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Words: A Critique of Anti-Islam Critics and a Path Forward, via Structure

Politics is politics. This maxim is something to be remembered. Whether studying voter behavior in the United States or underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa, politics — in its basic structures and processes — is at play wherever human society is found. Geography, culture, religion does not obscure the political.[1] When dealing with the Middle East, this is forgotten. Commentary and analysis tends to be disconnected from the political, myopically fixating on Islam as though all Middle Eastern politics hinges on personal faith. Fatally reductionist, observers adopt a warped and distorted view of Middle Eastern politics to satisfy biases and even prejudices. Post-9/11, the Middle East and its politics are now at the forefront. State breakdowns, endemic poverty, Islamic fundamentalism, violent sectarianism, regional proxy wars, and transnational terrorism are among the myriad of political issues coming to bear. It has an immeasurable impact on our world today. In an era of regional instability and its reverberation around the globe, analysis must be engaged with the political. Only by understanding what underlie political phenomena can there be resolution to the problems we face.

In Middle Eastern politics, there is an inherent complexity. Political phenomena are interrelated and embedded in wider structures. Historical, institutional, and sociopolitical contexts provide the framework for political action. From state borders drawn under the Sykes-Picot agreement shaping group conflict to a precedence of military coups determining authoritarianism, there are a nexus of structures at play in Middle Eastern politics. Collectively, there is a linearity and progression to history, in certain epochal events triggering reactions and counter-reactions that constitute the Middle East as we know it today.[2] Its study is something that consumes academics, policy analysts, commentators, and governments alike. For the average Westerner, who tries to understand things that are having such an impact on his or her life, there is an allure for explanations that are simplistic and (seemingly) self-evident. To that individual, the Middle East is a world away. Its culture and its religion are almost alien. Herein exists the difference which consumes our discourse on the Middle East: Islam.

Over the past decade, a cottage industry of anti-Islam criticism has risen up in response to Middle Eastern politics’ prominence. Its figures tend to argue political phenomena — militancy, terrorism, underdevelopment, et al. — are caused by Islam alone, in its ‘savage’ and ‘backward’ doctrines that retard development and engender violence. Fundamentally flawed, this premise is universal to their analyses and nominally informs their objectives, to ‘combat’ terror by criticizing Islam and somehow promoting human rights by those polemics. Increasingly, these voices are monopolizing our discourse on the Middle East. They elevate fundamentalist Islam and literalist doctrines as a prime mover of politics that dictates politics in the Muslim world. Such a view of politics is misguided and wholly detrimental. Beyond its naked inaccuracy, it detracts from discussions which need to take place, which are apart from the ethereal world of faith and biases and opinion. While a dialogue within the Muslim community on radicalism and state repression is indeed vital, it is only one component that is itself bounded to targeted policy. Ultimately, banners of ‘free speech’ and ‘criticism’ are meaningless if the environment in which radicalization and repression arise go ignored. Fixating on Islam and the ethers of religious interpretation only distract from the real issues and, in the process, propagates distortion and falsehood.

In the Middle East, there are a nexus of structures underlying politics. From underdevelopment to governmental breakdowns to state competition, politics is derived from a temporal world. Ideology in the mode of fundamentalism is born of these material structures. Reactionary strains of Islam are just that — a reaction to contemporary politics and an appropriation of Islam for political ends, ranging from militancy to civic participation within the political system. Islamic interpretation occurs in an intrinsically political world, where actors vie for advantage and utilize appeals to mobilize supporters. From puritanical strains to reformism, it is in response to contemporary politics. Anti-Islam critics fundamentally misunderstand Islam and its place in the world, instead opting to fetishize fringe strains of Islam and thinking it is constitutive of all politics in the Muslim world. Even on social engagement, where they celebrate their ‘promotion’ of human rights and secularism, an industry dedicated to the criticism of a religion by means of offensive and plainly wrong depictions — so disengaged from reality — cannot seriously be considered legitimate agents of engagement. Its many conceptual defects render their analyses totally impotent. In this void, ignorance and bigotry flourishes. To counter such voices and reorient our discourse, this article will deconstruct their flawed analyses and elucidate an alternative view to Middle Eastern politics, engaged with reality and geared toward resolution via policy prescription.

A Cautionary Tale: Anti-Islam Critics and Middle Eastern Politics

Critics of Islam, these polemicists are generally scientists, journalists, philosophers, and ex-Muslims that have strayed far from their fields. Tending to be atheists and secularists, they attempt to explain politics according to their personal normative biases, against Islam. They explain politics — from the Arab spring to transnational terrorism to the persistence of authoritarianism — through a narrow lens of Islam and its supposed omnipotence in Middle Eastern politics. When dealing with radicalization, a few quotations from the Quran is a satisfactory response. If the subject is underdevelopment, they can point to the religion’s ‘backwardness’ and not even engage with domestic and international political economies. Rife with circular logic and opinion, their analyses are reductionist, myopic, inept, naïve, and conceptually bare — to the point such ‘analyses’ are totally disengaged from reality and are little more than a means for the author to relay his or her normative commitment to atheism, secular humanism, or other priorities. Deprived of objectivity and reason, these figure rely on opinion, bias, emotion, and bluster to deflect attention away from their incoherent and demonstrably false premises. Universally, their arguments are predetermined, conforming to an opinionated worldview where Islam and Muslim backwardness is somehow behind all things Middle East. En masse, these figures proceed from religious studies, assuming the literal word of the Quran and the hadith is a prime mover of politics within the Middle East. Their works are then written in reaction to this artificial political construct. Effectively, this constitutes an unsophisticated and unwieldy cultural approach to Middle Eastern politics, i.e. group peculiarities (in this case Islam) condition political action and distinguish politics in the Muslim world from the rest of the world. To counter Anti-Islam criticism, we must first deconstruct this mode of analysis and demonstrate its deficiencies as a perspective on Middle Eastern politics.

Analytically, proceeding from culture alone is a precarious path. Ideology and group characteristics are born of historical, institutional, and sociopolitical contexts, i.e. structure. Take, for example, Wahabbism. Wahabbism is the 18th Century creation of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an ultraconservative cleric who constructed a reactionary, revivalist strain of Islam. Its prominence — and indeed place in history — is derived from a political alliance with House Saud to conquer competing tribes in the Nejd (within modern-day Saudi Arabia), utilizing religion as a means to mobilize supporters for intrinsically temporal ends. Throughout history, Islamic interpretation and its place in the world evolves and adapts to contemporary politics. Therefore, the temporal world and its contemporary politics must precondition our analysis. Anti-Islam criticism does not align with history, or even basic political processes. Within structure, politics is embedded. From the caliphate to the Ottoman Empire to post-colonial statehood, the premise that religious doctrines have alone motivated politics over the centuries is laughable.

Moreover, this type of analysis where observers proceed from Islam alone — a religion of 1.6 billion spanning Muslims communities in radically different contexts throughout the East and the West — is at best clumsy and at worst totally disengaged from reality. The collectivization of such a diverse religion, according to sect or community or fiqh (i.e. Islamic jurisprudence), necessarily requires the creation of a monolith. That monolith assumes Islam is constituted by a static and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that is constitutive of the religion itself. Demonstrably false, the polemicists implicitly accept fundamentalist Islam as the one ‘true’ strain of Islam and, by extension, the only religious interpretation of ‘true’ Muslims. Adopting this flawed view of Islam and Muslims, New Atheist Sam Harris writes, “[T]he only thing that defines the class of All Muslims … is their adherence to a set of beliefs and the behaviors that these beliefs inspire. My condemnation applies to the doctrines of Islam and to the ways in which they reliably produce these ‘bad acts’ [of violent jihadism and repression].”[3] On moderate Muslims, in a telling moment for him, Harris identifies those Muslims that reject extremism as ‘nominal Muslims’, saying, “Hundreds of millions of Muslims are nominal Muslims, who don’t take their faith seriously, who don’t want to kill apostates, who are horrified by ISIS.”[4]

Herein, we see the explicit collectivization of Islam — of ‘All Muslims’ being defined by a set of beliefs Harris imposes on that group, in the adherence to a rigid and reactionary mode of Islam. If they reject his interpretation of Islam, they are not ‘true’ Muslims. Such a view ignores the diversity of religious interpretation throughout Islamic history, ranging from populist reactionaries to Islamic modernists to Islamic reformers.[5] Anti-Islam critics’ collectivization of Islam creates a false monolith, in the existence of one type of Muslim that demands all Muslims conform to the their construct in order to be considered ‘true Muslims who take their faith seriously.’ Beyond being outrageous and offensive, this is plainly inept analysis, speaking to a basic misunderstanding of religion and its role in the temporal world. Religion is inherently subjective. Its only constant throughout history has been static core beliefs which interpretation cannot alter, e.g. monotheism. Beyond these static core beliefs, interpretations correspond to contemporary sociopolitical contexts, in the reaction of clerical figures theologically as well as politically. The very nature of religion is based in the construction of a political community, in the unification of a population according to a shared identity and placing them within the temporal world. History tells us there is not one strain of Islam nor is there one type of ‘true’ Muslim. That is an intellectually bankrupt proposition and aids only in phony analyses that react against something which simply does not exist.

