Anti-Semitism, and a history of the "International Jewish Conspiracy"

From the USA to the UK, it seems that Anti-Semitism is on the rise (again) in the developed world. Evidence points towards the truism that while not all Donald Trump supporters are Nazis, all Nazis are Trump supporters; and equally, while not all Brexit supporters are Nazis, all Nazis are Brexit supporters.

The history of Anti-Semitism is a long one, and for the purposes of this article, I'll restrict things to the last hundred-and-fifty years or so, as this is when the idea of a "Jewish World Conspiracy" first really came into general parlance.


"A Jewish plot to take over the world"

In a way, it was Marx's misfortune that the founder of Communism was also a Jew, for this has ever since coloured how people (both its supporters and its detractors) saw it: Communism was seen as attractive to some of Jewish extraction (in Russia in particular) precisely because it was international and anti-establishment in its outlook and aims, and offered a political haven from persecution. It is also true that when the successful Bolsheviks took power in Russia, they did include a disproportionate number of Jews. Thus this fed into the belief that Communism was a Jewish plot to take over the world. This was certainly Tsar Nicholas II's point of view when he was forced from power, and was so insidious in enveloping much of political thought across the developed world during and after the First World War, and up to the present day (more on that later).

The odd aspect of this is that Marx himself had ambiguous feelings about his own Jewish heritage, and this then fueled the belief amongst some Anti-Semites at the time that Marx himself saw Capitalism as a kind of "Jewish Conspiracy", and that he was somehow fighting against Jewish domination of Capitalism. How this also squared with the understanding that Communism was also a "Jewish Conspiracy", is hard to understand.

The two main "centres" of Anti-Semitism by the second half of the Nineteenth century were Russia and Germany. Jews had been persecuted for centuries in Russia, being send to live in the "Pale" in the 18th century, and by the late Nineteenth century were trying to flee abroad to places like the USA. In Russia, this period also saw an unprecedented rise in political violence, which culminated in the anarchy of 1905. As an absolutist, deeply religious state, the Russian Empire was deeply paranoid of "Godless" Communism, which was then exacerbated by the document "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", a forgery by a fanatical Russian priest, which tied the anarchy in Russia with a Jewish conspiracy.
In Germany, Anti-Semitism had become almost "fashionable" in the social circles of the upper class and in the arts (such as Richard Wagner), which spread to the paranoia of its emperor, Wilhelm II. It's unclear where exactly this stereotype of the "corrupting Jew" (earlier seen in Grimm's fairly tales) came from, but the fact that Marx's ideas were initially influenced by the 1848 Year Of Revolutions may have been a factor. Again, the fact that Marx himself was German may have sent alarm bells ringing in some people's minds.
Like in Russia, much of Europe held the long belief that as Jews were "stateless" and "heathens", they were therefore deeply suspect in their allegiances (if they had any). The social and political tumult of 1848 had long-lasting effects on many parts of Europe. While many of the revolutions failed, the fact remained that the major European powers (Britain excluded) rolled on through a series of wars and upheaval for the next twenty-odd years, culminating in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Not long after this, in 1877-78, there were the wars between Russia and the Ottomans that led to Eastern Europe's boundaries being radically redrawn. And behind all this was the growing paranoia against a "Jewish Conspiracy". So by the time of the Bolshevik Revolution forty years later, and the end of the war in Germany a year after that, blaming the Jews had become a very convenient scapegoat.

Through all of this, its impossible to omit the rise in the influence of Zionism, an idea that largely came from East European (i.e. Russian) Jews who longed for a permanent homeland. With the re-drawing of the Middle Eastern map at the end of the First World War, Britain took control of the former Ottoman territory of Palestine, and the "Balfour Agreement" allowed Jews from Europe to settle in Palestine. The fact that the Jewish population was heavily outnumbered by local Arabs seemed a minor detail. Britain was used to ruling its colonies by "divide and rule", like in its "crown jewel", India.

The Bolshevik Revolution, and the immediate threat of Communism spreading across Europe and the developed world, led to a spike in anti-Semitism infecting political discourse. In Germany alone, political violence spiked dramatically in the years after the war: the short-lived "Munich Soviet" of 1919 eventually led to violence from the other end of the political spectrum; the infamous "Munich putsch" of 1923, which Hitler took part in. In these few years, political assassination became the norm, such as the assassination of Germany's foreign minister, the Jew, Walter Rathenau. A Bolshevik government, ran by Jews, was seen as the main threat to the world order, and thus every Jew became seen as a threat to the world order.
This would have remained a fringe obsession in the developed world, but for the Great Depression. In Germany, the views of the Nazis that were once considered outlandish paranoia were held by many as established fact. When the world was so unstable, it made sense that there must be some complex reason for why it was happening. It couldn't simply be due to simple human greed and arrogance; there had to be a more sinister motive - some kind of Jewish conspiracy. And if some sacrifices had to be made to re-establish order, then it was worth it.
As in Germany in the late Nineteenth century, in the years after the Wall Street Crash, this Anti-Semitic view became common in social circles across the developed world, including in the USA and Britain. Fascism was seen as a "necessary evil" to combat the threat of Communism, which seemed all the more possible after economic chaos of the Great Depression. Besides, it could be argued, not all Fascists were Anti-Semitic; Mussolini wasn't, for instance. These "apologists" argued that fascists were "good people with a few bad ideas", rather than the opposite. We all know how that ended for Europe's Jews.

Anti-Semitism in the Arab world, meanwhile, had long been a part of life, but on the whole the two communities had got on pretty well. The change of rulers in the Middle East, from the Muslim Ottoman dynasty to the Christian British and French "mandates" after the end of the First World War, had caused them to re-think their perspective, which led to the rise of the "Muslim Brotherhood" in Egypt and elsewhere. By the 1930s and the rise of Fascism in Germany as well as already in Italy, Muslim leaders in the Middle East were getting tired with Britain's perceived preferential treatment towards the Jews (regardless of the more complex reality), and began to fraternize with Fascists. This Anti-Semitic connection between Islamic Extremism and the politics of Fascism lives on to this day.


New neighbours, more problems

The end of World War Two began to see a different form of Anti-Semitism coalescing. The Second World War led to the defeat of Fascism in Germany and Italy (Spain's, with its own form of Fascism, lived on to the 1970s). The aftermath of the Second World War also resulted in the implosion of Britain's control over the Middle East, with Palestine's Arabs being evicted and the territory turned into Israel, the Jewish people's first homeland for two thousand years.
For the Arabs of the Middle East, the shock of the Jews being able to carve out a state from the Palestinians was comparable to that which Europe's elite felt with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The Second World War had destroyed the poison of Anti-Semitism in Europe (for a couple of generations, at least), but had inadvertently replanted it in the Middle East with the creation of Israel.

As Bolshevism had become a convenient Jewish "hate figure" in the developed world after the First World War, Israel became a convenient Jewish "hate figure" in the Middle East after the Second World War. This quickly became apparent with the rise to power of Colonel Nasser in Egypt in 1953. Coming to power as part of a cabal that had overthrown the pro-British (and thus, by implication, pro-Israel) King Faruk, Nasser quickly established his credentials with the Arab "street".
Israel's war of independence in 1948 was known simply as "the disaster" to the Arabs. Nasser quickly established himself as the moral leader of the Arab world, and sought to create a united Arab front against the Jewish homeland, by 1967 pushing for combined Arab war to "drive the Jews into the sea". The Six Day War of that year was an Israeli "preventative war" that quickly gathered its own momentum and exceeded their own wildest expectations in massively expanding their territory at their Arab neighbours' expense.
This second Arab humiliation, followed by the failure of the surprise Yom Kippur War of 1973, simply left a gaping hole in Arab self-esteem. The answer was Political Islam and Islamic extremism, which both grew in scope from the 1970s onward, turning the earlier Anti-Semitism of the likes of the "Muslim Brotherhood" into an even more dangerous sort of beast. Like with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Islamic Revolution in Iran was followed by other attempts at uprisings elsewhere: an attempt to take control of Mecca, and the assassination of Egypt's leader, Sadat, by a Muslim radical, due to his policy of peace towards Israel. Using Israel and its support from the "Great Satan", the USA, Arab leaders have sown the belief that world government is controlled from the Jewish homeland.

Since the founding of Israel, we have seen the politics of the Middle East become consumed by Anti-Semitism. Used as a cynical weapon by both secular and Muslim leaders alike, in the modern day, it has become a staple: a "self-evident fact" that doesn't even need to be supported by evidence.
It is the cynical "feeding the crocodile" of Anti-Semitism that has also led to the growth of extremism in the Middle East, and the "Nazis Of The Middle East", ISIS. But now that the genie has been let out of the bottle, no-one knows how to put it back. While they may finally be on the verge of defeat on the battlefield, in the battle of the mind, they are an ever-evolving and tenacious enemy.


