Did the West make an error concerning secular nationalists in the Middle East?

[buritobr]

Do you think that the policy of the USA & allies of treating the secular nationalist leaders as the biggest enemies in the Middle East & North África was a mistake?
The West was hostile to Mohammad Mosaddegh, Gamal Nasser, Ben Bella, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad. Do you think that this political choice was useful to the rise of the islamic fundamentalism?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

No. In fact, I'd say the opposite is true: the West (and in this respect, I am counting the Kremlin) have spemt years propping up flaky authoritarian craps - secular strongmen or royal fossils or whatever for geostrategy, showing that principles like "commitment to democracy" or "worker's democracy" were basically fraudulent nothings. We propped (continue to prop) up a small cadre of Arab elite, occasionally shafting them when necessary, but looking the other way as they systematically snuffed out civil society, the trade unions, the intelligentsia, the media and any shred of viable opposition. After years of that, can we really be surprised that the only institution able to wage a genuine national campaign of opposition is religion? Religion is a great way to attract a bulk of conservative rural people and a small posse of radical activists (and yes, a very stable source of financial backing); so their front parties quickly managed to co-opt the largely irreligious (food, end to austerity, stable employment etc.) demands of the "Arab Spring". By contrast, most liberal and socialist parties were tainted by association with toadying to the regimes or foreign backers; and so had very little to show for their games.

It's the 21st century. There should be no tolerance for non-democratic states, no support for military coups, no support for "WE SUPPORT BECAUSE STABILITY" in foreign policy. Screw Realpolitik - it just comes around and bites you in the butt.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Of Course

[ingemann]

Mistake... not really, as much as I dislike Islamist and the refugees crisis, they are better than a Soviet occupation. The West choose the necessary allies to limit Soviet influence in the region and that was sadly necessary. Of course after the collapse of USSR maybe the West should have reoriented itself, but let's be honest it wouldn't have been good for the West to sell out its allies in the region, before they had shown themselves to not be worth the investment in them.

Also many of secular "nationalists" was after the collapse of USSR not realistic partners. Saddam was too erratic, Ghaddafy was a lunatic, Assad senior was too closely connected to the Iranians. Of course the Tunisian, Egyptian and Algerians was already in western camp, and the Egyptians did little to limit Islamism because their incredible corruption made them grow, Algeria doesn't really need a foreign sugar daddy and Tunisia is home to the least problematic version of the Muslim Brotherhood.