Today we discuss the beginnings of the modern Middle East and the underlying causes of the conflicts which afflict it today. From the end of World War I until the present day, the world has looked drastically different then it had for all of human history. The world that had previously been ruled almost entirely by absolute monarchs was coming into the age of democracy. Former empires were crumbling and the trend of decolonization was beginning. In The Middle East, new nations were forming but under the yolk of European power, Muslim unity was forever stymied.
THE PARTITIONING THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE BIRTH OF NEW NATION STATES
After WWI, the trend imposed on the losers was a dismantling of their empires. While the Austrians and Germans took losses under this policy, the Ottomans suffered the most dramatically. While Sharif Hussain was intent on a unified state, the Entente had other ideas. The European powers had worked for centuries to curtail Ottoman dominance. With their defeat in the war, an opportunity was presented to restructure Ottoman territories in a way that would benefit European imperial ambitions.
Control of the Mediterranean Sea/Red Sea trading routes to India and access to the oil, thought to lie underground, were of paramount importance to the British and French victors (Russia was largely left out due to the pre-occupation at home with the creation of the Soviet Union). In addition to the economic benefit that the control of the region would provide, western powers also sought to limit the military and political strength of their Muslim advisories so that any conflict could be easily resolved without protracted war. Before the war had even ended, British and French Diplomats, Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot met to partition the lands of Mesopotamia and Syria. They are famous for drawing a straight line across much of the region with a complete disregard for any of the ancient or new found ethnic, tribal, and religious differences along the bisections of which there were many.
After cutting the region in half, the powers began to proclaim new states. The historic domain of Syria, also known as the Levant was decimated. Lebanon, consisting of a large population of Maronite Christians (longtime French allies) was made its own country for the first time. The country that we know as Syria today came into being after the bisection of its historic boundaries and the removal of Lebanon from its domain. The Hashemite family of Arabia, the leaders of the Arab revolt and British Allies, were given a territory in the Levant, another new nation, Trans-Jordan. Ruled by King Abdullah, this state would become the nation of Jordan in 1948 when the British withdrew. On the western side of the Jordan River, the British Mandate of Palestine came to be. While the people who lived in this land were ethnically the same as the people of Jordan, the creation of the mandate, and the struggles that followed allowed Palestinian nationalism to emerge. The last new state directly created by the British is Iraq which was also given to a Hashemite ruler, Faisal.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a nation state as "a form of political organization in which a group of people who share the same history, traditions, or language live in a particular area under one government”. The so-called “nation states” that emerged after WWI defy this definition in more ways than one. First, many people living in different nations are ethnically similar. The aforementioned Jordanian-Palestinian divide illuminates this, so too does the failure of the Allies to create a Kurdish state, instead placing Kurds into four separate countries. Second of all, many of the states that formed incorporated many different people into them. Sunnis, Shias, Christians, and Jews existed in the same states while Arab, Kurds, and Turks intermingled. Tribal difference also divided these early nations. All of these identities continue to challenge central rule up to the modern day and illuminate the fact that although The Allies may have sought to create nation states, in reality, they only upheld failed states.
The Sykes-Picot agreement overlaid modern boarders
(9)
The Turks, led my Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, led a revolution which drove foreign invaders out of Anatolia. Eventually, Ataturk declared the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and proceeded to abolish the caliphate in 1924, much to the dismay of the Sunni Muslim world. For over one thousand years, a caliph had, in theory, reigned over Muslims everywhere yet in one act, Ataturk ended this tradition. The borders proclaimed in 1923 match those of today. Ataturk went on to reform the country as its first president into a secular republic which strove to identify closer to Europe than to the Middle East(until recently). The abolition of the caliphate as well as the creation of new nation states for western control ended the status quo of de facto Muslim unity and pushed the Middle East into a period of secularism.