"Re-branding" Anti-Semitism

In the USA, the onset of the Cold War quickly led to Anti-Semitic paranoia of Communist infiltration of the highest levels of society. Encouraged by Joseph McCarthy and supported by the head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, its most infamous case was against the Rosenbergs. As it became an all-consuming obsession for the best part of a decade, it was only truly cauterised by the fall from grace of McCarthy himself and the gradual marginalisation of J Edgar Hoover, who still had an insidious influence on domestic affairs up until his death in 1972.

While the Anti-Semitic hysteria bound up with the "Red Threat" receded, and the USA eventually became a strong supporter of Israel, Anti-Semitism in the developed world, and in Europe in particular, began to be associated with anti-Imperialism. The Soviet Union had already took advantage of this, and struck out into the Middle East. While before the Second World War being linked with the "Jewish Conspiracy", by the 1950s it began to court the Arab powers' campaign against Israel.
Stalin himself had played a large part in gradually purging the Communist Party of its "Jewish" elements, the last act of this being the "Doctor's Plot" in the last years before his death in 1953. In this way, while Anti-Semitism had been an obsession of Fascism's up to the Second World War, after this it increasingly became one of the extreme left's, supported by the Soviet Union under the banner of "anti-Imperialism". This explains how the Anti-Semitism of the Arabs (supported by both secularist governments and Islamists) became to be so strongly associated with the European Leftism: the link was the Soviet Union. Again, this Anti-Semitic link between Arab nationalism, Islamic Radicalism, and radical Leftism, continues to this day; a legacy of the USSR.

We have seen that even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia still did what it could to maintain its influence in the Middle East, with the common thread of Anti-Semitism. Inside Russia itself, while some of the most powerful "oligarchs" are Jewish, others have been forced into exile if they have been able to escape prison. Since the rule of Russia under Putin, a culture of nativism, nationalism and crude Anti-Semitism has been encouraged, even if not officially endorsed. This explains why so many Russian Jews emigrated to Israel as soon as they could (and radicalising the make-up of Israeli society in the process).
Russia's influence in the Middle East, thanks to the common thread of Anti-Semitism, is now a given. Russia has courted the favour of Iran since the end of the Cold War, thanks to their "common enemy", the USA, and by extension, Israel. This influence in the Middle East has only grown since the Arab Spring; while the initial beneficiary of the "Arab Spring" looked to be Turkey, in the longer-run, this "Great Game Of The Middle East" has turned out better for Russia. While having little obvious historical heritage in the region, unlike Turkey, Russia has played its hand much more cleverly, being on the side of Iran and Syria, and understanding the fluid and fickle nature of the forces that brought about the "Arab Spring". Its Cold War ties served as a good enough bond of trust to its allies, who now look as if they have weathered the worst of the storm.

Coming Full Circle

The modern-day version of the "International Jewish Conspiracy" is meant to be that of the "Imperialist forces" arranged against Muslims, the forces supporting Israel and its "Capitalist stooges" in Washington and elsewhere. This also explains how the EU, in being seen as a supporter of Israel (however easily it is to qualify or debunk that assertion), is part of the conspiracy, and thus considered a legitimate (and "soft") target for Islamic extremists. In a different manner, this linking of Israel with the USA and the EU suits the agenda of Russia, in creating a false equivalence between the growing violence of Islamic extremism and the growth of decadent "Jewish" values in the West.

Those decadent "Jewish" values are what was mentioned earlier: that Jews were seen as "stateless", and "Godless" i.e. people of the world, and thus a threat to national cultures. For the obsession with Israel is only one side to this. In the same way that the Great Depression created the conditions necessary for Anti-Semitism to become prevalent in the developed world, the Financial Crisis helped to create the conditions for its revival in the those same, highly-developed societies. The only reason we didn't have a second Depression in 2008 was that the banks were bailed out. In the same way that a scapegoat was needed for the greed and arrogance that caused the Wall Street Crash, the same is true today. "Globalisation", and its agenda of internationalism, is now seen by the Anti-Semites as the same "Jewish Conspiracy" that was once used when talking about Bolshevism. A hundred years ago people talked darkly of the Federal Reserve; now they talk darkly of Goldman Sachs.

Populism's rhetorical link with Fascism stretches from over a hundred years ago to the present day: it has always been about "country" values versus "city" values, and this is where the link to Anti-Semitism comes in. The Jews were seen as stateless nomads who therefore would thrive in city life, and thus do their best to promote Capitalist values. In this way, returning to "traditional values" is as much about fleeing the "corruption" of the city and all that is "bourgeois". It is a flight from Industrialisation.
The rise in Anti-Semitism in today's society comes from the same re-emergence of "nativist" values in the West; a softening of the Fascist rhetoric of the past, but with the same cultural implications. Theresa May, Britain's Prime Minister, at her party's conference last year, decried "people of the world" who have no national allegiance, and thus are a threat to cultural values. This is the same kind of rhetoric that was used decades earlier against the Jews: it is "Fascism by other means". This is what Brexit represents: a modern reincarnation of nationalist values in Britain. It is for this reason why the strongly Eurosceptic elements of Britain's media lambasted the "EUSSR"; implying it was some kind of quasi-Communist plot, seeing it (like Russia) as a "decadent" organisation that was somehow against "national values". While in Britain and the USA the rhetoric is often more Islamophobic in nature that Anti-Semitic, that simply depends on who you are talking to.
The Anti-Semitism that exists in the developed world today, in an evolution of the term, is often meant by its advocates in an "ironic" sense, so they claim. In this way, the Anti-Semitism of the far-right - with its roots in Fascism - has "plausible deniability", in spite of its earnest hatefulness; meanwhile the Anti-Semitism of the far-left - with its roots in Anti-Imperialism - can be excused as "over-exuberance" coming from a well-meaning intent.  

This is what Britain, the USA, Russia and Turkey all have in common in a different kind of way: their leaders are in hock to the same forces of discord, feeding the same crocodile.

ISIS and Islamofascism: are they the modern-day Nazis of the Middle East?

The "caliphate" that de facto controls a huge swathe of territory across Eastern Syria and the West and North-west of Iraq is the "new normal" in the Middle East.

The rise of ISIS/ ISIL/ the "Islamic State" was due to a number of factors. I've talked about these factors before, when ISIS spectacularly came onto the radar nearly six months ago: the main one being the collapse of central power and authority/ legitimacy in both Iraq and Syria. As nature abhors a vacuum, so it is the case with humanity.

The "Nazis" on the Euphrates

In many ways, it could be said that ISIS are to the modern Middle East what the Nazis were to Europe in the 1930s and '40s. The rise of fascism that began in the '20s was a result of perceived "humiliation", economic deprivation, and loss of cultural identity: a violent counter-reaction to the modern Western values and socio-economic orthodoxy that was commonplace after the First World War.
In the search for simple answers, the Nazis in Germany took the ideas of Italian fascism, and applied them to their own circumstances. Adolf Hitler wanted to create a "thousand-year reich" that would extend from the Atlantic to the Urals. As he saw it, Germans were historically the "master race" of Europe, so they should take what was rightfully theirs: subdue the nations of the "lesser" Europeans, and cleanse Europe of Jews, who he saw as behind a worldwide conspiracy against Germany.

Change some of the names, and the ideology of ISIS is little different: Modern-day "Islamofascists" have created a brutal, despotic, anti-Western de facto state in the heart of the Middle East, and will use any means at its disposal to expand across the entire region; in the same way that fascism in Europe once brutally expanded across the entire continent, Islamofascism has the same aims today in the Middle East. Islamofascism is a reality, not a point of view: Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the forerunners of ISIS, and ISIS are simply a more updated, tech-savvy offshoot of the same ideology. The only difference is that ISIS are applying their selfsame ideology with greater efficiency on the ground, and have honed to brutal near-perfection their methods of recruitment, warfare, and the iron fist of how to govern conquered territory, with a combination of "charity" and the ruthless application of power. Also, having lots of money to pass around - through oil revenues and the product of mass larceny - doesn't do any harm, either.

The irony here is that Al-Qaeda - once the most-feared terror group in the world - are now looking somewhat irrelevant compared to ISIS (as brilliantly summarized by John Oliver here); in the same way that Hitler's brutal form of fascism made Mussolini's earlier ideas seem "quaint" by comparison?

Here to stay?

No-one in the West has a real plan of how to defeat ISIS. Part of the problem is that ISIS appeals to disaffected Sunnis in Iraq and Syria in the same way that the Nazis held an appeal to large segments of German society in the 1930s. This is not to say that masses of Sunnis have suddenly become Islamic extremists: like the Germans in the thirties, they simply have little alternative on the ground, and would rather hold their noses to the reality rather than choose the chaotic alternative. They are not going to rise up against ISIS, because there is no-one who can rise to fill the hole that ISIS have filled in the Middle East.

