The Coming (or continuing) WWIII?

Great Debates
1

Are we currently fighting WWIII? This is not so much nation -vs- nation as it is beliefs -vs- beliefs. Or lack of beliefs for that matter. In Europe alone you have a good size Muslim population. With these recent cartoon events showing the intergration of the Muslim population as a subset of the nation, showing more loyalty to the religion then the nation. What does this mean for the future of Europe?
There are many nations with large Muslim populations some of the nations with the largest percentage of Muslims are

*  Bahrain
* Comoros
* Kuwait
* Maldives
* Mauritania
* Mayotte
* Morocco
* Oman
* Qatar
* Somalia
* Saudi Arabia
* Tunisia
* United Arab Emirates
* Western Sahara
* Yemen

With statistically 95% or more of the population being Muslim.

The largest population of Muslim’s are from
NATION # OF MUSLIMS
Indonesia 170,310,000
Pakistan 136,000,000
Bangladesh 106,050,000
India 103,000,000
Turkey 62,410,000
Iran 60,790,000
Egypt 53,730,000
Nigeria 47,720,000
China 37,108,000

There is an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world.

If you give an estimate of just 2% of the worlds Muslims being fanatical, or not moderate. Those numbers are still staggering. That would mean in the world there would be 32 million Muslim’s that are fanatical.

The problem the non-Muslim nations would have would be differentiating between the moderates and the fanatics in a borderless war. Is this a war anyone can win, with combat or is this a war that needs to be fought with public pressure?
You will have nations in Europe that will have to fight a battle from within if it turns into a combat war, and many nations in Europe could potentially fall into disarray to the Muslim minority. The nations with the most likely battle from, with the percentage of Muslim’s in that nation.

MACEDONIA 30%
FRANCE 8-9.6% (And the recent Muslim youth riots that where hard to contain where a foreshadowing of this)
BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA 40%
ALBANIA 70%

I added France here, not because of the an extremely high percentage of Muslims, because there is not, but because of the rioting of a few months ago. That to me showed the Muslim population in France as a volatile population.
If in fact this becomes a combat war, what can the world expect, my possible scenerio is below. And then I will go into the other option that I see for the world to do. I am not advocating any option, nor can one assume these are the best or only scenerio’s for the future. Nor am I going to say the outcomes, as I do not believe the outcomes can be known or even guessed at, at this stage.
Scenerio I

As the fanatical Muslim population becomes more and more emboldened by the rioting and the ability to change some policy by doing so, they start pressuring more nations with a minority Muslim population for concessions based on Sharia law. In France they start rioting to remove the no religious symbols in school law. France in turn treats it like the last rioting and tries to isolate it. The extremist Muslims begin another “cartoon” controversy to cause the France problem to escalate. The EU offers help to France and other EU nations that are having population riots.
This causes a Muslim backlash in predominate Muslim nations. As it is shown on Al-Jeezera and other Muslim press to be an assault on Muslims. American soldiers in Iraq are under more attacks, news crews from non-Muslim nations are being pulled out of nations as kidnapping and murder of non-Muslims increase. Iran begins more sabre rattling, as many Muslim’s look to it as the last stronghold in the fight against non-Muslim people. Iran’s mullahs call for Jihad against the EU, and the USA. As embassies burn, UN personal are attacked in various area’s. The UN calls an emergency meeting that condemns the worldwide outbreak of violence.
The moderate Muslim leaders calls for calm are not heard over the extremists calls for action. As Iran threatens to use force to remove the Americans from Iraq, the UN sanctions Iran on the nuclear programs. Muslim nations vow to break the sanctions and continue trade with Iran.
What happens next? No clue.

