{"id":26408,"date":"2014-06-19T08:25:49","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T13:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26408"},"modified":"2014-06-19T08:25:49","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T13:25:49","slug":"the-islamic-version-of-the-thirty-years-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/06\/19\/the-islamic-version-of-the-thirty-years-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Islamic version of the Thirty Years’ War"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most destructive wars in Europe ran from 1618 to 1648 and involved the repeated devastation of much of central Europe. The term “Thirty Years’ War” is a convenient term for the series of overlapping and interlinked conflicts between and among the combatants originally religious in nature (Protestant versus Catholic) and later becoming more of a struggle for political control (Wikipedia<\/em>‘s entry<\/a> covers most of the issues).<\/p>\n

In the Spectator<\/em>, Douglas Murray<\/a> says this is a good model to help us understand what is happening right now in the middle east:<\/p>\n

Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa\u2019eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting once again to fragment. Beneath all these facts \u2014 beneath all the explosions, exhortations and blood \u2014 certain themes are emerging.<\/p>\n

Some years ago, before the Arab \u2018Spring\u2019 ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region. What, I wondered, was their single biggest fear? The answer was striking and precise: \u2018That the region will clarify.\u2019 That is a fear which now appears to be coming true.<\/p>\n

The Middle East is not simply falling apart. It is taking a different shape, along very clear lines \u2014 far older ones than those the western powers rudely imposed on the region nearly a century ago. Across the whole continent those borders are in the process of cracking and breaking. But while that happens the region\u2019s two most ambitious centres of power \u2014 the house of Saud and the Ayatollahs in Iran \u2014 find themselves fighting each other not just for influence but even, perhaps, for survival.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

There are those who think that the region as a whole may be starting to go through something similar to what Europe went through in the early 17th century during the Thirty Years\u2019 War, when Protestant and Catholic states battled it out. This is a conflict which is not only bigger than al-Qa\u2019eda and similar groups, but far bigger than any of us. It is one which will re-align not only the Middle East, but the religion of Islam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Over the last decade, many people have “explained” the unsettled and unstable situation among the various middle eastern Islamic states by pointing out that Islam never went through the sort of wrenching religious\/political upheaval like the Protestant Reformation<\/a> in Europe. We may actually be seeing this process live right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most destructive wars in Europe ran from 1618 to 1648 and involved the repeated devastation of much of central Europe. The term “Thirty Years’ War” is a convenient term for the series of overlapping and interlinked conflicts between and among the combatants originally religious in nature (Protestant versus Catholic) and later becoming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[370,5,53,11],"tags":[387,333,47,694],"class_list":["post-26408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east","category-military","category-politics","category-religion","tag-alqaeda","tag-iraq","tag-islam","tag-syria"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6RW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26409,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26408\/revisions\/26409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}