For foreseeable future, ISIS and their "Islamic State" look to be a semi-permanent feature of the new
Middle East. As the Nazis filled the hole left by the weak authority of Weimar Germany left by Versailles, modern-day ISIS claim their legitimacy comes from the injustice of the Sykes-Picot Treaty that divided up the Sunnis of the Levant and Mesopotamia between Iraq and Syria. This is the core of their claim to be the representatives of Sunni Islamic values (whatever they may be).

The campaign to defeat ISIS isn't helped by the politics and rivalries of the Middle East. Turkey, a key member of NATO, seems to be turning a blind eye to ISIS: Ankara's policy seems to be a case of live-and-let-live; allowing recruits from Europe pass almost without hindrance across Turkey's border with Syria, and meanwhile seeming to give ISIS a free rein for its adherents to operate in the south of Turkey, moving against Syrian exiles that oppose them. While it many be too much of a stretch to say that this is because of shared Sunni Islamic values, it is more likely the case that the Turkish authorities (rightly) fear the consequences of going against ISIS: the thought of terrorist outrages in Turkish resorts would fill the government with dread. In this very real sense, Turkey's hands are tied. It is partly for this reason why they did so little to help the beseiged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, just across its border.

The Arab Spring has spawned many conflicts: from Syria, to Libya, and now to Iraq once more, thanks to the summer blitzkrieg by ISIS. The road to Kobani, the looting of Mosul, the uprisings in Syria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia were all partly inspired by the renaissance of political Islam that first happened by the ballot box in Turkey twelve years ago.
Turkey is now the main player in much of what happens in the Middle East, and is as much a victim of its own success. As the progenitor of the ideology that led to the Arab Spring, having ISIS as Turkey's southern neighbours is partly a consequence of that: by stirring Sunni Arabs to do the same that devout Sunnis in Turkey did democratically in 2002. Except that there were no democracies in the Middle East, so how else to achieve it? The result in Syria was a civil war, that could only benefit the extremists.

ISIS is now the wolf at the door of many Middle Eastern governments, a monster that few know how to tame. People would do well to read the history books again.

A real-life "Game Of Thrones": The Multi-polar world of the 21st century

Events of the last five years have displayed the shift in the global centres of power.

Fifteen years ago, the USA was the unchallenged "superpower" (or as the French called it, "hyperpower") in the globe. By 1999, the USA had shown itself to be the world's supreme arbiter of justice, in the Kosovo war using the moral and military support of its NATO allies to bring an end to an attempted genocide and force about a change in government in Serbia (then still calling itself "Yugoslavia").

Today, the limits of America's power abroad are clear to be seen. The reign of George W. Bush displayed the amoral extent of US foreign policy to intervene and change governments in its own interests. The nadir of that was when, in 2003, post-war Iraq was ruled for a year by an American "viceroy", L.Paul Bremer III. In fact, for all his good intentions, Bremer was keen to emphasize his independence from Washington at the time; inadvertently declaring Iraq as his own personal domain. Such comments laid bare the ineptness and ignorance of American understanding of the world beyond its borders, and the lack of understanding of the places they were "intervening" in.

The Obama administration has gone to the other extreme, declaring a mostly "hands off" approach to foreign policy. The result has been an inconsistent application of that approach, in some ways similar to the foreign policy decisions made by Bill Clinton  - intervening in some cases (such as Kosovo), in a half-hearted way in others (such as Bosnia and Somalia), and sometimes not at all (such as Rwanda). Clinton's approach could be explained as a steep learning curve, from the disaster in Somalia at the start of his tenure, to the success in Kosovo at the tail end of it.
But Obama's inconsistency has more been a victim to events and the political reality of the world around him. America is no longer able to act as the "supreme arbiter of justice" as it did at the end of Clinton administration, and much of the way through the Bush administration. Nowadays, America's power has been leeched off by other rising powers, such as China and a resurgent Russia. All its actions have to be tempered by what the reaction will be from its rivals. If the USA can intervene in Libya, then why can't Russia "intervene" in Ukraine? America's inconsistent and morally-ambiguous foreign policy is now coming back to bite it where it hurts.

In the popular TV series "Game Of Thrones", the land of Westeros is the setting for the "War Of Seven Kingdoms". In many ways, the globe can be effectively carved up into seven similar spheres of influence: The USA, China, Europe (the EU), Russia, The Arab World, Latin America, and India. Like in "Game Of Thrones", each of these centres of power is competing with the others for control, using both fair means and foul.
Going through them alphabetically, these "centres of power" can be summarised like this:

The Arab World

The "Arab World" stretches from the Straights of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf. An excellent article and graphic by the "Economist" summarises its current status. Historically, the Arab World hasn't been united into anything approaching a coherent political entity for nearly five hundred years. The current collection of states owe their borders due to agreements and lines on a map drawn up by Europeans over the last hundred years, much of it as a result of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, their former masters. The result is something like a squabbling group of feudalistic satraps (some of whom claim to believe in "democracy") who control varying degrees of territory, resources and population. Collectively, they belong to a loose alliance that calls itself the "Arab League". Much of the wealth in this part of the world is focused at the eastern extremity, on the oil-rich lands around the Persian Gulf.
In the years since the Arab Spring, the relative stability that occurred between these many "players" has been disturbed, and in some parts, completely destroyed. Syria and now Iraq are in a state of civil war; Libya is teetering quite close to one; Yemen likewise. Within the Arab World, different (and surprising) alliances have been formed due to the rise of Islamic extremism; the one true beneficiary of the Arab Spring.

The USA and Europe look on, trying to make sense of the confusion and fluid allegiances, and make a mess of trying to choose the "right" sort of ally (Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Qatar?). Russia looks on with interest, plotting its own allegiances with duplicitous cunning; China, like a true merchant, always follows where the money is.

China

These days, China is at its pinnacle of development and potential in world history. China has been one of the world's pre-eminent powers for the last two thousand years, the chaos and relative decline of most of 19th and 20th centuries notwithstanding.
China today is ran as a highly-organised (and efficient) hierarchical capitalist state. While the powers of the USA and Europe disapprove of its human rights record and the fact that it is not a democracy, China's internal political system tends to reward efficiency and (on the whole) punishes bad organisation and corruption. While many critics call Russia a "modern feudal state", China's hierarchy rewards efficiency above anything else; in Russia, the system rewards loyalty to the centre above anything else. As a result of this, China's population understands how to get on; a simple work ethic is rewarded. It may not look pretty to Western eyes, but it works. China's government is popular with its people for the simple fact that living standards and a Chinese person's way of life has changed beyond imagining in the last twenty years; for example, China's thriving middle class is the same size as the entire population of Europe, or the USA or the Arab World. Words like "democracy" are meaningless in such a context. China has always been a strong state, and will continue to be so.

China's attitude to the abroad seems very straightforward: what it can get out of it. Like any great power, what China looks for above all is one thing: security. Having a natural merchant's mindset, China sees security in money, trade and resources. It is for this reason that it has gained larger economic control over some the resource-heavy parts of Africa, as well as a larger stake in the energy market in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Its "String Of Pearls" policy may look like an act of aggression to Western eyes, but this tells us more about Western insecurity about the USA and Europe's relative decline. Angry rhetoric about its claims over the South and East China Seas may also be a combination of nationalism at home and territorial security of its "near abroad". In this sense, it looks somewhat comparable with Russia, but minus the psychological insecurity.

Europe (The EU)

Like the Arab World, Europe is a collection of states; the difference is that most of them sit together as part of a super-national entity that has legal and economic authority over them, called the EU. Most of the EU shares the same currency, which is effectively controlled by Germany, the EU's biggest economic power. In many ways, the modern-day EU shares the same characteristics of the former European empire, Austria-Hungary: as a multi-national super-state with a parliament full of different languages, ruled by a unaccountable and essentially autocratic government that struggles to adapt to changing circumstances.
While the individual states of the EU are all recognised as democracies (though some far from perfect), the legal authority in Brussels that rules over them and dictates law to them, is not a democratic entity in the real sense of the word. Its "government" is appointed through opaque negotiation, while the "parliament" has little real control on the executive. In essence, the various nation-states that are part of the EU have given up many of their legal powers to a centralised European autocracy.

The contradiction here is that while the many nation-states of Europe have willingly surrendered power over their internal affairs to the EU, these nation-states still have almost complete independence in foreign affairs. While this works fine for the likes of Germany, it makes smaller countries look ridiculous on the world stage when they have to balance their commitments; rather like how the original Thirteen Colonies that made up the USA after their independence all had their own foreign affairs between gaining independence in 1783, and becoming a proper federal state, in 1789.
Of course, the EU does have its own foreign policy (and foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, since 2009), but when it has tried to create a combined front (such as over Ukraine), it has not taken long for the individual states' whims to take over, or be manipulated by outside "players". Just like with the Arab League.