If we divorce ourselves from the ethers of spirituality (i.e. whether or not we believe, which is irrelevant) and adopt a materialist analysis, religion is a means of alignment, orienting groups in the political sphere. Clerical and non-clerical elites utilize religion as a means to mobilize populations and appeal to them through a shared language and belief, e.g. Islamist voices of al-Azhar in Egypt legitimizing state policies and even Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s rule post-Muslim Brotherhood via Islamist appeals.[6] This materialist dimension to religion, in how it conforms to a temporal world, is a basic concept that is totally warped and distorted in anti-Islam critics’ analysis. Instead of religion being a means to political action, through political community and mobilization thereof, Islam is constitutive of politics in and of itself. Disengaged from temporal ends, e.g. expelling the occupiers or creating a polity where clerical elites wield power, the resultant myopia on Islam and its warped conception in the world is a major theoretical flaw and one that damns their analyses to distortion, falsehood, and irrelevancy.

When one critiques anti-Islam figures’ analyses, that individual is usually met with hostility, and accusations are lobbed of being an ‘apologist’ and refusing to ‘confront’ Islam. Such accusations are revealing considering an observer should be impartial, i.e. not working toward personal biases and distorting their analyses to fit that mold. Aside from their overly sensitive cries, anti-Islam figures’ personal response to impartial and conceptually sound analysis — engaged with the real world — offers almost comical reactions and evidences the dearth of competency and skill. Taking a dismissive tone, these self-proclaimed ‘free thinkers’ reject analysis which does not conform to their worldview. Writing on academics’ refusal to accept some fictitious and omnipresent “religious motive” Harris constructs, he targets anthropologist Scott Atran and his study on militants’ motivations.[7] In the process, he collectivizes and denigrates academics for not validating his biases and the hopelessly naïve worldview that accompanies it. Unsurprisingly, he goes on to undertake his grossly reductionist, normatively corrupted, and incredibly superficial mode of ‘analysis.’ He writes, “[T]hey always look for the ‘deeper’ reasons — economic, political, or personal — behind it. However, when given economic, political, or personal motives (e.g. ‘I did it because they stole my family’s land, and I felt totally hopeless.’), these researchers always seem to take a person at his word. They never dig for the religious motive behind apparently terrestrial concerns.”[8]

This farcical criticism typifies the divide between engaged, serious analysis and the anti-Islam critics’ fluff. A researcher — whether in academia or not — does not manipulate his or her study by ‘digging’ to reach a predetermined conclusion. He or she consults with the literature, develops an (educated) hypothesis, and conducts research to prove or disprove that hypothesis. The objective is to inform — not to validate biases. In his or her study, a researcher is detached, guided only by his or her desire to discover why political phenomena come about, i.e. uncover its causal factors. It is from this standpoint, in pursuit of fact and not opinion, we proceed. Validation of biases, bigotries, and flawed worldviews is antithetical to this end and a marker of bad analysis. Anti-Islam critics’ wholesale dismissal of academia — ironically populated by its own class of atheists, agnostics, and secularists — in favor of unqualified and ill-informed observers is absurd.[9] It is little more than a desperate attempt justify incompetent and incoherent analyses predicated on a general ignorance of politics, history, and religion. The entry of outsiders — with no discernable background in political analysis, much less Middle Eastern politics — engenders analysis disengaged with from reality, which is feebly covered up by obnoxious bluster.[10] In this arena, however, reputation and bluster cannot obscure demonstrably false and inferior work. Analysis stands alone.

In all, the abandonment of objectivity, the embrace of normative biases, and the commercialization of ‘Islamic criticism’ has bred a conceptual wasteland. Analysis has been reduced to opinion, designed to validate rather than to inform. Religious studies is somehow salient to all matters of Middle Eastern politics, to the point we disregard the structural and material factors underlying politics in favor of uninformed opinion. Anti-Islam figures proceed from a warped and distorted view of the world — and of themselves. Detractors of Islam, they conceive of Middle Eastern politics as being rooted in some omnipresent ‘religious motive’ festering inside of 1.6 billion Muslims (unless they are ‘nominal Muslims,’ of course) due to this select class deciding certain literalist creeds are constitutive of the religion and thus all politics. Their theoretical constructs rely on the existence of a fictitious Muslim monolith, owing to those literalist interpretations they impose on ‘true’ Muslims. And, because Islam is deemed a prime mover of Middle Eastern politics, they go round and round until they reach that fatally flawed premise. Then, they carry on with their tired denigrations of Islam — ultimately coming to nothing, contributing nothing. There is no real policy relevance, pathway for social engagement, or even insights into our world today. Deconstructed, their arguments are painfully incoherent, foolishly reductionist, and totally divorced from reality. These figures do not even scratch the surface of what truly underlies Middle Eastern politics. And yet, by appealing to biases against Islamic ‘other,’ these voices gain traction, perpetuating our plight by feeding into ignorance and the abhorrent policies it engenders. And so we go in circles.

Whereas anti-Islam critics will go on to profit, it is you — the reader — who suffers. Voices so privileged as to be heard in the public sphere should be dedicated to something more than themselves. Whether an academic or a journalist or a writer, the mission is the same: Inform, enlighten, and empower the public. To abrogate this responsibility is to bloody our hands and become complicit with what follows next. In an era of instability and violence, we have a moral obligation to counter distortion, falsehood, bigotry, and fear. Responsible voices should devote themselves against these things and, in turn, attempt to illuminate a path forward. Some figures, however, have chosen to exploit the present instability and violence for their own personal benefit, endeavoring to raise their public profiles so as to hawk mediocre prose and dubious think tanks/organizations.[11] A cadre of scientists, journalists, ex-radicals, and ex-Muslims are among these figures. They constitute a cottage industry that, immune to irony, adopts the same narratives as religious extremists. Both groups proceed from difference to construct a world where East and West cannot be reconciled, implying one must be degraded for the other to survive. They embrace a mythical clash of East v. West. They engage in the repugnant collectivization of a people, dehumanizing them and degrading them. And they propagate a savage and unbridled ignorance. This comprises anti-Islam critics’ ‘contribution’ and is to everyone’s detriment, both in the East and the West.

To turn inward, to incite division and fear is wholly destructive. And it will be self-defeating. If we embrace the same narratives as extremists — of East v. West — then we ourselves succumb to that same vile ignorance and preclude any engagement with Muslim communities. In the process, we debase ourselves and do nothing to resolve the problems we all face. Fundamentally, if we are disengaged from why militancy and terrorism comes about — in the sociopolitical environment that engenders violence, e.g. addressing structures like postcolonial institutions, state capacity, underdevelopment, et al. — then there is not a conceivable path forward, beyond the empty and offensive rhetoric that currently pollutes our discourse on the Middle East. For this reason, our objective is something different, something consequential: Policy prescription. To do this, we must first understand the causes of political phenomena. Whether discussing militancy or state repression or civil war, political phenomena are embedded in broader historical, institutional, and sociopolitical structures. Only by addressing these structures through sound policy can there be resolution to the instability and violence that plagues the Middle East and indeed the world.