Scenerio II

With this violence spreading, over the cartoon and other issues. The Muslim press bows to pressure from the moderate Muslim’s and shows a more favorable view of the western world. Basically shutting off the voices of the extermists making it harder for that voice to be heard. What happens next? No clue.
Really either scenerio will be flawed, as to be impossible in the real world. But the premise is simple, everyone, needs to identify the problem and solve it by the easiest, least costly method (both monetary and body counts) available.
The moderate Muslim’s, cannot allow the minority extremists to shape the worlds view of them. But to stop that, they need the help of the press. The press is showing the effects of the rioting, but very little of the anti-rioting Muslim crowd. Which is leading to a tunnel vision of the actual scope of this problem.
I can see Iran, very easily using the recent events to try to rally the Muslims to there side (which has started with the cutting of ties with Denmark) they could very easily be seen by less well informed Muslims as the only nation willing to stand up for them. And we as a people cannot allow that to happen. Since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has grandstanded in the press to get that designation. And it is working. From threatening Israel, to denying the holocaust, to standing up to nuclear inspections. They are showing the extremist factions of Islam that they are behind everything they stand for.
The other “great” nations that can become involved, will undoubtedly be worried to be seen as anti-Muslim as they have large populations of Muslims that can wreck havoc from the inside out. That is why this is a battle without a border. China with a conservative estimate of 37 million Muslim’s cannot be confident that they can become involved without some infighting. India with 103 million with ongoing dissent. This means some nations that should get involved, will not out of fear of population unrest.

What is the easiest method to change the course I believe we are on? I do not know, nor pretend to know. If the USA pulls out of Iraq will that solve the hatred? Or lead to more problems as the extremists spread to other nations in the cliche domino effect.
If Israel is forced to retreat to the original boundries will the Muslim extremists be content or will they continue to the end goal of no Israel whatsoever?
What can we do to satisfy the extremist Muslim? Better yet is there anything we can do? If the west pulls out of every Muslim nation, is that going to end this, or will they end up wanting more? These are the questions that I believe need answered before we can solve this potentially explosive situation.

I guess there is debate material in this post. But really what I want to know is what did I omit that could make this less deadly then I personally think it is. And debate and shred my scenerio’s as I would personally love to have that done for my own ability to sleep at night.

Sources

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4385768.stm

http://www.islamicpopulation.com/

2

I like this OP, it is very well constructed and I only have a few major questions to add to yours.

  1. How does the rest of India fit in to the pitcher, the Muslims are actually a minority in the country.
  2. How does Russia come into play. Still a major military force and oil producer.
  3. How does China play in, they may need the middle Eastern Oil more than anyone. They might side against the west or attempt a neutral position.

Jim

3

I have to say, I find the hysteria over what really is very minor rioting to be astonishing. Clearly the rioters have no real sense of perspective, but I’m beginning to think that we don’t have much sense of perspective either, at least where the Islamic world is concerned.

4

Perspective? Iran is no minnow in the bowl. And they are most certainly sabre rattling. You use the mostly moderate Muslims in the USA to base this on? I think the USA has done a better job making all a part of a nation. You’re correct though, as of right now it is a small minority of Muslims worldwide rioting, but it is stepping up. Going from riots over bigger problems to cartoons. If you cannot see a growing concern…

5

Where are you getting the 2% estimate? As far as I can tell, so far the total number of Muslim participants involved in violent or threatening acts over the “cartoon controversy” is somewhere in the tens of thousands.

That’s quite a lot too many for comfort, of course, but it’s still only a minute fraction of 32 million. Is this figure just an argumentum ab ano, or what are you basing it on?

6

Is this really just Islam vrs Everybody Else, or is it something bigger ? To me, we seem sliding towards a conflict of Christian/Islamic fundies vrs everybody and each other, secularists vrs the fundies, and the moderate religious getting pummeled in the middle. Plus, we have economic issues of rich vrs poor, corporations vrs the people, tradition vrs the future, and so on.

As I see it, there a lot of issues that the people in power have tried to ignore or use for their own purposes, and they seem to be coming to a collective boil. The radical Islam issue is a big part of it, but only part. Look as the growing power of the American religious right, for example.

7

No, and unless a whole lot of suicidal people take over a lot of Islamic countries, we’re not going to. I mean, you can pull a “2% of all Muslims” figure out of thin air, but even if there are a lot of religious nutjobs out there, there’s only a tiny portion willing to kill and die for their beliefs. There are, I think, 1 to 2 million Muslims in the US. If 2% of them wanted to start murdering people, we’d have a problem, but it’s obviously not the case. If 2% of the Muslims in any Western country wanted to blow themselves up, there would be a problem, but that’s not happening either.