India

In many ways, India is the polar opposite to China. While India is the "world power" with easily the second-biggest population, it is a democracy compared to China's one-party state. The other major difference is that while China is a highly-organised, centralised state, India is a highly corrupt, disorganised state. While in China, everyone knows who is in control, in India, it often appears that no-one is in control. The culture of corruption that infiltrates all levels of the government means that it is almost impossible to get things done. While China has leapt forward economically in the last twenty years, India's pace of growth has been far more modest; and that is down to a combination of corruption and inefficiency. While India's middle class has been growing in an impressive manner, without reforms in the basics of how the state is governed, this is simply a detail.

The talk of India becoming one of the "big players" on the world stage (as the USA would like to see) still looks like a far-off pipe-dream. There's being a democracy, and then there's "democracy" that paralyzes the decision-making process. This, combined with corruption and inefficiency, is what is keeping India on the lower rankings of the "players" on the world stage.
This compares to, say, Turkey: a nation with a population many times smaller than India, but has an efficiently-organised economy and a very well-structured government agenda that has allowed Turkey far greater influence with other (bigger) world powers than would have been thought possible.
India's "foreign policy", if it can be seriously called that, seems an incoherent tangle of ideas. Different politicians from the main parties have contradictory ideas about the future direction of the country; without a coherent sense of purpose, India will be going nowhere quickly, and will be prey to the designs of other, more powerful, rivals.

Latin America

Within Latin America (the American continent south of the Rio Grande), Brazil is by far the biggest power. Brazil's rise in the past ten years has been impressive, and has been helped with its growing energy market. Like India, Latin America is a "rising power", not a "risen power" like China, or to a much lesser extent, Russia. The main advantage that LatAm (primarily a result of Brazil's success, and to a lesser extent, Mexico's economic growth) has over India is that LatAm's foundations are firmer.
Brazil as the largest power in the region has recently started to tap into its potential: using its growing oil sector, and wealth, it has begun to build its economic independence on assertive foreign relations. The USA once considered LatAm to be its backyard, and historically claimed rights to the Western hemisphere. That changed with the more assertive Socialist government of "Lula" DaSilva a decade ago, and has continued with his successor, Dilma Rousseff.

This realignment of LatAm relations (essentially an assertion of independence) coincided with the first years of the Bush administration. A rising China was seen as a useful partner, LatAm welcomed China's hands-off approach, and a new economic alliance was born. By the end of the decade - and coinciding with the financial crisis - Brazil's oil independence meant that it had also become more assertive. This meant that Brazil became one of China's main rivals for influence and resources in sub-Saharan Africa.
With Europe consumed with its own economic problems, and the new Obama administration taking a more hands-off approach to some areas of foreign relations, much of Africa's resources were effectively up for grabs. Some African nations looked to Brazil as a more "European-like" partner to deal with, with the advantage of being geographically closer than Europe itself or China.
In other areas, LatAm's foreign policy has generally been to go against whatever the USA (or Europe) were doing. This explains the economic closeness to China, as well as healthy relations with Russia. In a primitive sense, some voices in the West would see LatAm as going from being on the side of the "good guys" to that of the "bad guys".

Russia

The author has spoken before about Russia's place in the world: its mentality is due to a combination of geography and history. It has been called a "modern-day feudal state" by some (although that term can be used about many places in the world). Historically, it has always been a "resource exporter": a hundred years ago and more, it was a grain exporter; now it is an oil and gas exporter. In many ways, the Kremlin is one of the archetypal "courts" of world power, as it has been for centuries. The fact that the current resident is not a "tsar" but there by popular will is a historical detail.
Russia has always been a country needed to be ruled by will-power. Its greatest time of weakness, in the late 16th and early 17th century (called the "Time Of Troubles"), was when the country was overrun by foreign powers, eventually leading to the rise of the Romanov family, who ruled the empire for the next three hundred years. The 1990s are seen by contemporary Russians in something of a similar light: a time of weakness and anarchy. Vladimir Putin changed all that.

Russia's foreign policy has always been to defend its interests in whatever way it can: if it means siding with butchers, so be it. Is the USA so very different, in spite of its claim to the highest motives? From Chechnya to Syria, Russia's interests are the Kremlin's interests, and vice versa.
Russia's historic antipathy towards the USA, and pragmatism elsewhere, have meant that Russia has made allies of China and Latin America, while following a policy of divide-and-rule in the Arab World and Europe. This has left the USA at perhaps its weakest moment in foreign relations in decades, perhaps since the start of the Second World War.

The USA

The USA's geo-political situation is well-known, as summarised at the start of the article. The USA's internal situation is akin to being divided between two factions (red and blue), managed by an kleptocratic elite - calling the USA a properly-functioning democracy is a bad joke. While productive and rich, the "empire" is going through a period of introspection, not seen since before the Second World War. Tired after fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for thirteen years, the American people now see that war abroad creates more problems than solutions. As I write, Iraq is effectively divided in three by sectarian and ethnic divisions, and Afghanistan looks like it may go the same way, de facto divided into a north and south along ethnic lines after a disputed presidential election. Karzai was the "strongman" that held the US-occupied country together; with him gone, the motivation to stay together becomes tenuous.
This would be the nightmare scenario for American foreign policy makers and military planners, with so much blood and treasure poured into a bottomless pit of chaos.

To be fair, I have omitted Japan, which is a huge oversight considering its economic might (if negligible military might). Somehow, Japan appears to carry less obvious geo-political influence over its neighbours than, say, Germany has over the rest of Europe. This has more to do with Japan's reliance on the USA as a military ally, lending itself to being a "pygmy" on the military round-table. Even in this globalised world of economics, military spending and prestige count for a lot. And while Germany's military spending is also modest, it has a lot more economic muscle it can leverage when it needs to; with huge China facing it across the sea, Japan's economic power can only be compared in respects to its neighbourhood. The behemoth of China dwarfs even the advanced economy of Japan.

These are the "players" in the game of global power. Right now, things bear a worrying similarity to things a hundred years ago, when Europe was divided into a variety of alliances.

More specifically, the Middle East looks like it has the most spontaneous likelihood to explode into a regional war. And no-one can predict where that could lead...

American foreign policy, the Ukraine Crisis and ISIS in Iraq: is nihilism the "new normal"?

Nature abhors a vacuum.

If you look through periods of history over the last two thousand years or so, every so often you see periods of time when the predominant power in a region loses its influence. This may be through internal dissent or strife, economic overstretch, or a lack of will to govern.

Historians often call these blips in history "periods of transition", between one state of affairs and another. This is when the "dialectic" of the time is in dispute, before another narrative appears that fuses together the old and the new.

A short history of nearly everything

Pretensions aside, history is full of these examples. Alexander The Great conquered the Middle East and beyond due as much to the relative weakness of other powers at the time as his own organisation. His Greek-speaking empire fragmented after his death, whose division of power bases lead in time to the rise of Rome.
Rome then became a victim of its own success, when it was financially overwhelmed by the inefficiency of its state and the many tribes that occupied the empire from the Eurasian steppe; what we call today "imperial over-stretch".
The result of this was the so-called "Dark Ages", when the remainder of the Roman Empire in the East morphed in the thousand-year Byzantine Empire, while the Western half of Europe became a patchwork of weak and fluid national entities until the largest and most stable part became, in time, the Holy Roman Empire.

The weakness and fluidity of the "Dark Ages" was one factor for the rise of Islam, which was fortunate to have a good sense of timing. Islam conquered the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula due to the relative weakness of the other main powers at that time: in the Middle East and North Africa, the Byzantines were weakened from fighting a long war with Persia. The Muslim Arabs took full advantage. Pushing west, the Arabs crossed into Iberia and pushed north, over the Pyrenees until they were pushed back in the middle of France, and left to consolidate their position in modern-day Spin for the next five hundred years.

Skipping forward, the spread of the Mongol Empire (more about them here) was also due to key factors such as the relative weakness of their rivals at the time. The Mongols quickly overwhelmed the embryonic Russian state, and got as far as Eastern and Central Europe, devastating half of the continent and wiping out the armies put before it. Only the untimely (but for Europe, fortunate) death of the Mongol khan put a halt to the advance. With the death of the khan, the Mongols became pre-occupied with the battle for succession, and Europe was never again a serious priority for them. Instead, Asia and the Middle East bore the brunt of their attention.

In time, the Mongols also lost their pre-eminence. The story of the next five hundred years, from the end of Mongol rule in China towards the end of the 14th century (which coincided with the renaissance in Europe) to the end of the 19th century (which coincided with the rise of the modern democratic state), we see a common pattern. We see the rise and fall of imperial powers like waves in the sea. And we see the rise of new powers happening on the back of the weakness of others.

