Imagine for a second that you’re the head of a secular authoritarian regime in the Middle East. The West is pressuring you to liberalize your political system, but elections are bringing to power grassroots Islamist groups who are looking to take you out of power. The root of this, you realize, could always be due to your terrifying rule of oppression, but of course that would be impossible. Simply unbelievable. I mean, who doesn’t love you, RIGHT?

But nonetheless, you’re shitting your pants at the prospect of overthrow by Islamists, whether violently or democratically.

Lucky for you, Muslims across the Islamic world are rioting because of a couple of mediocre cartoons depicting Mohammed. What is a secular dictator to do? It’s time to brandish your Islamic credentials, that’s what! By doing so, you can take the attention off of you, and focus it on the Western enemy; those (gasp) alcohol drinking yankees who insist on freedom of the press.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Perfect.

In order to do this, you decide to take example from other secular leaders in the region. For example..

– The government of Pakistan has pleased its masses by banning European drugs.

– Syria, who was complicit in allowing rioters to burn several embassies in their country and who helped facilitate the same in Lebanon.

– You could go the way of the mullahs — though not exactly secular — and cut off all trade with Denmark and threaten cutting it off to all European countries. Not to mention build a nuclear bomb.

– Or just be like every other over-reacting country in the Islamic world and boycott all Danish goods.

– Hey, even the pro-Moscow puppet government of Chechnya is getting in on the action, by banning humanitarian organizations from Denmark.

*****
The dictators in the Middle East don’t give a damn that some newspaper in Denmark printed some cartoons depicting Mohammed. The reason they are condemning them is because it is politically popular. With the Muslim Brotherhood scoring 1/4 of the seats in Egypt’s parliamentary elections and stirring opposition in Syria, Hamas coming to power in Palestine, Islamists taking many of the municipal council seats in Saudi Arabia, and a religious Shia party ruling Iraq, secular autocrats in the region are scared to death that their once invulnerable police states might be coming to an end. Likewise, Western nations are afraid that they’ll be replaced with something much more fanatical.

The result is a sort of ideological schizophrenia. Though, in a large sense, these men are not motivated by ideology but instead money and power. They are not deeply religious or enamored with the ideals of democracy; they are holding elections to please the United States while subsequently flaming Islamism. The dual goals that this accomplishes is keeping the favor of Western governments due to their fear of radical Islamists while potentially raising their own domestic popularity in the face of obliterated economic conditions and corruption. Any political gains will only be short-term, but the long-term effects of this brandishing of Islamic credentials is a rift between the free world and the world we’re trying to free.