At the same time as the partition was coming to fruition, a new force was brewing in Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, the founder and first King of Saudi Arabia. Having lost the kingdom twice before, Ibn Saud sought to renew Saudi greatness. Guided by the principles of Wahhabism and with an Islamist fundamentalist army at his disposal, he conquered the lands of the Hejaz from the (nominally western supported) Hashemites and Nejd in central Arabia later combining them to proclaim the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This type of clan warfare provides a microcosm for greater identity crisis' currently facing much of the Arabian population. As custodian of the two holy places of Mecca and Medina, the Saudi monarchy has played an important role in modern Muslim rituals and practices. The kingdom went from being one of the poorest in the world to one of the richest almost overnight with the discovery of oil in the Eastern province of the country in 1938. Since Ibn Saud's formation of the kingdom in 1932, there have been six additional monarchs, each a son of the founder of the kingdom.
Dr. Fawaz Gerges, the director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics explained the partition plan of the British and French in the most concise way possible: "They created the contemporary Arab world, they played God and produced mutilated entities that almost a century later are coming apart.".
THE BIRTH OF POLITICAL ZIONISM
For many years under the Ottoman Empire Jewish people from Europe had been immigrating to the land that would become Mandatory Palestine. The belief that God had promised this land to the Jewish people encouraged this movement while threats of violence and persecution in Europe motivated families to flee. The Ottomans allowed the settlement of these people and they were able to buy land out from under its residents from absentee landlords. The Jews in Palestine came to build communities as well as a national identity. The belief in Jewish nationalism came to be known as Zionism.
During WWI in 1917, the British foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour issued a letter to British Zionist leaders saying the following:
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
As discussed in the previous section, Arabian unity had been trounced by French and British partition plans and the Arabs began to fear outside forces as attacks on their way of life. Arabs in Palestine protested British involvement and believed (correctly, as it would turn out) that the British would allow an independent Jewish state to exist if their number and influence grew high enough. The Arab revolts against the mandate in 1936-39 should thus be seen not only as an attack on fledgling Jewish communities but on the wider issue of imperialism imposed by the British. This revolt inspired the Jews to begin secretly arming themselves and forming militias culminating in their own acts of violence against the local population as well as the British occupiers. This period came to be known as the Jewish Insurgency in Palestine. These competing acts of resistance and the failure of the imperialists to find a solution in their infancy has laid the groundwork for a Palestinian (rather than general Arab) national identity and has caused tension all throughout the region up to the present day.
Before the outbreak of WWII, British officials, tired of policing the mandate, suggested that Palestine become a country ruled by Arabs with intermingled populations. Some historians (and myself) believe this plan was announced to drum up Arab support against Hitler in WWII but was of course, wholly rejected by the Jews as well as many Arab states who viewed Palestine as a part of their realm (namely Syria and Jordan). At any rate, after the atrocities committed against the Jews by Hitler, talk of anything less than a national home for the Jews was met with opposition. In 1947, The UN called for a partition plan hoping to solve the conflict with a two-state solution. Tensions between the local Arabs and Jews developed into a civil war. When the British left the mandate in May 1948, Israel declared it's sovereignty and was immediately invaded by the nations of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. These nations, while united under the banner of the newly established Arab League were not united in their goals with each trying to further their own national interests so, while initially outnumbering the Israelis they were defeated.
As a result of the war, Israel gained direct control of the area appointed to them by the UN as well as more than half of the appointed Arab areas and West Jerusalem. The remaining Arab lands on the west bank of the Jordan River were annexed by Transjordan while the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt. Perhaps the bigger shift was what happened to the populations of Palestine. Around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were forced from their homelands becoming refugees while around the same amount of Jewish people from all over the region immigrated to the new state of Israel. The Arab League had failed to unite its member nations together and the war served only to expose the competing interests of the new countries.
Palestine before and after the 1948 War of Independence. The large grey area near Jerusalem is the West Bank while the smaller grey area is the Gaza Strip
(10)
ARAB NATIONALISM
In the rest of the Arab world, tensions were high and the new states struggled to find their (made up) nationhood. The Sykes-Picot agreement had disastrous effects from the onset. There were movements, military coups, wars, and elections over the decades that followed WWI and the exit of the European powers. Most of the power structures put into place by the Europeans were overthrown with the notable exception of Jordan which maintains the monarchy to this day. The new trend that prevailed in the Arab world was that of Arab Nationalism, a move to the left for Arabs as they tried to unite based on their shared heritage, pushing Islamic doctrine to a secondary concern. Arabian opposition to the state of Israel, seen as a foreign occupier in Arab lands, and their distrust of Western governments acted as a springboard for early unity.