A Structural Perspective: The Modern Middle East and the Sovereign State

15 years have passed since 9/11. In that span, we have witnessed two ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ascent of drone warfare across the Middle East and North Africa, an explosion of violent sectarianism, the breakdown of state authority, the outbreak of civil war, and a global reach to terrorism that that threatens us all. These issues are not trivial. They are not abstract. They are real. They are of life and death. For this reason, one must view anti-Islam critics harshly. A group of unqualified, uninformed, undisciplined, and unserious figures are speaking so loudly and so obnoxiously that they are polluting our discourse on the Middle East. By disengaging Middle Eastern politics from the real world, we are thrown into the ethers of opinion, emotion, and bias — with nothing to show for it. They are distracting from the real issues and, in turn, detracting from our discussions as to what can be done about it. Anti-Islam critics’ self-serving and self-aggrandizing rhetoric on the glories of atheism or some vague ‘war for the soul of Islam’ are not serious policy proposals engaged with the issues and certainly are not aimed at resolving the problems we face. Altogether, the critics’ spiel comes to nothing. In the void that follows, ignorance and bigotry flourishes. And with it, bad policy.

Our discourse on the Middle East and the policies it engenders will resonate around the globe and throughout history. If we are to confront the challenges that lie ahead, our discourse must be reoriented to the temporal world, in the real things underlying Middle Eastern politics. Our framework for this is structure. Political phenomena are shaped by structure: The historical, sociopolitical, and institutional. By adopting a structural perspective, we can parse out causation and devise policies that target the environment in which political phenomena come about. Herein, we will see a divide in analysis. If a decline in state capacity in Syria and Yemen allows militant groups to garner territory and create a haven for militancy, criticizing the literal word of the Quran accomplishes nothing. If the grievances of youth in Molenbeek are centered on the absence of economic opportunity and rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe, droning on about secularism is utterly beside the point. To get passed the ethers of opinion and confront these challenges, we must understand all the forces underlying Middle Eastern politics.

And so we return to that maxim: Politics is politics. Whether we are dealing with Basque separatism or Kurdish nationalism, geography and cultural peculiarities do not negate this. The formation of political communities and their conforming to the politics world (i.e. group competition) is a constant. In the Middle East, the political world underwent an epochal shift in the early 20th Century with the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I. The partitioning of territory and, ultimately, the construction of the modern sovereign state ushered in modernity. Herein, politics shifted from the decentralized rule of an empire to the centralized structures of the sovereign state. Thereafter, resources were contested between groups within these borders — demarcating distinct and separate state governments, each with their own internal politics. The objective for vying groups has been control of that state apparatus and, with it, the distribution of state resources to its constituencies. Ideologies and their progeny are derived from this group competition, in mobilizing supporters for political ends. Its character is shaped by the contemporary structures in which they come about, e.g. Arab socialism and nationalist ideologies in the mid-20th Century v. reactionary Islamism in the early 21st Century. If we are to address contemporary political questions, we must first understand the modern Middle East and its structures, namely the sovereign state and how it impacted Middle Eastern politics from there on.

Politics is embedded within structure. Regime type, economic system, elite composition, and ideology occur therein. Its mechanism is competition, between domestic groups vying for power within the state apparatus and competition between sovereign states. The feasibility of Arab socialism and its social programs during the mid-20th Century were bounded to economic, sociopolitical, and historical structures. In this era, politics was characterized by the capitalism v. communism dichotomy, states’ Cold War alignment and corresponding foreign support, and the predominance of statist economic policy (of the Keynesian welfare state and centrally planned economies). In the Middle East, ideology and regimes types of this period — tending to be statist, nationalist, and authoritarian — were embedded in broader structures that dictated state politics, constituting a path dependent relationship to statehood and development governed by the era’s sociopolitical contexts. The established order of the mid-20th Century shaped Middle Eastern regimes, in which governments adopted the policies and institutional designs commonplace to this period. Statist and socialistic, Middle Eastern social policy programs were a part of modernization-led development strategies that were necessary during this transitional postcolonial period. Over time, this order would become antithetical to the globalized, liberalized, and integrated political economy of the 21st Century. Inefficiencies and economic crisis forced states to retreat from their social obligations and undergo radical changes to their political economy. During this wave of economic liberalization and integration worldwide, the Middle Eastern state was likewise transformed by these drastic structural changes to the global political economy, reacting to the pressures it imposed onto states.

Indeed, the structural adjustments to this new neoliberal economic order exposed the inherent inefficiencies in Middle Eastern states’ institutional designs, namely centralized economic planning and the social programs bounded to it. Amid the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s, the international political economy imposed on states external pressures that altered countries’ domestic policy programs. It forces states to undergo some liberalization programs in order to compete in an increasingly global economy and generate enough domestic revenue to fund its obligations. The ramifications of that economic liberalization ushered in profound political changes that disrupted the makeup of the modern Middle East. Its progeny has been a shift from postcolonial nationalism to ethno-religious mobilization. From Egypt to Iran, the retreat of the state from its social obligations created a void that was filled by civil society actors, notably Islamist groups, in reaction to secular authoritarian nationalism. Amid the pressures of neoliberalism and the economic crises of the late-20th Century, such counter-movements founded on Islamism found success by reacting against the endemic corruption, economic stagnation, and repressive institutions of these regimes. Being in opposition to authoritarian secular-nationalist regimes, Islamist actors positioned themselves as an alternative to the postcolonial authoritarian status quo.

During the Arab Spring, the region’s most recent democratic moment, Islamist actors found an opening and were able to mount an effective challenge to that postcolonial order. The advantage of Islamist groups over other civil society actors during the first round of elections was a staple of the Arab Spring’s (mostly transitory) democratic transitions. Political Islamist groups’ initial electoral gains — divorced from issues of good governance or conspiring military elites — were predicated on Islamist groups’ standing in society and the respective advantages in mobilization peculiar to them. Already embedded in civil society, via mosques and religious organizations, the universality of Islam enabled political Islamist groups to engage in mass mobilization. Moreover, it afforded these groups some degree of resiliency to state repression, because Islam is a potent and omnipresent force in Middle Eastern society that cannot be totally repressed by state authorities. Political Islam has been assurgent in the 21st Century, owing to the breakdown of old regimes and new strategies of mobilization.[12] From the AKP in Turkey to Ennahda in Tunisia, political Islamist parties conform to the political system, opting to participate within the political system. Therein, these groups use religion as a means to mobilize supporters and achieve temporal political objectives.

An analog to this dynamic of religious mobilization can be found in the American political system. The Republican Party and its embrace of social conservatives (or evangelicals/the ‘Christian right’) is certainly in this mode of religious mobilization. Like political Islamist groups, social conservatives appeal to religion in order to mobilize their supporters and achieve political objectives. Often operating via churches and religious organizations, they mobilize supporters via religious appeals, explicitly based on so-called ‘Judeo-Christian’ values and aligned policy. Their stances on social issues are peculiar to religious texts, e.g. opposition to gay marriage derived entirely from Scripture. Some figures within this movement even go as far as to claim they would nullify Supreme Court decisions that contradicted the Bible, by implication melding civil and religious law while rejecting secular authority.[13] Despite the existence of this fringe, few would argue social conservatives are constitutive of the whole Republican Party or that the party itself is agitating for a revolutionary theocratic republic as its core policy objective. They are but a faction and one operating within the political system. Outside of salient social issues, the party operates according to its own logic – in the constituencies it represents – and utilizes its evangelical base as a potent tool for mobilization, particularly during election time. Its motives are rationally self-interested, and the party adopts the means that allow it to achieve those ends.

Political Islamist groups likewise operate according to this logic. Crucially, they participate in the political system, operating according to its logic and conforming to the political realities of competitive electoral politics. Clothed in Islam, these groups instrumentalized faith for temporal ends. Amid the Arab Spring, democratic transitions in the Arab world were characterized by political Islamist parties’ assurgency within nascent democracies and these groups building coalitions to win elections. Therein, they utilized Islamist appeals to mobilize their supporters and achieve electoral gains. Apart from some mythical ‘religious motive’ peculiar to Islam, there were material and rational motives to both the objectives and tactics of political Islamist groups – the same type of dynamics found in any other democratic political system.

Across the region, the Arab Spring was the apex for political Islamist parties. During countries’ first round of elections, when issues of good or bad governance were unknowns, the advantages available to political Islamist parties in organization and mobilization produced electoral victories throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Later, when performance became the determinant of popular support, political Islamist parties suffered setbacks and tended to lose power. In Tunisia, the ebb and flow of its political Islamist party Ennahda demonstrating how initial electoral victories could be swept away by governmental failures once in power. Ennahda was subject to the same dynamics of any other political party, because the party conformed to a democratic political system, inherently responsive to the people via the vote. During its rule, the party operated accordingly, politicking between the extremes (of Salafists and secularists) in order to further its political objectives. Eventually, bad governance and the party’s subsequent unpopularity resulted in its electoral defeat and the transfer of power to the opposition. In effect, political Islam was subordinated to the political system. Herein, there exists a dichotomy between political Islam and extremism: Participation within the political system v. opposition to the state. This dichotomy hinges on the sovereign state and how actors respond to this omnipresent structure.

