By helping Islamists to assume power in the Middle East, the seat of global Islam, Washington and the West must have made a groundbreaking achievement in the centuries-old ideological power struggle. Earlier in 1989, the US and western European countries scored a dazzling point by tearing apart the Soviet Union, the global seat of Communism. Islamist militants from different Muslim countries were used by Washington sinisterly to fight Soviet troops besieged in Afghanistan. Washington brainwashed Islamist fighters before they were sent to Afghanistan. Islamists were told that Communist ideology was despising Islam in the Muslim country of Afghanistan and elsewhere. After Soviet troops had suffered a humiliating defeat and subsequently pulled out of Afghanistan there was a raucous explosion back in Moscow of the Communist powerhouse. Thereafter, the wild Islamist tiger became too scary and too difficult to tame. A Saudi multi-millionaire, Osama bin Laden, sought to build on his men's victory in Afghanistan. He was enthusiastic about spreading a new, radical Islamic ideology across the world. Before concluding the celebration of their devastating victory over Communism, the US and European countries woke up to a new nightmare, the wild tiger that they had nurtured and breastfed was now poised to pounce on its half-witted masters; their own Osama bin Laden, dazed by his victory against a superpower (the Soviet Union) in the Afghan war, and armed with a huge stockpile of weapons received from Washington and different European sources, had outgrown its cage and was no longer fearful of its former master's whip. The tiger was now giving orders instead of receiving them. Bin Laden formed a radical organisation named al-Qaeda to spread his new militant ideology under a spurious notion of Islam. Bin Laden led his men to fight in the Afghan war in the name of Islam. And on 9/11, the wild tiger leapt clear across the Atlantic Ocean from the Asian continent and struck a terrifying, earth-shattering blow to the symbols of Western hegemony. In the aftermath, Washington spent billions of US dollars on its new ideological war against the renegade collaborator bin Laden, but it yielded no good results. What happened instead is that bin Laden, who had been well-trained by the US in intelligence-gathering tactics, deployed his men to bomb US embassies in different African and Arab countries. A number of US diplomats and European tourists were brutally killed by bin Laden's brainwashed men. Getting mad over his country's humiliation in the face of al-Qaeda's growing threat, ex-US president George W. Bush inadvertently decided to expand the hunt for the organisation's chief and men in the Arab country of Iraq. Although Bush was given undivided support by his big allies in the Middle East, his adventure was a disaster. To make matters worse, an anti-US sentiment in the entire Muslim world, including the Arab countries, exploded. Bin Laden managed to persuade lay people in these countries that Washington and European countries were launching an anti-Islam war. The assassination of al-Qaeda's godfather in Pakistan did not eradicate the threat of the new ideology. Taking the oath, his successors vowed to expand their US targets, officials and men. The physical and psychological damage suffered by Washington as a result of its anti-al-Qaeda (ideological) war coupled with waning enthusiasm among its big allies in the region, including the West's rock star (ex-President Hosni Mubarak), has prompted Washington to develop new strategies and tactics. Washington sought the help of none other than Islamists to convince Muslim and non-Muslim nations of the righteousness of its anti-Islamic radicalism war over the past two decades. In other words, Washington helped Islamists to rise to power in the Middle East – only to increase Islamophobia in Muslim countries themselves. Formerly mass anti-US demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries are now condemning Islamists, their vision of Islam and their governing authority. Muslim countries became a battleground for a war between two conflicting ideologies, which, nonetheless, belong to the same faith [Islam]. Outrageous and shocking principles of governance in the hands of Islamists prompted moderate Muslims in Arab countries to upend sympathy they used to offer Islamists when they (Islamists) were coerced and suppressed under the ousted regimes. The more brutal Islamists become against their own Muslim nations in the name of Islam, the more support Washington gives them to continue and help it win more territory in its anti-Islamic radicalism war. The big harm Islamists in power caused to the image of Islam has undoubtedly substantiated long-standing concerns at home about the catholic marriage between them and Washington – since Islamist groups came into existence in the first two decades of the 20th century.
