The politics of chaos in the Middle East
By: Olivier Roy ; translated from the French by Ros Schwartz.
Series: The CERI series in comparative politics and international studies
Publisher: Columbia University Press; In association with the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Paris
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 167
ISBN-13: 9780231700320
Subjects: Islam and politics -- Middle East; War on Terrorism, 2001-; Iraq War, 2003-; World politics; Middle East -- Politics and government -- 21st century; United States -- Politics and government -- 2001-; Middle East -- Foreign relations -- United States; United States -- Foreign relations -- Middle East
Work titles: Croissant et le chaos.
Description: "In this book, Olivier Roy, Europe's leading scholar of political Islam, argues that the consequences of the "war on terror" have artificially conflated conflicts in the Middle East in such a way that they appear to be the expression of a widespread "Muslim anger" against the West. But in reality, there are no us and them. Instead, the West faces an array of "reverse alliances" that operate according to their own logic and dynamics. The West supports General Musharraf in Pakistan, yet his military intelligence services are in league with the Taliban; in Iraq, the United States shores up a government that is closely linked to its archenemy, Iran; Iraqi Kurds, allies of the Americans, give sanctuary to the PKK, an adversary of a fellow NATO member, Turkey; while the Saudis support the Iraqi Sunnis who are, in turn, fighting Coalition forces. As if these issues were not complicated enough, the ever-worsening Shia-Sunni divide now threatens to disrupt any future strategic planning the West might attempt in the Middle East. Roy unravels the complexity of these conflicts in order to better understand the political discontent that sustains them. He also emphasizes that the war on terror should not be regarded merely as a geopolitical blunder committed by a fringe group of neoconservatives. It is instead a problematic outgrowth of our deeply rooted Western perceptions of the Middle East, including the belief that Islam, rather than politics, is the overarching factor in these conflicts, thus explaining the West's support for either would-be secular democrats or (more or less) benign dictators. Roy's conclusion argues that the West has no alternative but to engage in a dialogue with the political forces that truly matter -- namely the Islamo-nationalists of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood."--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Who is the enemy? where is the enemy?; title: The Middle East : fragmentation of conflicts and new fault lines; title: Iran poised between the nuclear bomb and bombardment; title: In the meantime, al-Qaeda; title: .