Whereas political Islam conforms to and is subordinated to the political system, extremist actors find themselves in violent contention with the state and indeed modernity. Rather than trying to conform to the political system, extremist groups form in opposition to that state apparatus. They aim to deconstruct the modern Middle East and create a new entity distinct from the sovereign state, e.g. ISIL seizing territory from sovereign states and constructing a caliphate composed by ‘sharia’ institutions that consolidate the group’s power therein. There is an element of violent reaction inherent to these groups, thus its interchange with militancy. Militancy occurs during the revolutionary phase of groups’ existences, when such actors wage total war on the state.[14] Forming in opposition to the state, extremist groups aim to dismantle the old order and install their own. The phenomena of extremism and militancy are defined by this political dimension to actors’ motivations, in reaction against the state. Moreover, extremist groups find are in opposition to the modern Middle East, i.e. the state and its machinations that conform to the temporal world. They adopt rationales grounded in fundamentalist Islam to mount insurgencies against the state and seek to dismantle it. Their ultimate aim is to install so-called ‘Islamic’ institutions that allow groups to dominate their constructed polities. Through fundamentalism, extremist groups derive legitimacy and, ultimately, power.

In the Middle East, religion — conceived as a means of community and mobilization — is a potent force that creates an ‘other,’ whether in expelling the occupier or delegitimizing political opponents by labeling them as ‘infidels’ and/or ‘apostates.’ Such rhetoric is born of religion and yet itself is rooted in temporal politics, i.e. group competition. It is rooted in the structural forces engendering ideologies and conflict. In the vein of political Islamist parties, extremists’ appeals to fundamentalist Islam are another mode of mobilization. Intrinsically oppositional, groups’ religious appeals provide the pretext to wage war against the state. Their objective is a temporal one: The construction of a polity where they wield ultimate power. To tackle militant groups in the Middle East, we must first recognize how they come about.

Going beyond extremist actors’ normative commitments to ‘purifying’ Muslim lands, the precondition for militant group formation is weak/failed states, in the central authority’s failure to wield control over its territory and combat militant groups. Breakdowns in state capacity presuppose militancy and large-scale violence, e.g. AQAP in Yemen or Boko Haram in Nigeria. It is in the void of state authority extremism and militancy are bred. Clothed in the language of fundamentalist Islam, extremist actors’ ambitions are essentially materialist — defined by that opposition to the sovereign state. ‘Islamic’ polities are carved from the territory of existing states. The state’s institutions are deconstructed and, in its place, so-called Islamic institutions are installed. Effectively, fundamentalism is a means for these groups to consolidate power and perpetuate their rule. Self-proclaimed caliphs or a class of mullahs are at the helm and disperse the polity’s resources to its supporters, e.g. the reign of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as caliph in ISIL’s polity. Demystified, Islamic extremism is a violent counter-reaction to Middle Eastern statehood and manifests itself from actors’ desire to subvert the old political order, employing reactionary ideologies to mount insurgencies against the state and to install an Islamic entity that allows the group to dominate. Two Islamic actors, political Islamist parties and extremist actors both appropriate Islam for intrinsically political ends, operating within a temporal world.

Since the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, modern Middle Eastern politics has been embedded within one preeminent structure: The sovereign state. Within the confines of that state apparatus, politics occurs. Domestic interest groups vie for influence and power, in a competition for control over state resources. Sociopolitical, institutional, and historical contexts frame politics therein. Internationally, states compete vis-à-vis one another and thus respond to those pressures internally, in the policies adopted domestically. Statehood and states’ integration into the international system ushered in the modern Middle East. Herein, national and international politics are intertwined , creating dynamics that resonate across the levels of politics.[15] It is within these structures Middle Eastern politics is embedded. If we proceed from this structural framework — bridging the historical, institutional, and sociopolitical (along with some aspects of identity and community) — we can make sense of the apparent chaos in contemporary Middle Eastern politics and understand what forces underlie politics. Below, a brief case study of the Syrian civil war will demonstrate the utility of this approach and its potential for policy prescription.

A Case Study: The Syrian Civil War

The Syrian civil war and its trajectory evidence the nexus of structures at play in the Middle East today. Multi-layered, the Syrian conflict is at the intersection of global, regional, and domestic dynamics that have governed the conflict since its degeneration from civil protest into civil war. Within the conflict, these dynamics entail: Global state competition (United States v. Russia), regional proxy war (Iran v. Saudi Arabia), ethnic conflict (Kurds v. Turks), sectarian conflict (Shia v. Sunni), and the emergence of nonstate actors (ISIL and other militant groups). Each dynamic is embedded in wider political structures that has aligned belligerents vis-à-vis one another. In contention, they operate according to their respective political realities and the objectives it imposes upon them. From the threat of Kurdish separation in eastern Turkey to the weakening of Iran’s sphere of influence, actor behavior is derived from actors’ material and rational self-interests. Outside of myopic theological conflicts, belligerents are reacting to the structures of the international system (i.e. interstate competition) and how it aligns actors therein. The Syrian civil war began in 2011 with a domestic challenge to the Assad regime’s rule — against its authoritarian mode of governance — and escalated into international conflict. Thus, we must begin with the domestic and then move onto the regional and then the global to understand the conflict. From this framework, we can understand how domestic structures collide with international structures and how that transformed the Syrian conflict.

Domestically, the Syrian civil war is rooted in the country’s demography and its postcolonial history of authoritarianism. Ethno-religious divisions and the military’s consolidation of power have constituted Syria’s institutional structures and, with it, modes of political organization. As a heterogeneous society — being multi-faith and multi-ethnic — societal fragmentation has characterized modern Syria. Political communities are aligned by identity, in ethno-religious affiliation. At nearly 75% of the population, a majority of the population is Sunni Arab. Under the Assad regime, this population has been marginalized. The Assad family are members of the ruling Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam and a minority in Syria with Alawites composing only 10–12% of the population. Other minority groups include Druze, Christians, and Kurds. Each group presents ethnic, religious, and historical dimensions to social cohesion and conflict. It is upon this mosaic of distinct and competing political communities the Syrian state is composed.

Syria’s postcolonial history of authoritarianism emanates from Syrian society’s fragmentation. In the 1960s, military coups and the ascendance of the Ba’ath Party reflected the weakening of civil society under Ottoman and later French control (under the mandate system), allowing the military to challenge and ultimately overthrow the civilian government. In 1970, after intra-party struggle within the Ba’ath Party, Hafez al-Assad consolidated power and became president. Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000, perpetuating the regime along familial lines. The Assad regime institutionalizes its rule by implementing three strategies: Sectarian domination that exploits communal divisions, patron-client relationships that foster dependencies, and state repression that cracks down on dissent. Collectively, the Assad regime has implemented a mode of authoritarian governance characterized by personalist minority rule and extensive patronage networks that incorporate potential challengers into the regime and pacify potential opponents.

Institutionally, the authoritarian rule of the Assad regime is predicated on the Alawite sect’s domination of the military and intelligence classes. Despite Sunni soldiers being a majority of the Syrian Armed Forces’ rank-and-file (pre-civil war), the leadership structures and sectarian composition to integral army divisions act to subordinate the Sunni population and secure the regime’s rule. A senior Sunni officer, who defected in 2011, described Syria’s security services as being dominated by Alawites, mentioning in particular a system where Sunni officials holding senior posts are appointed ‘symbolically’ and are in reality overseen by an Alawite deputy that wields tremendous power. The defector remarked, “Decisions in the army and security services are always made by Alawites — Sunnis have no influence.”[16] While an oversimplification, it reflects widespread Sunni discontent with the Assad regime’s mode of minority rule, constituted exclusionary policies that elevate a core of loyalists determined by sect and/or family ties.

