become a burden and I don't really need to know what is going on Sri Lanka anymore.  But I will miss it because somehow they have knack for analyzing what is going on the in the world better than any other newspaper and certainly better than any cable channel.  The complexities of the world do not fit into sound bites.

My old headline didn't create any readers, so I renamed this (for my one reader who read it already).

Two weeks ago's issue did an excellent job of explaining why Islam has to overcome the Jihadists and the rest of us can't do that, we can only try to protect ourselves from the Jihadists, difficult as that is.

I reproduce some of their paragraphs below:

"Their goal is nothing like the tempering outcome hoped for by those calling for a Reformation along the line of Europe's five centuries ago, but the process has at least one similarity.  As in the religious wars that followed on from Europe's Reformation, the worst violence perpetrated by Jihadists is felt by their co-religionists.  Most of the victims of resurgent Islamic fundamentalism have been Muslims."

"Islam has never acknowledged a separation of religion from the state: from the time of the Prophet both developed together.  The challenge of reconciling this with the workings of the post-colonial states set up in the Middle East during the 20th century has proved a difficult one.  It is made more so when these modern states fall into a despotism which combines political repression with economic stagnation.  Such stagnation is particularly hard on the young people who make up most of the population in most Arab countries.  It leaves them without the money to start a family and deprived of a sense that their life has much meaning outside religion."

"To the religious, Islam cannot be blamed for these miserable conditions.  Hence the argument that, rather than mimic the modernized West, and rather than allow the West to intervene in their affairs, as it has done recently, Muslims should create new forms of politics and government proper to their faith.  The Islamists who hold such ideas take their faith as providing ultimate guidance not just in the personal realm but in the social and political realms too."

The article goes on to explain the differences between Shia and Sunni and the Sunni subset, Salafis.  I don't know about you, but I find all this (i) very complicated, (ii) creating a wish to not have anything to do with it, and (iii) realize that military action without diplomacy is only going to stir the well some more because money flows to people who want to kill Americans and especially American military stationed in the Middle East.

Jihad's revival from centuries ago started with the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and it has not been put back in the bottle since as the Taliban and Al Qaeda stirred the pot in post-Russia Afghanistan, then the U.S. invaded Iraq, and the ensuing chaotic transition from Dictator Saddam Hussein to the Shia gave birth to ISIS, and somewhere along the edge of chaos in Africa, Al Shabab and Boko Haram and whatever organization invaded Mali came into being.  I didn't even know people could live in the Sahara and I am a pretty well read traveler of the world.  Just shows, you don't know what you don't know and you can always learn something new.  Something for the neo-conservatives to think about.

My only certain conclusions are there is only so much the U.S. military can do, the Congress should definitely pass a Constitutional Amendments authorizing the NSA to conduct surveillance of electronic transmission and phone calls to get Google Twitter and Facebook on the right side of this picture, and as for Israel, they need to wake up and face reality.

Islamists have been screwing with each other for centuries.  The most secular Muslims are historically the Palestinians.  Give them a country and remove that irritation from the picture.  Yes, Israel will still have to fight Hamas and Hezbollah, but there will be a State of Palestine that needs to be governed well.  The people will demand it.  And the Conservative Jews that want to settle in the West Bank will have a choice, live in the minority of the State of Palestine or move back into Israel.  What is more important?  Keeping Israel proper safe or keeping the settlements safe at the risk of Jihad with Israel as a prime target into infinity.  It is obvious where I come out.