There are many arguments that say that the Muslim world has remained a prisonner of its historic memory, that it has not been able to go beyond the trauma of colonialism, and renovate through the implementation of the modern values that colonialism had revealed and the organization of an extensive social and political debate; that it has not been able to solve the question of political legitimacy because it did not succeed in developing workable models, or because intellectuals did not play their role as critics within society, and that all this is not the U. S. nor Europe's fault. But this is only half true. The Muslim world is not an hostage of the past, since foreign intervention was not limited to colonialism itself but has been ongoing up to now, and even more so since the Gulf War.
There has also been a responsibility of the West in the failure of all attempts to build political models oriented toward democratization. The first attempts to set up a constitutional order in the XIXth century in the Arab provinces of Tunisia and Egypt, or at the very heart of the Ottoman Empire with the Turkish reforms, were torpedoed by France and England. The experience of liberal government in the first half of the XXth century in Egypt, Irak or Syria were to a great extent undermined, in their democratic exercice, by the interests of those two European powers, that wanted to keep control over their ancient colonies. In the case of Lebanon, the cause for the disaster that plunged the country in a bloody civl war for 15 years is to be found in the creation of a State that was conceived to grant political supremacy to the Maronite Christian minority (that is to say France's main clientele in the Middle East) over the Muslim majority. After the long interlude of socialist governments that were up to the soviet autocratic model they had adopted, the neo-liberal governments that followed, implemented economic liberalization reforms coupled with a growing political despotism that is "laundered" by their European and American allies, for the great misery of the population who is submitted to a fierce repression. The most open and transparent elections held in the region, took place in Algeria in 1991 and they were reduced to ashes by a military coup that was supported by the whole of the Western world.
Regimes that are in place in Algeria, Tunisia or Egypt, (to take just the most striking examples) survive by using repression as a mean of social control with European and American support, both at economic and political level. The Western allies do not want to know of the ongoing human rights violations that are denounced by all N. G.O. s.
The Gulf War against Saddam Hussein is immediately brought to an end from the moment he could have been overthrown by the most representative opposition movement in the country, simply because the resistance was led by the Irakian Shiis, and this did not suit the strategic interests of the U. S. in the region. The tyran thus remained in power and Irak was submitted to an embargo that only weighs on the civilian population, who is furthermore exposed to the impunity of a clannish governement, unable to act as a regional power, but very capable of plundering society and the country's revenues. Double standards are used as to the inforcement of the U. N. resolutions. On the one hand, Irak is strictly required to comply with them. Whereas, Israel can go on ignoring them with respect to the rights of the Palestinians, while its strategic interests in the region are respected and its views followed as who is or is not a terrorist.
At the end of the Gulf War, the Arab countries were more divided than ever, while the dominant position of the U. S. in the region had never been stronger, partly because most countries in the area depend from the U. S.A., at economic and military level, but also because Europe does not, in the least, represent a political challenge for the U. S. un the region, in spite of its commercial competitiveness, and Russia prefers to compete with the U. S. over Caucase and Central Asia, that has been rising since the end of the XXth century as a main producer of energy sources, competing at strategic level with the Middle East.
In fact, the result of the American views and action in the Middle East, with respect to security and stability, has been to block all attempts aiming at setting up multilateral institutions, that could have given a better positioning to the region as a whole. As a consequence, it opted for the creation of strategic axes and bilateral alliances. Irak and Iran being declared rogue states, a policy of penalty (embargo and sanctions) and "double contention" as of 1993 was applied. This meant that Iran has been artificially separated from the Gulf States and that all attempts that could have lead to a rapprochement in the perspective of a regional forum to set up a dialogue among all the neighbour countries, including the ostrascised ones, were frustated. As a result Irak still is ostracised, which has given rise to large scaled smuggling networks with Jordan, and even more so with Turkey. At the same time, the reformist sector in Iran, that promotes economics and political liberalization, and defends a diplomatic normalization with its Middle East neighbours as well as with the Western world, does not find enough support abroad that would enable it so solve the socio-economic crisis and to get a stronger position within the government vis a vis the "old revolutionnary guard".
The influence of Israel's views on the stability of the region and its obvious refusal to be integrated in the Middle East geographic environment, as well as its role as inconditional ally of the U. S., explain for the most part these contradictions, and which is worse, is greatly responsible for the unending fragmentation of the region.
This priviliged relation with the U. S. explains how Israel was able in 1995 to escape international pressure in order to become a party to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and to take part in 1996 to the creation of the strategic military axis between Israel and Turkey, under the American umbrella, with the aim to weaken Syria's position in the region. The U. S. also opposed the institutional setting up of multilateral groups that could have had a determinant role to play in the Arab-Isareli peace process.