To ensure the military does not pose a threat the regime, in a repeat of Syria’s initial postcolonial experience of coups and countercoups, Bashar al-Assad adopts some familial and personalist structures in order to safeguard his rule. The vital Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division are headed by the president’s brother Maher al-Assad and is almost totally composed by Alawite career soldiers, concentrating power along familial and sectarian lines. Its leadership structures provide a direct line to Bashar al-Assad via family ties. Moreover, there are material benefits extended to higher-ranking officers — Sunni and Alawite alike — spanning employment, land ownership (e.g. military housing in the Dahiet al-Assad suburb of Damascus), and upward social mobility that create a series of dependencies between military personnel and the regime. Consequently, there are real material inducements for officers’ obedience, i.e. military personnel have a personal stake in the regime’s survival.[17] To create dependencies within the military, the Assad regime redistributes state resources to military elites in order to pacify potential opponents and embeds — institutionally — sectarian division in its security forces so as to consolidate its rule.

Outside of the state’s security services, the Assad regime has utilized extensive patronage networks to build coalitions and incorporate segments of the population into the regime, producing dependencies among the general population that create stakeholders in the regime. Traditionally, authoritarian regimes appropriate two state resources — the bureaucracy and the party — for dispersal to its supporters, constituting patron-client relationships that make those regime loyalists beholden to the regime. Paralleling the military and high-ranking officials’ stake in the regime, formal incorporation into the regime is one means of capturing public support and a lynchpin of the Assad regime’s rule. Another strategy has been subsidies, price supports, and social welfare spending — measures dating back to the statist economic policies commonplace in the mid-20th Century and a part of the Ba’ath Party’s socialist policy program — that targeted the rural peasantry and urban working classes, making those populations economically reliant on the regime. Later, in response to successive economic crises and an increasingly neoliberal political economic order, Hafez al-Assad initiated a program of limited economic liberalization that revived Syria’s private sector. It incorporated a burgeoning bourgeoisie (i.e. capitalist industrialists and businessmen) into the regime. Whereas authoritarian regimes typically rely on formal political structures, in the state bureaucracy and ruling party, the Assad regime has extended dependencies into the private sector, owing to the state’s control over economic resources and endemic corruption therein.[18] Via the appropriation of state resources, the Assad regime has bolstered its rule by incorporating some segments of the population into the regime and engendering dependencies that force the Syrian people to rely on its structures, due to the extensiveness of patronage networks and official corruption.

The final component of the Assad regime’s rule is state repression. The Mukhabarat (or Syrian intelligence) and other state security forces ensure compliance by engaging in the systematic violations of human rights. From severe restrictions on civil society groups to gratuitously violent crackdowns on dissent, state coercion has been a means to perpetuating the regime’s rule. Before the outbreak of civil war, the Hama massacre in 1982 ranked as the worst human rights abuse in Syrian history. Suppressing an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, which utilized religious mobilization to rebel against the ‘infidel’ Hafez al-Assad, the regime dispatched its security forces and massacred the rebels — along with thousands upon thousands of civilians. Decades later, the Arab Spring and civil protests in Daraa triggered a state crackdown that exacerbated civil strife and eventually escalated into civil war.

Defections from the military, the influx of militant groups into Syria, and the subsequent loss of territory severely weakened Bashar al-Assad’s rule. Despite this, the regime has proved remarkably resilient due to the aforementioned strategies. Alawite domination of the security forces, the regime’s patron-client relationships with the citizenry, and the government’s consolidation of its remaining territory have allowed the regime to persist. Moreover, the devolution into sectarian civil war has allowed the regime to exploit communal divisions and solidify its hold on Alawite and other minority areas, feeding into narratives (or realities) of impending genocide and/or Sunni extremist rule. Proceeding from these domestic dynamics, regional and global powers have attempted changed the course of the war by altering the domestic status quo in their favor — introducing external forces that are drastically altering the conflict’s trajectory.

The Sunni-Shia schism resonates throughout the Middle East. In the Syrian civil war, this dynamic has drawn in regional powers and aligned them according to that sectarian dimension. Its contemporary political salience — to the point of internecine regional war — emanates from competing political communities and interstate competition. Elites have aligned themselves to sectarian-aligned actors and created alliances along that Sunni-Shia divide. In consequence, there has been the formation of two competing blocs. Such behavior is a byproduct of the international system and state actors’ competition for regional hegemony. The blocs are spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and Iran, pitting Shia-dominated powers versus Sunni-dominated powers. This alignment is grounded in the dominance of clerical elites within these states and elites’ appropriation of religion for intrinsically political ends. International alliances and foreign proxies have been driven by this rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Powers have adopted interventionist policies in other states’ affairs, providing direct and/or indirect support for belligerents in the conflict. Before analyzing regional powers’ intervention in the conflict, the Saudi-Iranian antagonism and its impact on sectarianism in the 21st Century should be deconstructed. It is from this dynamic foreign intervention in Syria is based.

The Saudi-Iranian rivalry is at the confluence of international, institutional, and historical contexts that have thrust the powers into open conflict for regional dominance. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the ascendancy of Shia clerical authorities has transformed Iranian foreign policy and imbued a sectarian component. Elites’ support for Shia communities and the export of its ‘revolutionary’ theology poses a direct threat to Sunni powers. In Saudi Arabia, the subordination of Shia populations in its eastern territory and bordering states (notably Yemen and Bahrain) necessitates an international response to rising Iranian influence and power. Beyond this international rivalry, the sectarian component to Saudi and Iranian foreign policy stems less from their differences than their striking similarities. Two rentier states, Saudi Arabia and Iran are characterized by the incorporation of clerical classes into the polity and institutional development hampered by national economies dependent on commodities (in the export of oil) that has eroded governmental accountability to the citizenry and subsidized bad policy.[19] Herein, the sectarian component originates. External rents subsidize inefficient and backward policies at home, while simultaneously funding regional adventurism abroad. Fueled by oil wealth, the regimes’ domestic appropriation of religion informs their foreign policy and resonates throughout the region. As Saudi Arabia and Iran vie for regional hegemony, the Syrian civil war has become the frontline for this contention via the use of proxy and even direct military intervention. Materially, states are attempting to alter/defend the balance of power in their favor.

In Iran, the melding of clerical and state authorities constitute the Islamic Republic and its orientation to the world. Its revolutionary ideology of velayat-e faqih, where governance is placed in the hands of a ‘guardian’ Islamic jurist, has altered conventional state politics by merging the political with the religious. From wielding ultimate clerical authority to having final say over foreign policy, the Supreme Leader of Iran and his Islamic Republic are institutional arrangements that typify this merger of the political and religious, complicating policymaking by bounding clerical and civil interests. Internationally, this unique institutional structure engenders an activist Iranian foreign policy that aligns political communities according to sect, unifying disparate populations together in opposition to an extant ‘other’ (in the case of Sunni powers) by utilizing religious mobilization. In the 21st Century, foreign support and the use of proxy has constituted an axis of Shia powers — notably Iran, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and (increasingly) the Iraqi government — that vie for regional dominance, i.e. a regional balance of power against Sunni states. Outside of this sectarian element, there is another aspect of Iranian foreign policy that is peculiar to the country’s history. Dating to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the reaction against American support for the Pahlavi regime has created a persistent antagonism between Iran and the West. Iranian regional aspirations have thus been opposed by the United States and its Sunni allies, dictating actors’ foreign policy in reaction to that perceived threat — be it defensive or offensive. In response, Iranian foreign policy has increasingly relied on Shia populations across the region to create a bulwark against its opponents, utilizing its oil wealth to fund such endeavors.

Like Iran, Saudi Arabia is characterized by the incorporation of clerical authorities in its institutional structures. Clerics, however, are subordinated to the House Saud monarchy and decision-making is vested in the monarch. However, religious authorities inform and, in many ways, dictate Saudi policy. From the Council of Senior Scholars to the Mutaween (or religious police), there are public and semi-public institutions that allow the clerical class to participate in governmental affairs. The incorporation of religious authority in the Saudi state is rooted in the country’s history, namely the 18th Century alliance between the ruler Muhammad ibn Saud and the cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is in a privileged position within the Muslim world due to it housing Islamic holy sites, its embrace of reactionary and revivalist strains of Islam, and a prominent religious-industrial complex that exports puritanical Sunni Islam. Funded by petrodollars, Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy consists of the sponsorship and material support for Islamist groups throughout the world — alongside its propagation of Wahhabism — that serves as a means to transmit influence, increasing Saudi power abroad. The consequence of such policies is necessarily sectarianism, rooted in theological rejections of Shias as ‘apostates’ and ‘infidels’ in accordance with the kingdom’s domestic policies subordinating Shia populations. Abroad, the ideological foundation of extremist groups is grounded in that austere and fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, which is embedded within the kingdom and its inner politics. Some of these groups receive Saudi support, e.g. Ahrar al-Sham in Syria. Regionally, Saudi Arabia and its appropriation of religion in its foreign policy has exacerbated competition between two competing political communities — Sunnis and Shias — in the Middle East.

