"Sam Harris: I’d vote for ‘dangerously deluded religious imbecile’ Ben Carson over Noam Chomsky"

[onager]

5. A lot more to it than that.

Let's not forget the tendency for Middle Eastern despots to seek help from the most fanatical of their followers, then try to throw those same followers under the bus once they seize power. No Western imperialism required.

Saudi Arabia is a prime example. When Abdul Aziz bin Saud was trying to take over the country, he allied with the Ikhwan Army; a/k/a "The White Terror," who thought Saud and his Wahhabis were just too liberal on religion. They wanted a REAL Islamic govt., with them in charge.

That was a close call. Saud finally defeated them with machine guns helpfully provided by the British. Who weren't much inclined to help him, since Saud had totally screwed up their plans to take over the Arabian peninsula and install their own puppet (as they did with the Hashemite rulers in Jordan and Iraq). It was also helpful that the Ikhwan Army seems to have learned their tactics from Gen. Haig in WWI - get on line and bravely charge the machine guns until all of you are dead.

Nasser did the same thing with Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They forged an alliance to kick out the British. When al-Banna realized Nasser wasn't going to establish a "pure" Islamic Republic of Egypt after the 1952 Revolution, the Brotherhood tried to take over the govt. Al-Banna was executed.

Weirdly, his brother Gamal al-Banna was the exact opposite - a liberal Muslim who fought his whole life for separation of mosque and state. And a staunch feminist. He died in 2013 at the age of 92.