Ever since the Middle East was determined as a geographical space, colonialist empires have settled in the region through a series of occupations. Although the form of the colonial policies changed in each decade, the Middle East has remained as a theater of war and occupations.
The problems we are currently facing in the Middle East are much more complicated than ever. Yet the Western idea over the Islamic Orient whose origins date back to the crusades have not undergone a fundamental change.
Today, the middle-class Muslim masses that are known as "the ordinary ummah," loyal to authentic Islamic rules and apart from violence who represent the plurality of society, exist in each country in the Middle East. When these classes were defending their national interests through democratic spirit and against any anti-democratic means of coming to power, the governments they supported ruled their country in a stable and healthy way.
Although the West can be defined in various ways, the international axis composed by the U.S., U.K. and Israel is constituted by a unity of interests. Instead of cooperating with the aforementioned moderate classes of the Middle East, the forces representing the "Western ideal" have been working with the submissive, pro-mandate groups here and the extremist, terrorist organizations there.
For instance, Saudi Arabia, one of the principal partners first of the U.K. and then the U.S., had supported small Salafi extremists against the democratic movements of political Islam in the country. The loss of control over the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is, in this context, a bitter experiment for the Saudi state. Now, the only way out for Saudi Arabia is to establish long-term cooperation with moderate movements of political Islam.
The extremist terrorist organizations, such as the notorious al-Qaida and ISIS, which spread over various regions of the world and are detrimental to the ideal of Islam, have been used to disparage the image of Islam through the global media, and thus, ordinary Western people have long been deceived by such news. Yet, history proves the fact that the control over a monster could easily be lost by its own creator. Indeed, the terrorist organizations that are now setting the Middle East on fire could cause serious harm to the West as well.
Whether the fact that the Middle East has gradually been turning into a bloodbath is a problem for the principal Western powers is uncertain. If these states are in pursuit of stable peace in the region, they had to renounce their previous political attitude of excluding and discrediting moderate political groups and to cooperate with them in the upcoming decisive processes in the Middle East.
Such cooperation would certainly assist the compensation of the harms inflicted by terrorist organizations and the restoration of democracy and peace in those countries. Egypt is, in this respect, standing as a bitter object lesson. Thus, the first step for such a paradigm change in policy should be liberating the imprisoned, legitimately elected government and renouncing support for the coup in Egypt.
About the author
İhsan Aktaş is Chairman of the Board of GENAR Research Company. He is an academic at the Department of Communication at Istanbul Medipol University.
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