As the Syrian state fissures, regional powers wage proxy war within its borders. Iran and its Shia axis has supported the Assad regime, while Saudi Arabia and its Sunni bloc has backed the rebels. Intervention has spanned finance, armaments, training, and direct military involvement on behalf of the belligerents. The Assad regime has been propped up by Iranian financial and military support. Along with the militia group Hezbollah, the dispatching of Iranian Revolutionary Guards has augmented the regime’s military capabilities and allowed it to persist. Conversely, the sponsorship of rebel groups and transfer of sophisticated weaponry (e.g. anti-tank missiles) by the Sunni bloc has buttressed the opposition’s resistance to the regime. Its consequence has been a bloody stalemate. With the introduction of outside support for belligerents, there has not been definitive military outcomes and distorted actors’ perception of what can and cannot be achieved, artificially prolonging the conflict and hindering any resolution. In consequence, the Syrian conflict has been transformed from a civil war into a proxy war, drawing in outside powers and severely impacting the trajectory of the conflict. As the war stubbornly goes on and its global ramifications become clear, it has encouraged the world’s great powers to intervene.

The Syrian conflict has resonated to the uppermost level of the international system: World politics. Globally, it is expressed by the competition between Russia and the United States. The present antagonism between these two powers has motivated competing interventions in Syria. The Russo-American conflict has been interposed onto the conflict’s regional and domestic dynamics. The United States has joined Sunni powers in calling for Bashar al-Assad’s ouster and supporting factions among the rebels, in addition to backing Kurdish militias. From providing training, weaponry (e.g. covert operations transferring arms from Libya to Syrian rebels), and diplomatic support, American action has been in marked opposition to the Assad regime and its backers. Even when the United States’ objective shifted from regime change to counter-terrorism, American intervention has summarily bypassed the Syrian state and acted unilaterally, notably in the sponsorship of the Kurdish-anchored Syrian Democratic Forces and American airstrikes against ISIL. Russia, contrarily, is aligned with Shia powers in its open support for the Assad regime, both on the battlefield and in the United Nations. Russian support has intensified to the point of direct airstrikes and artillery barrages that are conducted in joint operations with the Syrian armed forces, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and other militias supporting the regime. While Russia does indeed have legitimate geostrategic interests in Syria (e.g. Tartus and Latakia), its intervention in Syria is more so motivated by that Russo-American rivalry and Russia’s desire for a regional balance, against the prospect of American domination in the Middle East and its negative impact on Russian national interests.

The interplay between regional and global dynamics has drastically altered the trajectory of the Syrian civil war, intensifying and perpetuating the conflict due to outside powers’ intervention. A manifestation of state competition, Syria has become an arena for states to vie for power. From regional rivalries to domestic repression to transnational refugee flows, there are a plethora of dynamics at play that resonate throughout the levels of the international system. Each dynamic presents a new dimension to the Syrian civil war and must be addressed in order resolve the conflict. Piecemeal solutions ignore how each aspect of the conflict is intertwined with another, e.g. American support for Kurdish militias conflicting with Turkey’s opposition to Kurdish separatism. Furthermore, the conflict is constantly evolving as its ramifications become clear. The shift in Western powers’ objectives from ousting the Assad regime to confronting ISIL evidences this evolution. Over time, Western interests in the Middle East — fixated on weakening the Shia axis — became subordinated to the immediate threat of ISIL, in its targeting of Western countries and inspiring home-grown radicals to perpetrate attacks. Additionally, the influx of refugees from Iraq and Syria fleeing the violence are putting a strain on Western societies and disrupting their domestic politics.[20] In all, the breakdown in state capacity, outbreak of civil war, proliferation of militancy, and ensuing humanitarian crises have been a dire progression of the Syrian civil war and one that has taken an increasingly international character. Because of this, resolution to the Syrian conflict is a global interest, and yet obstacles to end remain.

Actors’ clashing interests in Syria present a number of constraints for policymaking that have undermined and inhibited resolution. The domestic, regional, and global dynamics underlying the Syrian civil war are intertwined. Therefore, policy responses must address all the dimensions to the conflict and reconcile actors’ competing interests under one political agreement. Resolution to the Syrian civil war must proceed from the Syrian state, in it reasserting control over its territory (i.e. addressing state capacity) and thereafter suppressing militancy. Internationally, external powers in the region would have to be restrained by Russian and American pressure, enforcing an internationally-brokered agreement that restores Syrian sovereignty and puts an end to foreign intervention by the Sunni and Shia blocs. Politically, the Assad regime and its institutions (e.g. familial control of the Republican Guard) would have to be dismantled and subordinated to a transitional government. Nevertheless, a political transition must avoid the calamity of de-Ba’athification, as witnessed in Iraq post-invasion, which destabilized the state and fostered the Iraqi insurgency.[21] The track for Syria should be reconciliation, in legitimate parties within the opposition being incorporated into a transitional government and a part of the reconstruction alongside regime loyalists. Reconciliation is the only avenue to end a sectarian civil war. The ultimate aim should be an inclusive mode of governance — be it confessional democracy, regional semi-autonomy within a federation, or any other design that addresses ethno-religious division and institutionalizes inclusion. The Lebanese Civil War and the Taif Agreement provide a precedent for resolving a civil war via inclusive political reform and national reconciliation.

Conclusion: A Divide in Analysis

To understand the Middle East and indeed the world today, we must recognize the structures governing all politics. Within structure, politics is embedded. Historical, institutional, and sociopolitical contexts shape political phenomena. Whether in the East or the West, structure is universal. It is for this reason that maxim — Politics is politics — is true. Geography, religion, or culture does not negate the structures at play. The Middle East, Islam, or some imaginary character peculiar to Muslims does not negate reality. And it certainly does not justify gross and stubborn ignorance. That cottage industry of ‘Islamic criticism’ embodies this ignorance. Its figures disseminate intellectually and morally bankrupt fiction, belying even the most basic understanding of Middle Eastern politics. Blindly reductionist, they assert all political phenomena in the Middle East is derived from literalist interpretations of Islam, beliefs they then impose on ‘true’ Muslims. This warped and distorted worldview is born of ignorance. But it also speaks to an absence of integrity. These figures have an obligation to inform the public and contribute to our discourse, and yet they choose to exploit peoples’ anxieties for their own selfish benefit. The mediocrity endemic to their work is a testament to their instrumentalization of Middle Eastern politics. It is nothing more than a means for them to profit. Anti-Islam critics’ fluff is in stark contrast to serious and engaged analysis, carried out by those devoted to something more than themselves. Voices in the public sphere are obliged to inform, enlighten, and empower the public. They appeal to reason and not emotion, to fact and not opinion. For all of us, only when we are engaged with the issues — in the structures underlying politics — can there be any resolution to the problems we face, i.e. policy prescription.

To end this piece, let me address social engagement, for it is under this pretext that anti-Islam critics justify their work. And it is under this pretext those figures believe they have free reign to spew ignorance. Engagement with Muslim communities is indeed a vital component to any policy response. But engagement must be preconditioned by addressing the structures that underlie militancy, radicalization, and terrorism. If we do not address the environment in which these things come about, engagement will accomplish nothing. To do this, our policies must be targeted to structures engendering such behavior. The radicalization of Molenbeek youth demands a different policy response than the militarization of Iraqi sects. One is motivated by economic disillusionment and feelings — rightly or wrongly — of a community under threat while another is rooted in political marginalization by the state government. Therefore, social engagement and policy must go hand-in-hand. Universally, engagement with Muslim communities must be tied to something consequential, to something real. Cries of ‘free speech’ and ‘criticism’ ring hollow in the real world. It does not address what is causing these issues and does nothing more than distract from the discussions which need to take place. Legitimate engagement is founded upon us recognizing the base humanity of Muslims, bringing these communities into the fold, and working together to solve the problems we all face — not degrading and debasing an entire community for our own personal benefit. That is beneath us. And it will be self-defeating.