The countries that belong to the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil producing countries) all signed bilateral defense agreements and armament contracts with the U. S., Great Britain and France after the Gulf war with the objective to protect themselves from future threats. Since they do not trust their Arab neighbours and because of the unquestionnable superiority of Western armies, the GCC members did not even consider regional security arrangements, and they even stressed further the importance of bilateral relations, since they did not conclude agreements among themselves either. Furthermore, the massive investments in military eqipment and defence, the enormous expenses resulting from financing Gulf war I (1980-88 between Iran and Irak), and Gulf war II (Iraki invasion of Koweit, 1990-91), and the end of the oil prices boom, gave rise to a growing socio-economic crisis that resulted in a very uncomfortable situation for governments. The most illustrative example is the case of Saudi Arabia with its demographic rate of 3,5%, which have had to reduce social benefits since the beginning of the 90s, while the middle class is growing in numbers and importance, and is more and more dissatisfied with the regime's political "tribalism" that does not represent them in any way, with the growing inadequacies in the fields of education, health, housing, etc... as well as with Western military presence in their country. The system based on oil revenues and the socio-political balance that existed thanks to such income undergoes a crisis that in turn increases the opposition to the regime.
These regional and international political developments have had consequences for the clientelist and clannish governments in place in this part of the Arab and Muslim world that are now in a situation of growing inner and regional weakness. As a consequence, these governements depend more and more on Western support in order to remain in power, and tend to act individually, which means that they no longer have any sort of political influence as regional geopolitical and economic group on the international scene. From a Western perspective, such a dependance turn these countries in faithful allies that are incapable to counteract in front of Western dominant policies. It also enables the West to control the sources of energy that are located in the area. (For example, recently, the Arab and Muslin oil producing countries proved incapable to use oil as a a weapon to put pressure on the international community in order to stop the brutal Israeli invasion in the Palestinian territories). The Western domination is exercised at the expense of the population governed by dictatorial regimes that impose anti-democratic practises to societies that are moreover submitted to the enormous socio-economic pressure of economic liberal reform and its structural adjustments.
What is truly appalling in this situation is that our societies are so obsessed by the "cultural clash between Islam and the West", so convinced that there is no democracy in the Muslim world because of Islam, that the inequality between men and women comes from inmutable constraints in the Muslim universe, that violence stems from an innate islamic cultural-religious fanaticism, that they are unable to see what are the deeply political causes for this lack of democracy, this inequality and this violence. And what is even worse no one asks the question of what the West does to feed such inadequacies and violence. It is true that there is no democracy, but that is not because they are Muslims, but because an alliance has been struck between the local despotic governing elites and the Western powers. It is true that there is no processs of social modernization, but that is not imposed by Islam, but comes about rather because of the complicity between dictatorial regimes and ultra-conservative religious circles that preserve the patriarchal and puritan social models (just as it occured in other dictatorships in Southern Europe or Latin America). The only way to open up the doors of social evolution would be to promote democratization and the Rule of Law. It is true that there is violence, but not because "they are Muslims" but because the State exerts its violence continuously and the feelings of humiliation, despair and neglect that prevail in these societies constitute a culture medium favorable to a social explosion and to extremism.
This is how we come to this paradox that caracterizes the approach of Western societies toward the Muslim world. The cultural perspective is supposedly used to fight fundamentalist islamic attitudes, but at political level, we support those who defend and impose obsolete interpretations of Islam and suppress the modernists. We proclaim ourselves to be the representatives of civilization and of the model to be followed by all the others, while our political action promotes at the same time depotism and assents to the violation of human rights. This political stand of ours favours in the Muslim world the players that give the most negative image of Islam in the West and who even tend to a monopoly of this image, used as an overall discrimination tool against a vast social majority that does not identify with them. Because if such an unfair contradiction, feelings of bitterness and anti-western resentment keep growing to-day in Muslim societies, that see how their cultural heritage is generally despised and looked upon, while the self - proclaimed supremacy of the West is used as an instrument of political and military domination.
[1] Gema Martín Muñoz (ed), Islam, Modernism and the West. London, IB Tauris; and Sophie Bessis, L'Occident et les Autres. Paris, La Découverte, 2001.
[2] Opinion on a matter where islamic lawfulness is concerned.
[3] Huntington published his theory in 1993 ((Foreign Affairs, no.3, pp. 22-49) and is certainly now the most well known on the question, but it is interesting to note that this kind of ideas started circulating just at the end of the Gulf war: Barry Buzan (1991) “New Patterns of Global security in the Twenty-First Century”, International Affairs, 67, no 3, pp. 431-451.