The Domino Effect...

There are many observers who are now taking a long look at the position that Ryan posted just a few days ago about the situation in the Middle East... that each successive regime to fall will face the prospect of becoming another Iran circa 1979.

Mubarak's removal from power in Egypt is an excellent example. He was "forced out" by the military... but the military has been in control since 1988 in all reality, and it has done nothing to put opposition party members in key Cabinet positions in the interim. Add to this that nothing has been done to forward the effort of free and open elections by the said military, and you see that the military is perfectly content to maintain the "status quo" indefinitely.

Moderate, secularist leaders in Tunis are feeling the same concerns. They have been pushed right out of the picture of a "new government" by radical Islamists who want a repressive, sharia-based regime in place before an election can even be held. Gaddafi's regime is working itself into a frenzy, with talk of massive reprisals against protesters and the use of deadly force at every opportunity.

Even I gave in to the temptation to think that some of this might lead to real reform in the region, but the more I watch, the more I am convinced that this is history repeating itself again. Inter-Nicene fighting and tribal rivalries are what is feeding the fighting now... not a drive for real democratic reform. Yemeni tribal fighting, Egyptian sectarian confrontation, Iranian power struggles, Jordanian ethnic conflict... these are the sparks of the current fire, not the desire to see real popular governments established.

These are the same conflicts that kept such Muslim leaders as Saladin, Babar, Mehmet II, and even the modern leaders like Nasser and Khomeini, from consolidating power and making a unified Muslim populous that could actually threaten the stability and safety of places like Europe, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the New World.

I was talking to Jambo the other night, and mentioned (again) the narrative history book 1453, which is a fantastic little book about the efforts leading up to the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in the same year. The political situation faced by Constantine XI of Constantinople in the mid-15th Century, and the trials and tribulations that Mehmet II of the Ottomans each faced in order to see their respective situations maintained or improved is so chillingly similar to today's regional picture that I'm beginning to think the work should be required reading.

If we imagine Israel as the modern equivalent of Constantinople, and modern radical Islamic efforts as mirroring those of Mehmet II... then we see the landscape of the region in a whole new light. The apparent perceptions and views of 15th Century Muslim leadership is so unbelievably close to what modern radical Islamists voice that the parallels can't simply be coincidence. Mehmet II achieved what he did in 1453 because the effort to take the Red Apple (the Ottoman nickname for Constantinople) was the single greatest unifying factor in the age that could bring the various tribes, sects and ethnicity of the region together against "The City" (which, by the way, is pronounced "ista Nopolii" in the Greek of the day, which the Muslims shortened to Istanbul).

Constantinople had "allies" in the West, but by 1450, they were tired of crusades and raising armies to defend far-away foreigners who spoke a different language and followed a foreign religion. The Papacy had become "indifferent" to the calls for aid by Constantine XI, and the Italian states like Genoa and Venice were concerned only in what such efforts could profit them. France and England were embroiled in the last years of the Hundred Years War, and no effort, money or men could be spared on either side for the defense of the "Greek" Emperor and his City. Spain was still wrapping up the 200 year effort to drive the Muslims off the Iberian peninsula (the Reconquista) and wouldn't see a unified "crown" until 1469. These distractions in the West are mirrored in the multitude of excuses that the West gives today for its lack of support to Israel... bad economies, hot wars elsewhere, political instability at home, etc. Many "pundits" of the 1450s even thought letting the Muslims take Constantinople would "keep them happy" and end the expansionist efforts of the Ottomans or that Constantinople's defeat was inevitable and a sign of God's divine Providence working on heretical Greeks who didn't know their place. Shocking similar to what many anti-Israel pundits say today, isn't it? Blame Israel for what is happening since 1948...

All that is lacking here is a charismatic popular leader to bring it all together with the means and ability to utilize the vast resources such a region has at its disposal. Mehmet II made mistakes, but he made way less mistakes than Constantine XI did, and he didn't have blatant indifference and ignorance of fact sapping his energies and resources on HIS side of the question, as both Constantine did then and the West does today.