Gamel Abdel Nasser
(11)
Notable among the nationalists was Gamal Abdel Nasser, a military leader in Egypt who successfully overthrew the British-backed government and rid the country of Western influence before taking power in 1952. Nasser was the first true Egyptian to rule Egypt since the time of the Pharaohs. He is a highly disputed historical figure who was at least partially responsible for the short success of secular nationalism in the Middle East. Nasser is perhaps most famous as the victor in the Suez crisis wherein he successfully nationalized the Suez canal in Egypt, ridding the countries most important waterway of western control and hastening the process of decolonization across the region. He held a series of meetings in Cairo to try and find common ground between Arab leaders believing that a union of Arab nations, traditionally known as Pan-Arabism, would allow them to stand up to The West by essentially undoing Sykes-Picot, furthering their own agendas, and doing the best for their people. When Egypt joined for a short time in a union with Syria in 1958, Arab unity reached its disappointing apex.
Unfortunately for Nasser, not all Arab states subscribed to his vision. Notably, the installed monarchy in Jordan and the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia viewed secular nationalism as a detriment to their right to rule. Palestine too proved a problem for Nasser as their nascent nationalism drove a wedge in his Pan-Arab plans. The ongoing Cold War involved the US and USSR in this discussion with the US backing the monarchical Saudi Arabia and Jordan while the USSR favored the fledgling socialist states of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq (newly socialist after a coup).
From the birth of the secular nation state of Turkey and the abolition of the caliphate up to the present, religious leaders across Arabia have preached against modernization, favoring a return to Islamic times when people were united not by their nationhood but by the principles of Islam. The rise in power of fundamentalist groups throughout that time also strangled Arab attempts at unity.
In 1967, Israel preemptively struck Nasser's Egypt who had, along with other Arab countries denounced Israel, sought to incorporate Palestine into his union with Syria, and amassed troops near the Israeli border. This was seen as a threat. The Egyptian air force was pretty much destroyed via surprise air strikes overnight while over the next six days the armies of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq were beaten back in what went down as a humiliating failure in the first real test of Pan-Arab nationalism. The Arab nations failure to dismantle the Israeli state led to the collapse of Arab unity and later, the era of sectarian politics that we now find ourselves in. The Arab League that exists today is the last bastion of Arab Unity but is ineffective in uniting the so-called "Arab Street" and faces the same problems and divisions as the larger United Nations.
Israel took hold of the remaining Arab lands within the former mandate of Palestine including all of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip, along with acquiring the Golan heights from Syria, and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. This period, which many argue still exists to the present day has been called the Israeli occupation of Palestine since there has been no fully recognized Palestinian state present since this time.
Israel swelled in size following the six day war
(12)
CONTINUED CONFLICT IN PALESTINE
On the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur in 1973, the Arab nations of Egypt and Syria entered the Israeli areas of The Sinai and Golan Heights respectively in a surprise attack seeking a return of these areas to their domains. Israel, while initially overwhelmed again reigned supreme over the Arab attacks. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was praised by the wider Arab world for a time due to his reclamation of a part of the Sinai. However, this popularity would not last long. In 1978, Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords, a secret peace proposal arranged by the Jimmy Carter administration which led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. The first peace established between an Arab nation and Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for its demilitarization and a normalization of relations between the nations. Both leaders were awarded a share of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, Sadat the first Muslim recipient. Although this peace is generally seen as a great success in The West, many in the Arab world rejected it and in 1981 Sadat was assassinated by members of the Islamist terror group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
In 1987, a Palestinian uprising, the Intifada called for a final solution to the occupation. Yasser Arafat, the leader most Palestinians recognized came to negotiate a release by Jordan of the land in the West Bank. Upon agreement, Arafat declared Palestinian independence in 1988 at the same time, formally recognizing Israel. In doing this, the Palestinians effectively agreed to the UN plan for a two-state solution however Israel did not recognize Arafat's government and refused to accept the new state of Palestine. Since 1967, the borders of Israel have been disputed by the international community and Israeli presence in the West Bank continues to cause tension between Arabs and Israelis.