ENDNOTES

1. The question we must now ask ourselves is: What is politics? Dating back to ancient times, thinkers have grappled with this question. Modern day, we turn to academia and those devoted to that question. The field of political science is dedicated to the study of politics and the production of knowledge therein. Within the field, a definition proposed by political scientists Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann define politics as “the constrained use of social power.” Herein, contemporary sociopolitical contexts determines what is constituted by the political and, by extension, how individuals or groups act in pursuit of their interests. From institutional arrangements to strategies of collective action, politics is holistic, i.e. it entails all dimensions of the political. 2. A cursory list of ‘epochal events’ in Middle Eastern history: [570–632] The life of the Prophet Muhammad, the birth of Islam, and the construction of the caliphate. Obviously, this is the genesis for Islam and early political organization, via the caliphate. [1517–1924] The Ottoman Empire conquered huge swaths of the Middle East. Its defeat in World War I and partitioning by the Allied powers laid the seeds for modern Middle Eastern statehood. It is from this partitioning and subsequent colonial institutions (in the Levant and Mesopotamia) that different trajectories for states like Syria or Iraq were set forth. [1979- ] The Iranian Revolution presented a (debatable) ‘third way’ for Middle Eastern governance via the ‘Islamic Republic.’ The Islamic Republic was an alternative to traditional state-making in the Middle East, distinct from the prevailing arrangements of populist/bureaucratic authoritarianism, rentier monarchy, and consociational democracy. The melding of religious and civil authority via the Islamic Republic is a recent innovation in Middle Eastern statehood and one that has presented new dimensions to domestic and regional politics. 3. “Response to Controversy” by Sam Harris showcases the collectivization of Islam by its critics. Proceeding from literalist doctrines and conceiving a ‘true’ interpretation of Islam, he goes on to criticize all Muslims, dismissing any other causal factors and fetishizing his conception of Islam. 4. From the Ben Affleck-Sam Harris exchange; a transcript is available here. The notion of ‘nominal’ Muslims — as defined Harris and imposed on Muslims — is the epitome of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Harris counters facts that clash with his warped and distorted view of the world, in the billion-plus Muslims who reject extremism, by excluding those Muslims from the religion itself. If ignorance has a voice, then we have found it. 5. Islamic jurisprudence encompasses over a millennium of human history. Therein, we see dynamic and competing traditions that evolve over time. To draw contrasts, I would suggest examining the works of Islamic modernist Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) v. reactionary fundamentalist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) v. Ayatollah Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini (1902–1989). Each religious scholar approaches Islam and, with it, politics from radically different perspectives rooted in their contemporary political context. 6. “The Muslim Brotherhood and the Future of Political Islam in Egypt” by Ashraf El-Sherif and his excellent research on the trajectory of Egypt’s democratic transition and the status of political Islamist groups therein. The military’s consolidation of power under Sisi, continuing its history of authoritarianism, demonstrates a secular authority’s appropriation of religion — for political ends. 7. “Here He Goes Again: Sam Harris’s Falsehoods” by Scott Atran is his response to that criticism. The mischaracterization of Atran’s work by Harris is disturbing. And, yet again, Harris’s reductionist logic comes to bear. In light of this assault on academia, it is worth noting Harris’s lack of expertise and training in the relevant fields: Of political science, history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, et al. It is 8. “Response to Controversy” by Sam Harris. 9. On academia, it is wonderfully ironic that those diametrically opposed to anti-Islam critics — academics — tend to be atheists, agnostics, and/or secularists in their own right. According to a 2007 study by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, American academia is composed by individuals that tend to be much less religious than compared to the general U.S. population. In the hard sciences and social sciences, the number of self-described atheists and agnostics (or ‘irreligious’ individuals) is substantial, e.g. the fields of psychology and mechanical engineering had 61% of those professors surveyed identifying as irreligious. The distinction between an anti-Islam critic and academic is this: Detachment. Anti-Islam critics are corrupted by normative biases, abandoning objectivity to validate biases and prejudices. An academic engages in objective analysis to discover what causes phenomena. He or she is not in the business of validation, i.e. personal opinion and emotion and belief are irrelevant. The objective is contribution, to add some insight or perspective. It comes from serious study and thought, not emotional and opinionated Islam. For this reason, anti-Islam critics fail this litmus test. That cottage industry is predicated on commercialization, in figures exploiting biases and bigotries for profit. It has ceased to be legitimate and now serves only to further mediocre careers. 10. Sam Harris typifies what can be termed an ‘outsider’ dimension to Islamic criticism, i.e. an individual with no discernible qualifications writing on subjects totally outside his or her expertise. The results are as expected: Remarkably bad. With a background in philosophy and neuroscience, Harris is at an inherent disadvantage when writing on issues that are derived from history, political science, sociology, psychology, et al. While academic experience/specialization is certainly not a prerequisite for writing on Middle Eastern politics (and insularity is something to be avoided), the impetus is on the outsider to inform themselves by engaging in research, taking into consideration different perspectives, and creating well-reasoned and thought-out analyses that contribute to our discourse. Otherwise, the discourse is polluted by ill-informed and ill-equipped commentators who work to validate biases and raise their own profiles rather than inform the public. Outsiders’ noise detracts from meaningful and consequential discussions on policy and social engagement/reform. That is to everyone’s detriment. 11. Maajid Nawaz is an interesting figure. He argues for reforms within Islam, grassroots engagement with Muslim populations in the East and the West, and the adoption of secular politics in the Middle East. An ex-radical, his depictions of radicalization and its processes are indeed valuable. Nevertheless, they are limited. Beyond first-person accounts and some insights into the processes of alienation/radicalization, there is some limitation when turning away from micro-level phenomena (i.e. individual radicalization) onto macro-level causation. And there is some concern with Nawaz’s work. Through his ‘anti-extremism’ think tank the Quilliam Foundation, there have been serious questions as to its activities. Beyond ‘grassroots’ advocacy in the Muslim world to counter extremism, Nawaz and company seems to fetishize Islamic criticism and secularism at the expense of sound analysis, grounded in addressing the individual and structural causes underlying extremism. Moreover, the case of Tommy Robinson — in which a member of the extremist anti-Muslim group EDL was allegedly bribed to leave the organization (that was met with much fanfare in the press, as publicized by Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation) — and its contemptable stance on religiously-motivated surveillance is something disturbing and unbecoming of a think tank. Self-promotion and furthering the organization’s aims above all else seem to be warping and distorting their analyses and activities, which are (at best) dubious, and contribute very little to analyses on Middle Eastern politics. 12. Political Islam have been assurgent in the Middle East since the 1970s, when Middle Eastern states began to retreat from their social obligations. Authoritarian regimes were founded on the exchange of citizens’ liberty in return for stability/economic growth (which are entwined). The Arab Spring emerged in reaction to endemic poverty and unemployment. A ‘youth bulge,’ or high number of young adult males (likely to engender social unrest, via protests or militancy), and new avenues of mobilization via social media spawned economic protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It soon escalated to demands for democratization. Its ultimate success in countries allowed for elections to be held. During the region’s fleeting democratic moment, Islamist actors exploited religion’s embedment in civil society. This gave Islamist groups an inherent advantage politically due to their resiliency to state repression, unlike secular liberals or other actors that were far more vulnerable to state crackdowns and relatively deficient in mobilizing their supporters. Their success in nascent democracies was a staple of the Arab Spring and reflected such advantages. It would prove to be short-lived however. Bad governance and/or military coups would oust ruling political Islamist parties. 13. The curious case of Kim Davies, a U.S. elected county clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses due to her religious beliefs, and social conservatives’ open rejection of laws that contradict ‘Judeo-Christian’ religious doctrines present an American parallel to Islamist politics. In this extreme circumstance, in which a public official refuses to carry out her duty due to a religious objection in defiance of a Supreme Court decision, there is an implicit denial of secular authority along with that decision. Nevertheless, this case reflected only a fringe of the Republican Party and is not wholly constitutive of the party itself. Moreover, its prominence was predicated on elites’ exploitation of that divisive issue during a presidential election, with candidates utilizing religious appeals to mobilize voters (e.g. Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz notably). 