Part II: the Muslim world
This essay was first published here, by the Friday Times on July 6th, 2024.
Having discussed what truths the war in Gaza reveals about America, it is now time to consider what it has shown us about the Muslim world. Here, the lesson is simple and has been painfully obvious for a long time. The Muslim world is incredibly weak.
Not one of its 57 nations had the power to stop Israel from murdering Gaza’s defenseless people. Over 14,000 Palestinian children have died so far. Many were just babies or toddlers who were intentionally murdered in their homes as they slept because Israeli soldiers decided it was more cost effective to kill their fathers while they were asleep among their loved ones. Instead of trying to protect these children, nearly the entire Muslim world impotently watched as they were torn apart by Israeli and American bombs and missiles.
The Arab world’s reaction was particularly muted and cowardly. But the Arabs were hardly alone in standing aside while the IDF was busy massacring children. Muslim leaders across the world busied themselves issuing scathing press releases denouncing Israel’s crimes. Turkey, to its credit, even cut off trade ties. But most of them took no real action.
Those few who tried, like Iran and its allies, were immediately labeled “terrorists” and attacked. Since Oct. 7th, Israel and America have worked hard to prevent this conflict from “escalating” by bombing Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. Hundreds have been killed and the message sent: anyone who tries to help the Palestinians will suffer.
Aside from the Houthis and Hezbollah, the entire Muslim world has been cowed into submission. Though the willingness of Yemen’s and Lebanon’s fighters to engage Israel’s far more powerful forces is certainly commendable, the sad truth is their arsenals are inferior in every way. They do not possess air defenses that can protect them from Israel’s deadly fleet of F35s and F15s. Nor do they possess fighter aircraft that can match them. As such, they are forced to cede control of the skies to their adversaries and suffer immensely as a result.
Their supporters in Iran possess a more potent arsenal; however, it is still qualitatively inferior to Israel’s in every way. Iran has a few 3rd and 4th generation fighters it purchased from Russia and China and has even managed to keep some of its vintage American gear working. But on their best days, none of them can match the lethality of Israel’s and America’s fighters. Similarly, its air defenses would quickly be overwhelmed by a determined Western led bombing campaign. Perhaps most consequential of all, Iran is highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could disable large chunks of its infrastructure in the event of a war.
Iran and its proxies suffer from the same weakness as every other Muslim nation. They cannot build the same sort of advanced weapons as their adversaries. Their economies and industrial bases are too backwards and underdeveloped. Many, like Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey have worked hard to close the gap in manufacturing and technological abilities. None have fully succeeded.
Iran has come a long way since the days it was forced to use human wave tactics to defend itself against Iraq’s forces. It has built an industrial base that can supply its military with moderately capable weapons like ballistic missiles and drones; however, its technological and manufacturing capabilities are still primitive in many ways. This has prevented it from building aircraft or air defense systems that can protect it. Even its vaunted drones are built from mostly imported parts. Its economy suffers from numerous structural defects, some imposed by the West, most self-inflicted and related to its corrupt and repressive government.
Pakistan, as a nuclear power, is considered to have the most powerful military in the Muslim world but lacks the means to project power far beyond its borders. Its economy is hopelessly inefficient and most of its “factories” are used to assemble imported parts rather than build goods they can sell to the world. As a result, Pakistan developed neo-colonial relationships with America and then China to supply it with the arms it cannot build itself. Its forces still use several American made weapons, like the F16 fighter jet. Since Pakistan is dependent on America for the spare parts needed to maintain these aircraft, it could never take a strong stance against Israel for fear of being cut off from them. In fact, it is so wary of angering America it cannot even build a gas pipeline with Iran without first asking for permission.
Turkey is also one of the Muslim world’s most powerful states. It has a well-developed manufacturing base and a strong military. However, it must still import its most advanced weapons like the S-400 air defense system it purchased from Russia or the F35 fighters it was supposed to buy from America before being cut off due to the S-400 purchase. Despite years of trying, Turkey has been unable to build a jet with capabilities like the F35. Due to these constraints and the fact that many of its weapons require spare parts imported or licensed from America, Turkey also suffers from critical vulnerabilities that prevent it from meaningfully helping the Palestinians.
In addition to suffering from similar industrial and technological deficiencies, the conventional military forces of the Arab world are incompetent on the battlefield. Saudi Arabia, for example, is the fifth largest military spender in the world and possesses an array of deadly American weapons. Despite spending hundreds of billions to arm itself, the Saudi military is useless. It is entirely dependent on American and Pakistani mercenaries to function on a day-to-day basis and its officers have proven incapable of properly using their sophisticated American weaponry.
Saudi Arabia is, in many ways, representative of the rest of the Arab world, which has become a bastion of incompetence, cowardice, repression and regressive thought. Arab leaders, particularly those in the Gulf, are an anchor keeping the Muslim world stuck in place while slowly pulling it under the waves. Though some have implemented superficial social reforms, none have embraced the sort of political changes that could truly free their people. Instead, those who rule the Gulf have worked hard to destroy any trace of democracy in the region as evidenced by the significant roles they played in the coups that toppled Egypt’s and Tunisia’s democratic governments and even Sudan’s recent descent into civil war.
Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are some of the most powerful Muslim nations and yet each suffers from similar weaknesses, to varying degrees, that have prevented them from developing the industrial and technological capabilities needed to build militaries that are not dependent on outside powers for support. Aside from Saudi Arabia, they have managed to build decent military industrial complexes capable of producing heavy weapons like tanks and artillery, but they are still incapable of building the most advanced weapons they need. For example, outside of Malaysia, no Muslim nations have the foundries needed to make the weapon most vital for modern warfare: microchips. Due to their technical deficiencies, Muslim societies are still hopelessly outgunned by the Western and Russian armies that have been invading them and massacring their people for centuries. As a result, they simply do not have the power to protect Gaza’s children. Which raises the question of why. Why have Muslims been so weak, for so long?
Like America, the Muslim world’s dysfunction can be traced to its relationship with the truth. In the Muslim world, the truth is forbidden. The tyrants who have ruled it for centuries refuse to allow their people to speak their minds about anything that might threaten their power, under penalty of death or jail. Even democratic Turkey features a stifling intellectual climate in which saying or tweeting something critical of its leaders can lead to jail time. By suppressing the truth, Muslim leaders have crippled the ability of their societies to evolve or have honest conversations about complicated issues. A society that forbids people from expressing themselves will always be weak because it will always be ruled by dictators who rely on force instead of persuasion to sustain their power. When a society is ruled through force, its leaders’ only preoccupation will be doing whatever it takes to hold onto their power and the privileges and impunity that comes with it. As the Muslim world shows, this is the path to weakness, servitude, and slaughter.
Muslims have been ruled by dictators for so long, they have lost sight of some fundamental truths. The first and most obvious: they will remain weak until they build governments designed to empower and educate their people, not oppress and control them. To do so, they must establish democratic and inclusive political systems based on the rule of law that guarantee freedom of expression. That is the surest path to nurturing the economic and technological development needed to build powerful militaries.
Inexplicably, some Muslims have argued democracy is not compatible with Islamic values. Scholars working for Iran’s Qajar dynasty went so far as to proclaim monarchies are the only type of government sanctioned by Islamic law. However, as discussed in more detail here, even an elementary understanding of Islamic history shows hereditary monarchies, like the one that rules Saudi Arabia today, are patently un-Islamic and that democracy is the only form of governance consistent with Islamic values.
The early Islamic period is referred to as the Rashidun era and corresponds to the reigns of the first four Caliphs to rule the Islamic world. Many Muslims believe the precedents established during this period represent the ideal towards which they should aspire, and that contemporary governments should be modeled after their example. Groups such as ISIS have even waged war to try and re-establish their own version of the Caliphate, while the Taliban claim to model their government after it. But they do not understand the defining characteristics of the government they idealize or the lessons they should learn from its example.
Though some of the details surrounding the appointment of the Rashidun are unclear, certain facts are not in dispute. Not one of Islam’s first four Caliphs used violence or the threat of violence to secure their reigns. They were chosen by building a consensus through dialogue between members of the community, including its women. Not one of them tried to pass power onto their son either. Instead, each left the choice of successor to the community or engaged it in the selection process when circumstances allowed.
The Caliphate may not have been a democratic system by modern standards, but it was a far cry from the dictatorships that dominate the Muslim world today. Caliphs were chosen after getting input from the community in Medina and they ruled by engaging with this same community to get its opinion regarding policy debates.
The only real question is how to apply these principles to modern-day realities considering the vast cultural, technological, and demographic changes that have taken place over the past fourteen centuries. The Muslim world is no longer comprised of a small elite ruling over masses of non-Muslims in distant lands. Instead, it has been separated into independent nations like Turkey and Iran populated by millions. Pakistan has over 240 million people, 97% of whom are Muslim but separated through myriad linguistic, ethnic, regional, and doctrinal differences. Engaging in dialogue or achieving consensus is a lot harder today than it was in the much smaller and homogenous community of Medina.
Groups like ISIS, the Taliban, and their friends in the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) believe the answer is simple: nothing changes. Not only do they believe nothing changes, but they have violently tried to stop their societies from making some necessary changes. They even blame the changes various Muslim societies tried to make for Europe’s conquest of the Muslim world, which is a laughable and completely insane argument that highlights the irrational nature of their ideas. It was the Muslim world’s inability to change that led to its conquest. And its continuing refusal to do so makes it incredibly weak today.
Despite the incoherence of these literalists, it should be obvious that it is the broad values and ideals of this era that must guide Muslims, not the minutiae of how they were implemented. The only practical way to emulate the values of the Rashidun era today, given the much larger populations and advances in communications technology, is to create democratic systems that give citizens the ability to choose their rulers and freely voice their opinions.
Muslims have bathed themselves in conservative ideologies that deny simple truths for too long. As a political philosophy, conservatism makes no sense because it is opposed to one of the most basic natural laws. As humans learn through the simple process of aging, change is an intrinsic part of life. Philosophies that deny this truth are incapable of forming coherent or moral ideologies because they are inherently illogical and, as a result, must resort to authoritarian methods to maintain power. Hence, the violent oppression instigated by men using religion and tradition as an excuse to stop their societies from evolving.
This religious repression is based on the political absurdities created by the dictators who have taken over the region. Enforcing religious orthodoxy goes hand in hand with suppressing political speech. The two reinforce each other and help to buttress the region’s dictators who have spent centuries obscuring the fact that the ideal Islamic government is, and always has been, a democratic one based on consent rather than force. Until Muslims accept these truths, they will remain too weak to prevent massacres like the one consuming Gaza.