Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:...

In Egypt the choice that was freely made by the people was not liked by the minority Middle class the their friends in the West, and since the Egyptian army was taking £3 billion from the US, they did the US's bidding and brought about an end to the duly elected Muslim Brotherhood.
...

Hmm...but the Saudis are giving amounts that dwarf that sum?

The Muslim Brotherhood is a republican organisation, the Saudis hate it while the west is mostly indifferent (we tend to object to some offshoots such as Hamas more than the movement as a whole).

American Imperialism isn't really the fundamental issue facing democracy in the middle east, they have two far greater problems.
Entrenched authoritarianism is hazardous to reform. Hobbes is wrong a Assad, he may well have intended to democratise, but probably not, and either way he had no hope of achieving such reforms, he would have been deposed internally had he tried. The Syrian state depended on the usual middle east competition between interior ministry, military, and intelligence services for its power structure (usually known as the Deep State). Keeping those forces in balance inevitably becomes more important than the freedom of the population to dissent against authority.

Similar problems are evident from Morocco to Pakistan in almost unbroken sequence with only minor local variations. Tunisia is doing very well to buck the trend, but Tunisia is tiny and it's early days. Turkey has been the major exception, but over recent years has back slid alarmingly. What made Turkish progress possible at all though was a lot of elections that resulted in weak governments who couldn't face down the deep state, eventually they got someone who could (the methods were quite iffy I admit). Likewise, Pakistan only recently managed its first ever peaceful transition from one civilian administration to a successor. The underlying problem hasn't gone away, but the possibility of doing something about it is there.

The people of the mid east aren't uniquely incapable of democracy, and their religion doesn't make it impossible or unsuitable for them. The main challenges they face aren't unique to the region either. They are hampered by the same issues that plague former colonies of fallen empires everywhere, not some evil flaw of Islam.

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:...

In Egypt the choice that was freely made by the people was not liked by the minority Middle class the their friends in the West, and since the Egyptian army was taking £3 billion from the US, they did the US's bidding and brought about an end to the duly elected Muslim Brotherhood.
...

Hmm...but the Saudis are giving amounts that dwarf that sum?

And to what end?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:And to what end?

Presumably to fight the sunni fundamentalists but I don't think this is the same as supporting America.

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:And to what end?

Presumably to fight the sunni fundamentalists but I don't think this is the same as supporting America.

None of it's got anything to with America except inasmuch as the Americans want to make it so because they've still got shit on the liver about the uppity Iranians. The big argument in the middle east is between the Saudis and the Iranians but both these countries are smart enough to let everybody else do all their fighting for them. They've been at each others throats for thousands of years so a few embellishments chucked into the mix by outside interests just adds to the frisson of an eternal conflict with no end in sight. The solution? Let them both have nukes and tell them to stop being such pussies and get on with it.

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:And to what end?

Presumably to fight the sunni fundamentalists but I don't think this is the same as supporting America.

American supports Saud, Saud supports Egypt, Egypt overthrows the Muslim Brotherhood. Saud builds Waabhist Universities, they support BIn Laden the Saudi, Supports ISIS, CIA supports ISIS and around it goes.

... And what as any of this got to do with democracy?