It basically came out of nowhere, blindsiding the West and even much of the Muslim World.
Three years ago, the Islamic State (I.S.) did not exist.
Now the so-called caliphate controls large portions of both Iraq and Syria, and the ruthless terrorist organization has enlisted thousands of supporters, as well as a growing army of ferocious foot soldiers to do its bloody bidding around the globe.
Indeed, ever since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself the caliph of a then-only-imagined Islamic State in 2014, the jihadi I.S. has swelled from a small ragtag army of disgruntled Islamic extremists to a full-fledged global organization with sophisticated command, erudite propaganda communications and military capabilities that has managed to occupy large swaths of territory and even implement a perverse interpretation of a state governed by medieval sharia law.
But in order to overcome the self-styled I.S., the world must first understand the roots of its conception.
The Islamic State is the ungodly offspring of an uncontained civil war in Syria against a despot leader who refuses to step down despite his inexorable unravelling hold on power, a dysfunctional and manifestly corrupt foreign-imposed government in Iraq, the indiscriminate military intervention by both the West and Russia into indeterminable regional conflicts, and a centuries-old sectarian feud between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims that has led to incalculable power grabs between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
It is also the product of seething Muslim rage against Western colonialism and exploitation of the Middle East, dating from the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that finally exploded into a distorted dream of a Muslim World ruled by Muslim principles.
The Islamic State caliphate may have been a dubious savior from the oppressive and exploitative West, but in the eyes of many discontented Sunnis, it was and is a savior all the same.
And its nefarious Eucharistic call to rise up and kill the evil infidel at any cost and in any way possible has been swallowed by disenfranchised Muslims throughout the world, transforming the Islamic State into a transnational syndicate of jihad and religious hate.
In order to conquer the I.S., the world must first expose the I.S. for what it really is: a power-hungry gang of savage thugs that have usurped the Qur’an to reshape its message into a battle cry for murder and barbarianism and rebrand it under the guise of an odious black flag and manipulative glossy videos encapsulated in a dramatic anthem.
But more importantly, the West must bow out of the Middle East, relinquishing all power and decision-making to the people of the region.
Europe, the United States and Russia must acknowledge that imposing Western templates of democracy and Judeo-Christian values onto Islamic society has not and will not work.
The vast majority of the people in the Middle East want to vote for their leaders and to have a voice in decision-making on issues that affect their daily lives and social identities.
But they also want that to happen in the context of an explicitly Islamic framework, not in an entirely secular, liberal and imposed context that is divorced from their fundamental identities and beliefs.
They are looking for a marriage between their hometown girl Islam and an ingratiating Westerner democracy who will respect her traditional creeds while helping her to assimilate to a global reality.
For democracy to work in the Arab World, Arab values must be incorporated, and that means basing political practices and policies on the Qur’an.
That does not mean that these states should be theocracies — Iran is the classic example of how not to mix politics and religion — but they should have Muslim tenets as a foundation on which modernity, democracy and plurality can be structured.
They must incorporate Islamic values and mold them to adapt to modern principles of inclusive integration and respect, while protecting and fulfilling the right of others to disagree.
They must be based on Islam, but not dogmatic.
The Arab World must slowly redefine itself through internal metamorphosis and muddle its way through the transition from de facto colonial territories to modern-day sovereign states.
As the entire terrain of the Middle East is uprooted and sown with a new political prototype, its leaders and people will and have made many mistakes, mistakes that have had serious and damning repercussions, not only for the region, but also for the rest of the world.
But social transformation takes time and is never easy, and the growing pains of political evolution cannot be avoided by external arbitration.
The outside world must remove itself from the equation, letting the Middle East develop its own political prototype that incorporates the soil of local history and traditions so that, hopefully, true democracy and social justice can eventually take roots in the region.
Left to their own devices and free from the condescending intervention of the West and Russia, the countries of the Middle East can and will find their own independent political legacy, which may not be an emulation of Western democracy but which will certainly be a better alternative to an amaurotic adherence to the Islamic State.
Thérèse Margolis can be reached at [email protected].