While I’m sure Europe’s future with regard to Islam is complicated, and I wish I knew enough of the ins and outs of recent European history to identify that, I don’t see that turning into a war. Are we at war with Mexico? Some people say yes, but I don’t think that’s a point that even needs to be argued.

What? Are you suggesting people started these riots intentionally to cause trouble for France? That’s… interesting.

I’d like to respond in more depth, but you’re putting together involved scenarios and presuming so many things will happen that I don’t know where to start. It’s not that I’m calling your ideas dumb, I just don’t know how to argue with a series of hypothetical causes and effects.

For example, this is a hard question to answer when you don’t believe we’re on that course. As the Islamic world becomes more advanced technologically, and - I do think this will happen eventually, one way or another - gets wealthier and more democratic, some of these problems will be resolved.

If they left tomorrow, and of course they won’t, it wouldn’t solve the problem. There are deeper issues, and this problem is going to persist in various forms as long as there are divides beween Islam and the West, and enormous gulfs between rich and poor in Islamic countries (which leaders in those countries seem to be blaming on us).

The Palestinians will probably learn to deal with what they get, I think.

Read some history, Abbie. If your goal is satisfying fanatics, in the end, they’re going to take what they want and you’ll be left with bigger problems than you’d imagined.

8

I see this, in some way, as analogous to the war against Communism. The more we freak out, the more they freak out, and the more people end up getting killed. “Do not feed the trolls” is just as useful a concept in foreign policy as it is on a messageboard.

9

The basis for the 2% is as I thought I stated a guesstimate, nothing in there (except the raw numbers) is fact it is opinion. Sorry for not clarifying more.

And I would guess the numbers would be close to 2% just in the current state of affairs. It is not the people our rioting now that concern me, it is the ones who are laying in wait to do something terrible to those that published the cartoon.
I have no poll numbers to back me up, but if I would guess if there was a poll asked of Muslims in the Middle East the numbers would be higher then 2% and in Europe less then 2% sort of evening out to the 2% extremists. That could also include the ones who just side with the extremists, not acting on there views, yet.

As for the comment of the French/cartoon thing, that was not about this current situation, which I believe was manufactured by extremists to cause these problems. That was saying that if another muslim riot started in France I can see the extremists doing another cartoon riot. (Grasping at a minor infraction to incite hatred in the masses) to get that riot spread.

On preview I see Sal Ammoniac comments, and feel I should reply to this

There is nothing that causes more fervor then religion, (and not a religious debate) communism doesn’t come close. Where as you had (have) people fighting for freedoms in communist countries, in Muslim countries you have people fighting for less freedoms. When was the last time a Muslim led country collapsed from with-in and become something else? I recall it happened alot to Communist countries.
In Vietnam you had people willing to die for there NATION, in Afghanistan you had people willing to die for there religion. Huge difference, Muslims are not fighting to protect a country, they would fight to protect/expand there beliefs.
In scenerio II I seized on the do not feed the trolls, which right now are being fed by Muslim operated media. That does need to stop, and I am with hope that the moderates make it stop.

10

Consider briefly the story of the Sepoy Rebellion in India. The common narrative had it that this conflict start because the British military started coating amunition with cow and pig fat, which militia members had to bite off. The Hindus and Muslims in the local militia grew extremely pissed about having to put dead cow and pig in their mouths. Hence the revolt started.

This narrative, needless to say, is bullshit. The local populations were pissed about a century of social and economic repression, and attempts to dismantle Indian culture. The bullet issue was just a flash point, a spark that set off the powder keg.

Well, the same realization needs to be made right now. The rioters in Syria and Lebanon are not rioting because of a bunch of stupid cartoons. They are rioting because of the policies pursued by western nations. Chief among those policies being:

  1. Invading Iraq under false pretences, with the intention of setting up a puppet government more friendly to the West.

  2. Continuing to prop up the abusive dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab countries. Stationing troops in Saudi Arabia to knock down anyone who challenges the House of Saud.

