Former MI6 Officer: You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

Post Categories: Afghanistan
Alastair Crooke | Wednesday, September 3, 2014, 12:55 Beijing

BEIRUT — The dramatic arrival of Da’ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed — and horrified — by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia’s ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, “Don’t the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?”

It appears — even now — that Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite “fire” with Sunni “fire”; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da’ish’s strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan — please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.

Many Saudis are deeply disturbed by the radical doctrines of Da’ish (ISIS) — and are beginning to question some aspects of Saudi Arabia’s direction and discourse.

Continue reading →

Posted in 4th Media, corrupt elites, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY, EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION AND TORTURE, FALSE FLAG OPS, FASCISM AND IMPERIALISM, Foundations of Fascism, Full SPECTRA Dominance, IMPERIAL HUBRIS AND HYPOCRISY, Imperial Impotence, Indigenous Peoples and Genocida, INDIGENOUS SCIENCE AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD, International Law and Nuremberg Precedents, MSM MANIPULATION, non-Official Government Leaking for PR, nuremberg precedents, POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FASCISM, REAL HISTORY UNCOVERED, Revisionist History, rise and fall of empires, TERRORISM, US AND HUMAN RIGHTS, VIETNAM AND IRAQ WARS, Weapons of Mass Deception, WHISTLE-BLOWERS | Leave a comment