Stepping into the breach

When the influence of an imperial power (or state actor, to use a modern term) recedes like a wave, it leaves an empty space; a stretch of virgin beach, if you like, ready to be inhabited by a new set of occupiers. In 2014, the two events of the year so far have been the Ukraine Crisis and, more recently, the sudden rise to power of ISIS in the Middle East, an al-Qaeda-inspired extremist force.

The factors that led to the Ukraine Crisis include, as always, the relative weakness of the imperial actor, which is exploited by another (opportunistic) power. In the case of Ukraine, the "imperial actor" was jointly the USA and the EU; on an economic level the EU was driving for Ukraine to enter under its wing, while on a political and diplomatic level, the USA saw a chance to bring Ukraine closer to its orbit.
The problem here was the weakness of both the EU and the USA's position. They had misread (and underestimated) Russia's position (and therefore response). Due to the weakness of both the EU and the USA, they failed to back up their rhetoric with firm actions; relying on the power of threats alone, their actions turned out to be predictably toothless. Ukraine now has a weak central government supported by a toothless West.

It is the weakness of the EU and the USA that is responsible for Russia's response. Putin correctly calculated that the the West lacked the collective will to follow up its words with actions. The West is now at least partly to blame for encouraging the Ukrainian opposition into a position that requires a forceful Russian response.
Now Ukraine is divided in almost the same manner as the USA was back its Civil War, with a separatist region fighting against a government of the north. In this narrative, Kiev is the new Washington, with Donetsk acting as the "southern capital". By a ironic twist of fate, the southern separatists even have a flag that closely resembles that of the old Confederacy, and call their unified "state" the "Confederation of New Russia". This "CNR" is bankrolled and militarily supported by Russia, in the same way that France supported the Americans during the War of Independence. The old Confederacy never got the real support from Britain or others that would have given it a fighting chance during the civil war; the modern-day CNR, however, stands a much better chance of frustrating and wearing-down Kiev through sheer attrition and a mounting cost in blood and treasure, with the support of Russia. Kiev cannot afford a war in the long-term. Russia can.

In the war-zone of east Ukraine, it is the drip-drip of military casualties that may wear down Kiev over time. Moscow's support for the separatists is covert, but consistent. Moscow looks unlikely to back down from its covert military support as long as the West is weak. In the psychology of the Kremlin, if Ukraine is weak, then the West is weak. This gives Moscow all the reason to continue doing what it is doing; the weakness of Kiev demonstrates the strength of Moscow, with Russia stepping into the breach left behind by the West's geo-political weakness.

The army of Islam

The Arab Spring has had many consequences. The most worrying (yet predictable) is the increased power that Islamic extremism has across the the Middle East. The dictatorial states of the Middle East are generally awful, but brought (imposed) stability to the region, to the benefit of the West. In many cases, most of all Syria and Iraq, that stability is effectively destroyed.

The Syrian Civil War is now more than three years old. Few people predicted it would last this long, including this writer. There is now a kind of "unstable stability" with Syria, with the government controlling roughly the south, centre and the west, the pro-Western Sunni rebels controlling the north, and the Sunni Muslim extremists controlling the east. The war is now bogged-down into a stalemate of attrition, with neither side looking close to making any significant advances for the foreseeable future.

Except for the extremists. ISIS, an al-Qaeda-inspired militia, has now evolved from being a "mere" terror group into something like an army. The breakneck speed with which they took control of Mosul, Iraq's biggest city in the north, and a swathe of Sunni-inhabited territory across northern and western Iraq, seemed to come out of the blue. As a result of this, ISIS now control a "de facto" state encompassing eastern Syria, and northern and western Iraq, straddling both sides of the Euphrates valley for hundreds of miles.
One of the most stunning successes was looting Mosul's banks after they took the city; in what must surely be the biggest collective bank robbery in history, ISIS wiped Mosul's banks clean of half a billion dollars in gold and money.
This event compares historically with how the Bolsheviks financed their agenda with bank robberies and other means in the years before they came to power; the most famous was the 1907 Tbilisi robbery in broad daylight in what is now Freedom Square, orchestrated by Stalin (more on his early years here). That robbery was the largest ever at that time.

Their success in Iraq is due to the weakness of support for the government in Sunni-inhabited areas of Iraq. The USA military left Iraq more than two years ago, to be defended by an army comprised of Shias, for the government comprised of Shias. While Kurds more-or-less run their own affairs in their own territory in the north, the Sunni are left powerless, and at the whim of the Shia-led government. ISIS has now stepped into this breach, with evidence that former Baathist officers had done some kind of deal with ISIS, and may also account for the swelling of ISIS's ranks in Iraq. This would also explain why there was no resistance to ISIS taking control of many Sunni-inhabited cities. In other words, the Sunnis of Iraq now have an army of their own to match the "government" Shia army, and the Kurdish peshmergas.
The ingredients are all there for a full-blown civil war like in Syria.

Where does this leave American foreign policy? 

Obama's strategy after the reign of George W Bush had been to repair diplomacy and restore America's reputation as a "peacemaker" rather than a warmonger.
Ignoring the ratcheting-up of the "drone wars" under Obama's watch, it's hard for other "state actors" to ignore the impression that America has now become more consumed by internal politics and introspection (given the rise of The Tea Party - see here and here), and that Obama sees the USA's relative decline as inevitable given the rise of China.

Putting this into consideration, the result is a moral "free-for-all". The UN has become an open joke among the more belligerent powers of the world, to be used as a theatre more than a diplomatic space. With the relative isolationism of the USA under Obama's watch (and likely to continue under his successor, regardless of which party they are from), the world resembles those periods of transition in history gone by, where other powers race to fill in the space left behind by the receding imperial power.

On the evidence so far, Russia, China and Islamic extremists seem to be the beneficiaries of this.

Islam: moderates versus extremists. Why are the extremists winning?

In a recent article about Islam, I discussed what drew some Westerners to become Muslim. Indirectly, I also posed the question "what is "wrong" with Islam?".

The main "problem" within modern Islam is the ideological battle between moderates and extremists. With the rise of "Islamo-fascism" in recent times, and the increasing influence that extremists have over the direction of Islam, it is clear that the extremists are "winning".

Silenced into submission

The extremists are winning within Muslim society mostly because of the passivity of the (far more numerous) moderates. To use a famous quote, evil,wins when good men do nothing. The same can be said of religious extremism: extremism wins when moderates do nothing.

To talk of "Muslim society" is a simplification. But broadly-speaking, most Muslim societies, whether they are a majority of society (such as in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia and North Africa), or a minority (such as in Britain and Europe), are roughly divided into "moderates" and "extremists".

Apologists for Islam's poor image in the world argue that it is not a problem with the religion in itself, but with the misuse of the religion by people (almost always men) who use Islam as a weapon to attack anyone who displeases or defies their will.
This is a poor argument, because it simply shows how easy it is to manipulate Islam for evil intent. The same inane defence could be made for any ideology or religion; it excuses the responsibility of those in positions of ideological/religious authority to properly guide their flock into moral behaviour. It is the "a few bad apples" argument" that resolves nothing.
That in itself is a poor reflection on the ease that its teachings can be abused; due to the attitude of "playing to the gallery" by those in authority, or those in authority choosing the easy path and simply turning the other way in the face of inhumanity.

From the "Trojan Horse" conspiracy in the UK, to the expansion of "sharia" law to places like Brunei, moderation in Muslim society is on the wane. There may be a number of factors (and arguments used by the radicals) that explain the "passivity" of the moderates:

Islam is under attack: since the "war on terror", Islam around the world has been identified by various governments, directly or implicitly, as an "enemy". As a result, Muslims should be seen to clearly unite. As the radicals present the most forceful and "pure" interpretation of Islam, the onus is on the "moderates" to fall into line.
It's time to rediscover our faith: The radicals, following from the previous point, may well argue that, as Islam is "under attack", it's an opportune moment for moderates to put down their beer and start reading the Koran again, properly. And that means listening to the "purest" interpretation of the writings.
Simplicity is easy to follow: The easiest way to follow Islam, as the radicals would explain, is to simply do what the Prophet said in his writings and in the "hadiths". The fuzzy and ambiguous "liberalism" and "modernism" of the moderates means they would find it more difficult to explain how they interpret their faith. Radicals therefore win arguments simply from quoting the Koran.
Cultural differentiation: Relating to the second point, the "renaissance" of radical Islam can also be justified as a way to, in the multi-cultural, "Godless" world of globalisation, have a clear identity. This is also true of what I said previously about Western converts to Islam: it's the easiest way to give yourself a definitive identity, separate from the crowd. It's a form of cultural rebellion against globalisation.
If in doubt, bully: if the above tactics don't work, use aggression instead. This seems to be how many Islamic moderates have been cowed into submission. From Britain to Brunei, radicals have seized control of the agenda by threatening unpleasant consequences. This is how unpleasant people have always used religion as a weapon of control and fear.