  3. Continuing to support Israel.

  4. A history of arrogant meddling in Middle Eastern politics, stretching back over a hundred years.

The western nations could solve the problem by withdrawing all troops from the Arab world, ceasing to support the Sauds, and otherwise removing reasons for Arab anger. The rioting, and the underlying anger represented by that rioting, is not a Muslim issue. The Muslim population isn’t burning embassies in Mali, or in the Phillipines, or in India. Why? Because the USA and western Europe haven’t been fucking around in Mali and India and the Phillipines for the last fifty years.

11

But why does that number (2% of all Muslims or 32 million total) look plausible to you as an estimate of those who are “laying in wait” to commit violent acts? If fewer than 100,000 Muslims are even willing to go out to demonstrations and burn flags and so forth, why would we expect that there would be 32 million of them willing to commit murder?

I know you say it’s just a guess, but I’m trying to understand why it would seem like a plausible guess.

I presume you’re not talking about Muslim-led Muslim countries suddenly ceding leadership to non-Muslims, but about Islamist or theocratic Muslim regimes giving way to non-Islamist ones. Well, how about Kemal Ataturk’s internal reforms in Turkey in the 1920s and '30s, where he secularized the legal code and abolished the Caliphate? How about the Algerian crackdown on the electoral takeover by the Islamic Salvation Front in 1992? How about the secularization of Bangladesh in 1972 after its independence from Pakistan?

I’m not holding any of those governments up as models of the ideal secular government for a Muslim society, but I think they do basically fit your criteria of governments in Muslim societies that consciously became less Islamist.

12

But in India and the Philippines you do have Muslim discontent and problems. Not sure on Mali. Just because they are not “burning down embassies” does not mean they are not trying to tear down the government of those countries.
Basically you are saying the west pulls out of the Middle East, the Muslim extremists will go away? No more Al Qaeda intent on destroying the west? No more Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines? No more Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines? I fail to see how the west pulling out of the Middle East will quell the violence. If nothing else it would encourage more violence, House Of Saud falls, becomes a Caliphate, next door Iran, Iraq, all pretty rich still with oil. They will use that money to modernize? Not in my opinion that money would go to the Philippines etc. To expand the Muslim nation. And my outlook is just as realistic as yours is.

The only way I can see is getting the Muslim media to allow the moderates to express there views while stifling the extremist views. And then the world can pressure the House Of Saud to spread the wealth etc. Not the other way around.

13

When the rioting started it was in the thousands, then the tens of thousands then etc. Eventually the mob mentality of those supposed 2% takes over. Thats all I guessed it on. And as I stated in the OP I can be wrong, nothing I wrote was fact.
As for the examples you wrote, in the day, you did not have the Arab media really tearing down the west, and showing a one sided view to them. Now you do. Just as the US media was causing frothing in the mouth to go attack someone after 9/11 the Arab media is doing that same thing now.

14

Well, given that 95% of Mali’s population is Muslim, I doubt that they would describe themselves as having a “Muslim problem”.

The Indian Muslims are trying to “tear down” the government of India? Say what?!

AFAICT, the biggest problem involving Indian Muslims is that extremist Hindu groups keep provoking riots and killing them.

Keep those goalposts steady, champ. You asked “when was the last time” an Islamist-led society secularized its government, suggesting that you considered it feasible for Communist regimes but not for Islamist ones. I simply offered you some of the examples that you were asking for.

15

I give you Malodorous’s law of World War Determination, a simple test to determine if there is a World War ongoing.

The Law states: “If a rational person can hold that there is not a World War going on, then they are right”.

World Wars are not subtle things, can you imagine folks sitting down during the bombing of Dresden or the battle of the Somme and wondering if there was a war in progress? So if there is any rational debate about the existance of the world war, then there is in fact no world war.

A few bombed buildings and burned embassies, while tragic, are not equivalent to a world war.