The Invasion of Iraq, Islamic Extremism, & Terrorism

So, why are the ideas of Islamic extremists like Sayyid Qutb so popular? That's where Western geopolitics, including our imperialism, play a role. The Arabic world suffers from an extreme case of an inferiority complex (I'm not using this in a harshly critical sense - it just seems to be the best label). Islam was once "Number One," but now it's at the bottom of the heap when it comes to military, political, scientific, economic, and cultural influence.

Sure, we get the "0" from Arabic, but how many world-renown mathematicians and computer scientists come from the Muslim Arabic world? Sure, medieval Arab physicians were an important link in the development of modern medicine, but how many ground-breaking medical techniques are developed in the Muslim Arab world? How many of the rich and famous go to Damascus or Medina for important medical procedures?

I don't mean to suggest that Arab Muslims are not capable of rising to the highest levels of science, medicine, art, or culture. I'm also not suggesting that there are none who have, here and there. Instead, I'm arguing that they are unusual. Too unusual, given the proporition of the planet's inhabitants who come from the Arab Muslim world.

German mathematicians, British computer engineers, and American doctors who are on the cutting edge of their fields are not odd. Ideally, it also wouldn't be odd if we replaced those nationalities with Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian. Someone who says "I'm going to New York to study the latest medical techniques" is not odd. Someone who says "I'm going to Damascus to study the latest medical techniques" is. That's what needs to be changed.

Islam went from the top to the bottom - Muslims can't explain why and can't explain how, but they want answers and they want changes. Quite understandable. Who can blame them? Unfortunately, in situations like this, people often end up looking for enemies - internal and external. Both share the lamentable characteristic of not being Muslim enough (reaching for old traditions that characterized a supposed Golden Age is another common feature of these situations).

That's the environment that produced Qutb - it produced his ideological predecessor, Ibn Taymiyyah (who struggled against the domination of the Mongols), and it produced his successors, like Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj and Osama bin Laden. If the above are the conditions which went a long way to making people like Qutb possible and his ideas popular, then surely it is reasonable to conclude that further demonstrations of Arab Muslim impotence in the face of a militarily and technologically superior West can only exacerbate things.

So does that mean that the invasion will produce more terrorists? Perhaps. An important point to note here, and which not everyone catches, is that a failure to invade wouldn't have suddenly made the Arab Muslim world feel powerful again. The invasion exacerbates the situation, but it doesn't create it - thus, a lack of an invasion would not produce a lack of the problematic situation. This means that the observation "this will produce more terrorists" is a valid observation, especially since it might well produce more terrorists than a lack of an invasion, but I'm not sure it qualifies as a clear argument against the invasion.

Setting aside the question of whether the invasion of Iraq was justified, we are still left with the very serious problem of Islamic extremism and Muslim terrorists. If the above helps us understand why Islamic Extremism is so popular in the Arab Muslim world, does it also help us see a way to solve the problems?