In the contemporary world, Islamic fundamentalism is just the most potent and visible form of religious intolerance and control. There are others, such as Hindu radicals, Christians and Orthodox Jews, but they seem to pale in comparison in terms of their effect on the world at large.

A history of violence

Islamic radicalism only really came to the world's attention with the fall of the Shah in Iran. While the Gulf States had been ruled by extremely conservative Islamic governments (ruling dynasties), the influence of Islam as a radicalising agent was seen as almost microscopic, and no-one took it seriously.

The fall of the Shah changed all that in 1979, as well as the attack on the holy sites in Mecca by Islamic fundamentalists. The Islamic revolution in Iran led to a horrific, US-backed war by its neighbour, Iraq. Yet conversely, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led to the US covertly financing and supplying military hardware to Islamic radicals (later known as "Al-Qaeda") to fight against them. A few years later in Syria, there was the attempted Sunni uprising against the secular (Alawite-led) government. Also in the early eighties, there was the creation of (Iranian-backed) Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the creation of Hamas, a radical Islamist group, that countered the secular power of Fatah in Palestine. So by the end of the Eighties, Islamic fundamentalism had become far more overt in its presence compared to ten years previously.

The end of Communism brought about further "opportunities" for radical Islam. The break-up of Yugoslavia led to radicals gaining a foothold during the war in Bosnia, while over in the Caucasus, wars were raging in Karabakh and the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya and Dagestan); in the latter, radical Islamists had gained a very visible presence, while in the Karabakh war, Islamic radicals used the bitter war between Azerbaijan and Armenia as another "playground".
In the last years of the twentieth century saw "Al-Qaeda" become a household name with the East Africa terror attacks of 1998. Since the turn of the century, radical Islam has spread at an ever greater rate across the Middle East and North Africa, especially since the aftermath of the "Arab Spring".

Put into this context, it is beyond reasonable doubt that radical Islamists are "winning" the war within Islam itself.
Apart from the Arab states of the Middle East, Turkey's own form of Islamism (in government since 2002) has been seen to be becoming increasingly uncompromising and polarising over time. With Turkey's Islamist government being so clearly allied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, it looks ever more so that Erdogan was simply playing a cunning waiting game, until it was too late for the secular moderates in Turkey to turn back the clock. The "mask of moderation" that Turkey's government had used effectively for some years, has now well and truly been discarded.

As things stand, the future of Islam belongs to those who are prepared to fight for it. The moderates look to have long given up the fight.

The Ukraine Crisis: The Russian Angle, Scenarios, and the ghost of 1914

The "Ukraine Crisis" that erupted a few days ago has been smouldering beneath the surface for years, with the current anti-government (Pro-European) protests ongoing for three months.

The initial cause of those protests was the rejection of the government of further EU agreements, in favour of greater economic co-operation with Russia; the deeper reason was endemic corruption of the governing administration.

On one side, there is the incumbent (pro-Russian) government, supported by Russia; on the other, are the "pro-European" (and pro-EU) opposition, backed by the EU and the USA.

Now the situation has turned to armed violence in the centre of Kiev, with the situation unravelling in the regions, especially those dominated by the largely Ukrainian-speaking opposition in the west and north. Even Crimea, an ethnically Russian region on the Black that also hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet, has threatened to secede and join Russia if things get much worse.

On the one hand, the West has decisively thrown its lot in with the opposition, supporting sanctions against the government; on the other hand, Russia has decisively thrown its full support behind the government (what that means precisely at this stage is unclear), calling the opposition "fascists", and the EU's demands "blackmail".

Seen through a Russian lens

Ukraine broke away from Russia (then the Soviet Union) a little over twenty years ago, but Russia has only really took Ukraine as being nominally independent ever since. The reasons for this are cultural and historical; regardless of what Ukrainians (Russian-speaking or not) may think of it, the Russians still consider Ukraine to be firmly part of Russia's sphere of influence.

Apart from Ukraine and the break-up of the former Soviet Union twenty years ago, Russia's perspective on the current Ukraine Crisis must be considered in relation to recent actions in Russia's back-yard, and areas of Russian influence in general.

From this point of view, we must go back to the Balkans. The break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo resulted in the collapse of the Milosevic government in Belgrade, Russia's last firm ally in the Balkans.

Moving on to the 21st century, you had the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in the middle of the first decade, as well as the Rose Revolution in Georgia, both bring pro-Western governments on to Russia's doorstep. Regardless of the exaggerated Russian paranoia at these events, these both happening only a couple of years after their neighbouring Baltic States has joined NATO (as a result of the "War On Terror"), it meant that Russia had very few "friendly" nations left around it. 

Furthermore, with China rapidly growing in stature, Russia had also lost economic influence in Central Asia; and the USA was using the "War On Terror" to utilise military bases in places like Uzbekistan. By this point, Russian paranoia of "encirclement" begins to gain an element of credence.

Things began to hot up in 2008. Early in that year, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, Russia's one-time ally. Russia supported Serbia's protests, and in the end only a modest number of countries recognised the new nation's sovereignty.

However, Russia got its own back soon afterwards, by unilaterally accepting the independence of two breakaway (Russian-speaking) regions of Georgia; then when the pro-Western Georgian President, Saakashvili, ordered the "reclaiming" of those two regions while Vladimir Putin was watching the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, Russia had reason to believe they were being taken for fools, regardless of Saakashvili's claims of Russian provocation. A brief war led to those regions being kept firmly from Georgian control, with the West unwilling to directly intervene; only Russian restraint, under pressure from the West to cease hostilities, allowed Saakashvili to remain in power.

The "Arab Spring" that began in early 2011 brought another challenge to Russia's "perspective" on the world. During the Cold War, the Middle East has been as much a battleground for influence has any other part of the world, and Russia's friendly relations with Syria (and Russia's naval base on the Syrian coast) have been the still-fruitful product of that.

The UN-backed war against Libya in 2011 was considered a dastardly trick by the West on Russia, hoodwinking them into backing what would ultimately be the collapse of the anti-Western (and implicitly, pro-Russian) government of Gaddafi. 

Thus, last summer, when the US, France and the UK supported military action against the savage crimes of the Syrian (pro-Russian) government during its ongoing civil war, Russia did everything it could to prevent it from happening, successfully keeping their sole remaining ally in the Middle East from harm.

Russia's geopolitical positioning since the end of the Cold War has been to promote the status quo in the developing world, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Naturally, this is because it is in Russia's interests to do so. This follows also with relations with Iran, as Russia has been playing its part to be "helpful" to both Iran and the West.

It is from this chain of events that we get a better perspective of Russian thinking. Seen through this lens, Ukraine represents to the Russian administration something more like a "red line" that cannot be crossed. After the perceived humiliations, encirclement and loss of allies in the last fifteen years, Ukraine is Russia's last "big prize", along with Syria. It has naval assets it both countries. The Orange Revolution led to a short-lived pro-Western government; the current (pro-Russian) government replaced it in the following elections.

Politically, strategically and culturally, it cannot afford to "lose" Ukraine.

Russian paranoia about Western-backed "fascists" attempting a coup against the pro-Russian government therefore has a long history to back it up. The timing of the violence, happening during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, would be seen as no coincidence in Moscow; neither would the fact that the US military sent a surveillance boat to the Black Sea to help with "anti-terrorism". 

Ghosts of 1914

The hundredth anniversary of the start of the First World War brings back some uncomfortable parallels to the current situation in Ukraine.

It should be remembered that the spark that led to the war starting was in the Balkans: A Bosnian Serb nationalist, backed by elements of the Serbian military and government, killed the heir to Austria-Hungary. Russia supported Serbia, encouraging her to reject the demands of Austria. 

What is important here is the role of Russia; without Russia's support, Serbia would likely have given in to Austrian demands (which, incidentally, where modest compared to those that NATO demanded of Serbia/Yugoslavia in 1999; while Austria was looking for a way to humiliate Serbia, it still gave plenty of room for Serbia to wriggle out of war). In this respect, Russia shares a large part of the blame for escalating the situation: first, by telling Serbia to stand up against Austrian aggression; second, by creating the narrative orthodoxy (regardless of the truth) for the reasons for the war in the first place i.e. Austrian aggression, which gave France and Britain a reason to join on Russia's side.

Jump forward a century, and we see much the same narrative played out again, albeit in the theatre of Ukraine and not Serbia, with the West (EU/USA) playing the role of Austria against Russia. Like in 1914, Russia accuses the West of aggression and blackmail with its demands on its ally; and also like in 1914, by Russia encouraging the Ukrainian government to "stand firm" and offering its full support, it risks escalating the situation further.