14. The ‘revolutionary phase’ is in the context of extremist groups’ formation in opposition to the state, in contention with the sociopolitical order. Militancy is a manifestation of such groups waging war on the state itself. Attempting to dismantle the old order, extremist groups like ISIL aim to transform society and consolidate power via institutional arrangements e.g. the imposition of sharia law and the respective ‘Islamic’ institutions it engenders. An analog to this can be found in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Bolsheviks’ contention with the tsarist order, leading to civil war. Their victory over the White Movement (or anti-Communist coalition) ushered in the transformation of Russia politically and socially, i.e. restructuring political and economic authority (typically to the victor’s benefit). 15a. Within the state apparatus, there is a marked separation between domestic institutional arrangements (e.g. regime type) and the autonomous interests of the state. Proceeding from scholar Theda Skocpol’s conceptualization (in Social Revolutions), state autonomy is characterized by the state’s distinct interests in preserving its survival and the actions state organization undertakes separate from that of the dominant class/societal groups. External crises can disrupt existing class relations and impose upon states new pressures that can arise in revolution, e.g. the economic crises of the 1970s and it mobilizing the Iranian working classes against the regime. State autonomy is a byproduct of international structures, in state competition and it imposing external pressures onto states. Herein, the very survival of the state itself is at stake and thus necessitates policies that state organizations (unbounded to domestic interest groups and/or dominant classes) undertake in spite of ‘normal’ domestic politics. Regime type, in this case of clerical authorities or hereditary monarchy, yields to the state’s autonomous interests, demanding the state conforms to the international system and adopts the policies necessary for its survival. The case of Iran and its ‘revolutionary’ Islamic Republic — characterized by the slogan “Na Sharq, Na Gharb, Faqat Jumhuri-ye” which translates to “Neither East, Nor West, only the Islamic Republic” — evidences how states of any regime type must conform to international pressures imposed on it by broader structures, e.g. integration in the global economy and the neoliberal policies it demands (in spite of ideological or elite opposition). 15b. Identity and community are dimensions to politics founded on a social construction to group belonging. Nevertheless, identity and community are still bounded to structure. Traditionally, a structural approach to politics elevates the material causal factors in politics (namely socioeconomic forces and/or institutional structures), implicitly dismissing the impact of nonmaterial dimensions of politics like culture or identity. Classical Marxism, class analysis (circa Barrington Moore in Social Origins), institutionalism, and other structural perspectives emphasize the socioeconomic, institutional, and/or system-level aspects of politics. In the Middle East, its dynamics encompass material and ethereal phenomena — in ethnic-religious contention, reactionary ideology in opposition to modernity, individual radicalization, and the emergence of nonstate actors. This demands an integrated and holistic lens to view Middle Eastern politics. The structural perspective articulated herein is but a framework to understand politics. Its value — and indeed how we should judge any theoretical approach — is its ability to explain phenomena coherently throughout history. Proceeding from the premise that politics is embedded in structure, identity and community are a means to explain political organization therein. By unifying a population in opposition to an extant ‘other,’ identity and community presuppose political organization and align groups vis-à-vis one another within the polity. Its basis is group competition and operates within the dynamics structure presents, e.g. domestic groups vying for influence within the state apparatus and/or interstate competition. Although group competition was intensified by the sovereign state, it has been a potent force throughout history, e.g. the 16th Century tensions between the Shia Safavid Empire and the Sunni Ottoman Empire that presented itself in the pro-Shia Şahkulu Rebellion within Anatolia (present-day Turkey). From empire to statehood, there has been an internalization of politics — occurring within the demarcated borders of state authority, within and between states. 16. Within international relations (IR) theory, the three dominant approaches to IR is realism, liberalism, and Marxism. Each is constituted by theoretical assumptions on the international system. Realism is founded on an assumption of anarchy in the international system and states’ amoral pursuit of power, i.e. there is no authority above that of state and states are in competition with other states. As unitary actors, realism deemphasizes domestic politics in deference to the international system and its structures. Liberalism is based on a normative commitment to peace, in an assumption that multilateral cooperation and ‘liberal’ international orders may engender peace and stability. It focuses on domestic state politics and its interrelation with international politics, e.g. democratic peace theory and its assertion of democracies engendering peace (in their reluctance, due to domestic pressures, to engage in armed conflict). Marxism hinges on the assumption that the international system is zero-sum and exploitative, according to capital political economy and omnipresent class conflict. It constructs the international system along the lines of a developed core versus an underdeveloped periphery. Other theoretical perspectives like constructivism proceed from a ‘social construction’ to international politics, in perceived meanings and identity and community. Outside of abstract theoretical discourses, the real-world application of IR theory demands some flexibility, in incorporating different theoretical perspectives for a holistic and integrated view. Herein, we see a blurring of the lines between theoretical perspectives and, substantively, the domestic and the international. In this paper, this is evidenced by the emphasis on domestic politics and the interrelation between the domestic and international, e.g. the Shia-Sunni alignment and regime type influencing international politics. A dimension of state autonomy is present in external pressure forcing states to adjust their domestic policy programs according to the present international political economy, i.e. the shift from mid-20th Century statist economic policy to limited economic liberalization and integration in the global economy during the early 21st century. 17. Conducted by Le Monde, an interview with a senior Sunni officer (who defected in 2011) offers some insight into the inner workings of the Syrian Armed Forces and Sunni soldiers’ perceptions therein. 18. The Resilience of Authoritarian Rule in Syria under Hafez and Bashar Al-Asad by Annette Büchs, written in 2009, is a structural view on authoritarianism in Syria. It proceeds from the state and examines the socioeconomic and institutional forces composing the Assad regime’s rule. Also drawing from a cultural perspective, it goes into tremendous depth on the structures of the Assad regime. It is a prime example of scholarly and engaged analysis — detached from the author’s opinions and biases — and is in stark contract with anti-Islam critics’ fluff. 19. Rentier states are states whose national revenues are primarily reliant on the rent of its natural resources (i.e. the sale of commodities) to external clients. This has severe ramifications for institutional development within these states, because the dependence on external rents removes any governmental accountability to the people. Unlike a state reliant on the domestic taxation of its citizens, there is not an active exchange between the people and their government, i.e. citizens paying their taxes and then demanding good governance (in a ‘bang for your buck’ dynamic that encourages accountability). The external orientation of the economy hinders the development of productive sectors and allows the state — the primary recipient of rents — to dominate. Crucially, a rentier state is able to subsidize inefficient policies (e.g. the economic exclusion of women) and effectively ‘buy’ citizens’ compliance. In the Middle East, oil-exporters like Iran and Saudi Arabia are among the most prominent rentier states in the world. This economic and institutional arrangement underlies politics, notably in the persistence of authoritarianism and elite politics being disconnected from the citizenry. 20. Security vulnerabilities accompanying refugee populations are a legitimate security concern. On November 13, 2015, the Paris attacks were perpetrated by militants with dual-citizenship in addition to an assailant that utilized a forged Syrian passport to pose as a refugee and go undetected (in spite of having European citizenship due to being on a terror watch list). Lebanon was a warning sign. In Arsal, Lebanon, there were repeated clashes between the Lebanese army and Syrian militants. Utilizing the Lebanese-Syrian border, there has been repeated incidents of crossover, where militants blend in with refugees to go undetected. Due to Europe’s proximity to the Middle East and its status as a refugee destination, its regional political arrangement — the EU — will have to control refugee flows while accommodating existing populations. Anti-Islam backlash and xenophobic movements across Europe are another security concern. European Muslims are vulnerable to radicalization if state governments and non-Muslim populations engage in persecution. The ‘strain’ placed on European society does not justify discrimination, harassment, oppression, or any other targeted policies that persons based on faith alone. That will be self-defeating and incite violent responses. The mythical clash of East v. West should not become a reality — in spite of proclamations by neo-fascist/far right parties. 21. De-Ba’athification refers to a series of purges undertaken by Iraq’s 2003 transitional government and later Iraqi governments, according to a policy that barred Iraqis affiliated with the Ba’ath Party from employment in the state bureaucracy and other institutions. Along with disbanding the Iraqi military, the policy removed then-employed Iraqis in the bureaucracy from their positions and left them jobless. This policy contributed to Sunni discontent and, ultimately, the outbreak of civil war. In the void of reconciliation, security in Iraq broke down and the society fissured. It was catastrophic for Iraqi reconstruction and is something that must be avoided in Syria.

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