It should also be remembered that the years preceding the First World War included various "crises" and regional wars; the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, like the unrest in the Middle East since the "Arab Spring" resulted in unpredictable and unstable politics in strategically-important countries. 

In this way, we see that Russia's perspective has never really changed; only the situation has.

Three scenarios

Where will this lead? Three possibilities offer themselves.

The optimistic scenario:

Government ministers soon withdraw their support from the President, forcing him to do a deal with the opposition. Mediation with both Russia and the West working with both sides to calm the situation. At present, this looks unlikely, at least in the short-term; violence is intensifying as the two camps are drifting apart.

The middling scenario:

Low-level violence continues for some weeks, until ministers tire of the chaos, and encourage both Russia and the West to mediate. 

The worst-case scenario:

Civil war erupts, with Crimea seceding. Russia decides to intervene directly to protect its strategic interests, as Ukraine represents its "last line of defence"; the West's response depends on the level of influence that "hawks" have in the EU nations and Washington. Hawks in the West may argue for a strong response after being denied by Russia a "just war" in Syria the previous year. 

Although last this scenario looks far-fetched, the psychology of the various players in the West is important; Obama's rhetoric against Russia in the Ukraine Crisis has thus far been (uncharacteristically) very strong. In this way, perhaps the thought of "missing out" on a strike against Syria is playing on his mind? 

On such things can wars be decided.

A further analysis of the situation in Ukraine (and Moscow's intentions) can be found here.

Islamofascism and terrorism: Islamic Extremism, Al-Qaeda and the meaning of power

The recent article in The Economist about the spread of Al-Qaeda explains clearly how this terrorist organisation has moved from a marginal irritant on the West at the end of the 20th century, to the West's most psychologically-potent enemy in the early 21st century.
Reading this also reminded me of Christopher Hitchens' analysis of Islamofascism; points which mirror some of my own thoughts on the psychological and ideological links between radical "political" Islam, and the Fascism that plagued Europe up to the Second World War.

Put into perspective, the threat of Islamic terrorism that inspired the (ongoing) "War On Terror" is not an existential one on the West. The biggest existential threat to the world is climate change; after that, the largest geo-political changes (threats) the West has to learn to adapt to are the rise of China (and the East in general), the relative decline of Western powers to the aforementioned rising powers, and the jostling for position over resources across spheres of influence (such as Africa) and zones of contention (such as Central Asia). I've mentioned why "The East" already has some advantages in the jostling for power over "The West" before.
Add into that the fact that, due to Globalisation, multinational companies have as much influence on geo-politics as many countries, and you have a world that more closely represents the "Risk" board game's playing surface, albeit fought mostly with economic weapons rather than real ones. It also sounds a bit like the world divided like the global power system described in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-four".

No, Islamofascism, and the terror threat of the Al-Qaeda "franchise" does not represent an existential threat to the West.
That being said, Islamofascism does represent a different, more subtle, longer-term threat to the West. And in some ways, Islamofascism has already encroached into many aspects of Western society almost unnoticed, in much the same way that earlier Fascism used its enemy's own system (liberal democracy) against itself and for Fascism's own advantage.

The meaning of power

Islam, directly translated, means "submission" (as far as I am aware). Fascism as an ideology was about the submission of the collective will to the political centre; this brings to mind the famous Nazi propaganda movie "The Triumph Of The Will".
Islam may therefore be seen as the submission of the collective will to the religious centre - "Allah", whose "will" is interpreted through mullahs and through the writings of the Prophet and other adherents. Of course, all religions base their ideas on surrendering individual will to a religious idea (this is the definition of "faith"). What marks Islamofascism as unique in the modern, globalised world, is its absolute application of power and will over a rational, pluralistic West, and the ease that it is able to infiltrate into Western society, as well as ideologically defeat more moderates followers of its faith.

I talked about earlier Fascism, implying that it almost seemed to serve as a template for today's Islamofascists to infiltrate Western society and bring down the system from within. While the latter point seems far-fetched, the basic premise (that Islamofascism has infiltrated Western society) stands true; and there has been plenty of evidence to support it.

One of the best examples of this is in British society.
Britain's position as a bastion of liberal democracy and cultural pluralism is one thing that makes it an exemplar to many would-be free, modern societies elsewhere. It is precisely in such a society that Islamofascists have been able to preach their violent, undemocratic and pernicious ideas under the protection of "free speech"; at the same time, they have also been allowed to conduct behaviour that could land any British non-Muslim in prison, while claim the right to religious expression; and most subversive of all, have denounced and threatened anyone who criticises their faith, ideas or behaviour with violence.
In other words, Islamofascism has reached a position of becoming almost a state within a state in the UK, having their own self-contained communities, schools, businesses and so on; more than that, the state has effectively surrendered moral and legal authority to such Islamofascists.

This is what is meant by power. When a section of society has reached a position of becoming legally untouchable due to the weakness of the state in applying its own laws, it is a demonstration of power by that section of society over the state power.

Putting the fear of God into people

Because of this, other sections of society begin to practise "self-censorship" when in public, such as being careful not to carry out behaviour that may earn the wrath of Islamofascists. This is another example of the application of psychological power. In other words, putting almost the literal fear of God into non-believers.
Using this method, over a long-enough time scale, the Islamofascists can win by default; terrifying non-believers into behaving how they want, while using the state's lack of will and appeasement to create a de facto Islamic State within the UK. This method can then be applied across the West, as long as "liberal democracy" is used, like the Fascists before, as a vehicle to destroy liberal democracy.

Terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are simply the sharp end of the scale, using actual terror tactics (the random killing of whoever they feel is worthy of death). Terrorism is a well-practised method of creating fear. For Al-Qaeda, it is a simple application of will; a statement of intent and a challenge to the West. These people do not fear death; Islamofascists, like earlier Fascists, embrace it in all its glory.

And this is the other psychological weapon they have over liberal democracies. The West may have large armies, but they lack the moral will to use and lose them. Al-Qaeda's numbers may be small, but their will is strong.

Lastly, these extremists have shown that as they can put the fear of God into non-believers, they can even more easily silence any protests from more moderate Muslims as well. For the extremists, anyone who is not a "real" Muslim, is no better than the infidels. Against this moral certainty, moderates quickly lose the conviction of their beliefs. Indeed, like a "liberal", a "moderate" by definition would struggle to match the conviction of their beliefs with that of an extremist ideologue.

This explains why extremists are gaining ground in places like Pakistan, and are able to take advantage of the instability caused from the Arab Spring. As "The Economist" article shows, Islamic extremists are benefitting from the Middle East and North Africa being led by a clutch of weak governments, mirroring (in a different form) the situation in many of the "liberal democracies" in the West.

Creating Islamic states by default

While the likes of Al-Qaeda state their eventual aim is the establishment of a "caliphate" that spans the Middle East, in practical terms the erosion of central state power in governments across the Islamic world (from Pakistan in the East, to Libya in the West) almost as easily fulfills that same aim. Entire sections of some Middle Eastern countries are effectively in the hands of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates; with state security so weak in places like Pakistan, Iraq ,Libya, Somalia, and Yemen (and non-existent in northern and eastern Syria).
Syria provides the clearest example of what happens when central government disappears, and the vacuum is filled with Islamic extremists: arbitrary justice, be-headings and so on.

Some parts of towns and cities in Britain more closely resemble Peshawar than Pontefract. While multiculturalism is to be applauded, this is not what exists in many parts of Britain. Instead, we have created pockets of monoculturalism - in others words, self-enclosed ghettos where the values (and even law) of Britain do not fully apply. It is this type of exclusive social environment that breeds extremism.

Moderate Muslims must be brave in facing down the extremists; and Western governments must be firm and consistent in the application of their laws and values.

If the West is to preserve its laws and its values, it needs to defend them at home to begin with.

Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanism, Political Islam, Fascism and Anti-Semitism

Last month I wrote about some of the divisive and fear-mongering language that Erdogan and his ministers have used since the rise of the "Gezi Park" movement.

Over the last few weeks, the language has become more aggressive and paranoid: the latest salvo from the AKP is the accusation from the Deputy Prime Minister is that the "Jewish diaspora" is also involved with foreign conspirators in a plot to destroy Turkey's economy.
As well as blaming the foreign media (and even threatening legal action against CNN), Erdogan himself has rounded on his those Turkish journalists who have reported on the protests, using the example of Selen Girit, a Turkish BBC correspondent, who he called a "traitor". The purpose of such appallingly-aggressive language is clear - to threaten all domestic journalists into not daring to criticise the government. So while critical foreign media are called "conspirators" who want to destabilise Turkey, critical native journalists are called traitors.
As well as the war on the media, there is a clear trend of victimising foreigners. In the last two weeks, a British teenager was attacked until unconsciousness by Turkish men in the tourist resort of Marmaris because he was seen kissing a Turkish girl in a bar.
Apart from such vigilante attacks, the state itself has deported two foreign women for being involved in the protests, even if only incidentally: a Swedish tourist was deported for being seen to chant along with anti-government slogans; while a French foreign student was deported for being in a DSP (Democratic Left Party) building during mass disturbances with the police.
The message here is clear: for foreigners to mind their own business, and not interfere with Erdogan's "national will".

I wrote last year about Kaiser Wilhelm's plan to ally himself with the Ottomans in order to raise a "jihad" against the British and the Russians. Linked to this is the rise of anti-Semitism, which was first exported from Imperial Russia (using the propaganda tract "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion"), to post-war Germany, where it quickly got the attention of would-be Nazis. Anti-Semitism then spread to the Middle East, the Nazis (and other Fascist movements) taking up Kaiser Wilhelm's old cause of raising trouble with the West through the force of Islam, by forming loose alliances.

The gradual rise of Political Islam

Like Fascism, the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East in the inter-war period grew through a perceived "victim complex", and a desire to purge society of impurity.
Most of the Middle East had been under the power of the Ottoman Turks for centuries, but hadn't had power in their own right. Similarly, Egypt had been under the power of the British Empire. Organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood grew in the 1930s, as Fascism was becoming a force to be reckoned with in Europe. They had spread across much of the Middle East by the Second World War. Both political creeds were viciously anti-Semitic and against what they saw as Western immorality; their answer was pure authoritarianism and tight social control. Both creeds blamed the Jews for much of their plight.

Political Islam was kept under close watch by the various regimes around the Middle East, so as Fascism was defeated in Europe, Political Islam and organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood were not allowed to spread. Meanwhile, the Jewish state of Israel was created out of the ashes of old Palestine, adding further insult to injury. The Cold War gave another reason for the West to financially prop up secular dictators in the Middle East, in competition with the Soviet Union. Neither "The Great Satan" or the atheist Soviet Union wanted anything to do with Political Islam. While Nasser of Egypt was the nearest thing that the "Arab Street" had to an "anti-Semitic idol" in the Cold War, it all ended in humiliation in the Six Day War of 1967. The re-match, the Yom Kippur War six years later, fared little better, leaving Arabs feeling humiliated and impotent.

That idea received a shock with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, making the West realise its complacency in thinking that Political Islam could be forever kept down on a diet of bullying and political marginalisation. Yet, there was still no other method that anyone could think of. While the Arabs remained divided by borders drawn up after the First World War, the strongest Arab state in the Middle East was Saudi Arabia, followed by Egypt. As one was a hardline Islamic state, and the other a secular dictatorship, the chance of the two ever getting their act together seemed remote in the extreme. It would take a revolution to bring Political Islam to the fore, and no expert thought that was conceivable.

Turkey, another Muslim secular state, provided the answer. As I've described before, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was able to "break the mould" in Turkish politics in 2002, becoming the first party of Political Islam to gain a foothold in a Middle Eastern country.
Erdogan's path to power, and his manner of maintaining it, became an exemplar to other would-be parties of Political Islam across the Middle East. For ten years, he had successfully deceived the West into thinking he was a true democrat, gradually consolidating his grip on power through a smokescreen of "democratic reforms" on a path to eventual EU membership - destroying the influence of the military, judiciary, opposing parties and the media in turn. At the same time, he has taken baby-step after baby-step towards an Islamic state in Turkey, so that by the time of the Arab Spring, Erdogan was the benchmark that Arabs could use to bring Political Islam to power across the Middle East.

In Egypt, Political Islam's biggest "success story" in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood has overstepped its mark. Unlike in Turkey, Egypt's military had not been yet "neutralised". let alone filled with government sympathisers, so it would have been much wiser had the Muslim Brotherhood's President Morsi taken a much more careful and gradual approach like Erdogan. Instead, the Muslim Brotherhood showed their cards far too early, and it is difficult to say what the next step for them will be.

Neo-Ottomanism, the main force of Political Islam

In the meantime, Erdogan's "Neo-Ottomanism" is more and more becoming a force to be reckoned with. With Egypt's future still uncertain, the other Arab governments dominated by Political Islam will continue to look to Erdogan as their mentor.
Erdogan and his ministers are increasingly looking back to the old Ottoman Empire as their inspiration. The secular symbols of Turkey are, one by one, subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) being discarded, and being replaced by an increasing affection for the "old ways". Erdogan himself had implied years ago that he was keen to restore some of the old symbolism. The replacing of Gezi park with an Ottoman-era barracks is but one small sign of that.
The expansion of Turkey's ties and alliances with the Middle East, and the rapid frosting of relations with the West is a statement of Neo-Ottoman geopolitics put into practice: to restore Turkey's relations, power and influence so that it is comparable with that before the First World War, when the Turks controlled much of the Middle East. "Neo-Ottomanism" is therefore a kind of localised neo-colonialism; except that while Western Neo-Colonialism is resisted by its erstwhile "colonies", the contemporary Middle East is largely embracing Neo-Ottomanism, as a means to an end: as the coming-together into an informal alliance of a restored "Ottoman Muslim" power that protects the conjoined interests of Political Islam in the Middle East.

"Neo-Ottomanism" as the main agent of Political Islam in the Middle East might therefore be more similar to the politics of Fascism than one might think. Neo-Ottomanism might not threaten the political integrity of Europe, but it does put the Arab Spring in a new light. The Syrian Civil War can be seen as a battle between a (failed) "secular" regime and a militant force of Political Islam. In this way, Neo-Ottomanism has the same kind of stake in the Syrian Civil War as the Fascists had in the Spanish Civil War.

The battle for Syria has become a symbol of the wider future of the Middle east: "Neo Ottoman" Political Islam (and supported by the Gulf States), or Iranian-backed satellite? Iraq is another toy for the larger forces nearby to play with, squeezed between Turkey's Neo-Ottomanism and Iran's Shia theocracy in one direction, and with the Syrian Civil War boiling over in another.

Europe in the 1930s was an ideological battleground between the forces of Fascism and liberal democracy; but also behind that was the threat of Communism, which tempted liberals to indulge Fascism as the "lesser of two evils", and then allowed Fascists to claim "democratic" support.
The Middle East in the 2010s faces a similar ideological battle between the forces of Political Islam, and the varied regimes of the "old order" still allied to the West; but also behind that is the threat of Iran. Thus in the Middle East of the 2010s, Iran has become the bogeyman that Communism was to Europe in the 1930s. While in the Europe in the 1930s it was Fascism versus Communism, in the Middle East in the 2010s it is "Sunni" Muslim Political Islam versus "Shia" Islam Iranian-style theocracy; ideological battles in Europe are instead sectarian battles for control in the Middle East, with liberals used as pawns in the same manner.

Thus the initial indulgence of Political Islam by Westernised liberal Arabs compares with European liberals' indulgence of Fascism in the 1930s.

Following this comparative logic, as Mussolini pre-dated Hitler's rise to power by a decade, so Erdogan pre-dated the rise of Political Islam in the Middle East (i.e. The Arab Spring) by a decade. Hitler learned from Mussolini's example. However, Morsi failed to learn the proper lessons from Erdogan's careful, incremental approach to applying Political Islam (and, fatally, never had the support of the army), leaving Erdogan as the unopposed ideological leader of Political Islam in the Middle East, with no near-comparable rival in the scene.
Thus, in an ironic way, Erdogan may actually benefit politically from Morsi's fall from power: giving greater ammunition to the "victim complex" trait that Political Islam shares with Fascism, sowing further unrest in Egypt, and giving Erdogan further scapegoats to use for his own advantage. The fact that Erdogan's AKP supporters have so clearly allied themselves with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tells you how closely-linked the two are.

The rise of Political Islam back in the 'thirties was originally intended to restore the old Islamic caliphate, which had resided for five centuries in Istanbul. Day by day, the Islamist Turkish government distances itself from the West, and opens its arms more and more to the East. Turkey is building a hospital in Gaza, in partnership with the Hamas government (and doubtless to Israel's fury); Turkey is looking to buy a missile system from China instead of the West, that would render it incompatible with NATO.

To what end are these symbolic moves?

The anti-Semitism coming from Erdogan's ministers is more likely opportunism rather than paranoia, but whatever its reason, its purpose is to cement the divisions in Turkish society, between an "us" and "them"; leaving it unspoken but obvious that "they" are not "real" Turks.

And in the cynical numbers game that Erdogan and his ministers are playing, they hold all the trump cards. And if "they" don't like it, it goes without saying, "they" know where the door pointing West is: in the other direction, the East beckons with open arms.