IRANIAN REVOLUTION
In Persia after WWI, the Anglo-Iranian oil company (later becoming BP, which was founded on a concession given by the Persian government to British industrialists due to its failing economy) allowed the power and wealth of the shah of Iran and his British buddies to grow as the average citizen of Iran (renamed in 1935) continued to live in poverty. During WWII, Iran was briefly occupied by British and Soviet forces who deposed the monarch in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was seen as more pro-western. Iran, a constitutional monarchy elected Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister in 1951. Mossadegh was very popular with his people due to his kept promises of helping the poor and, most significantly, nationalizing the petroleum industry, giving the citizens a share.
While Iranians favored these policies, the shah, and his western allies felt threatened and in 1953 Mossadegh was overthrown in a (not so) secret US and British operation. The shah became even more heavy handed and the people suffered as a result of heavy inflation. An outspoken Shia Ayatollah (expert in religious law and philosophy) Ruhollah Khomeini became a famous critic of the shah as well as the western governments who supported him. He was imprisoned and then exiled for more than 5 years but became a symbol of resistance in Iran.
Khomeini
(13)
Khomeini sent letters and envoys urging Iranians to oppose the government and demand a return of Shia Islamic values as the rule of the land. As protests and strikes became more frequent, the shah implemented martial law, killing dissidents in the streets. The public would not give up however and the shah was forced out of the country. Khomeini returned and in 1979 created the Islamic Republic of Iran, a semi-democratic government with a president and legislature and a supreme leader chosen from among the religious elite. Since the time of Cyrus, Iran had lived under autocratic rule. Khomeini's revolution changed that. Seeking to sweep revolution across the whole Muslim world, Khomeini appealed to the Arabian hatred of Israel. The United States' backing of the autocrat, as well as its support for Israel, made them Khomeini's first rival. Shortly after the revolution, a group of students seized control of the American Embassy in Tehran and held 52 American hostages for over a year. Khomeini asked that the US return the shah to Iran in exchange for the hostages but was denied. The shah ended up dying of cancer in 1980 while the hostages were still in Iran. While Jimmy Carter struggled first with diplomacy and later with a rescue mission (the first official US military involvement in the region) to free the hostages, they were officially withdrawn from Iran mere moments after Ronald Reagan took office, a diplomatic insult to the Carter administration. The irony of all the rhetoric against Iran by The West is that Iran is the only nation in the region with a functioning, though somewhat flawed, democratic system yet stands at odds with so many nations and their “freedom agenda”.
IRAN-IRAQ WAR
Iran's neighbor, Iraq has a sizable Shia majority but was ruled by Saddam Hussein, a ruthless mostly secular but Sunni Arab dictator who oppressed the Shia and barred them from government positions. Saddam's political party, the Ba'ath was a blend of Arab nationalism and socialism spanning Iraq and Syria. Syria's current president, Bashar al-Assad is a member although, due to his allegiance to Iran (Assad belongs to a sub-sect of Shiism) he and Saddam rarely saw eye to eye. Saddam was concerned that Iran's revolution would spread into his country where Iranian sympathizers numbered high. On September 22, 1980, with the spiritual and monetary support of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Egypt, Saddam invaded Iran beginning the long and extremely bloody Iran-Iraq war. Iran, which had a much larger population possessed a weak regular army and outdated equipment while Iraq had the latest technology and a well-trained fighting force. Khomeini appealed to young people energized from the revolution to conduct "human wave attacks" wherein large numbers of mostly unarmed volunteers would run across the battlefield with the intent of reaching the Iraqi battle line, causing chaos and decreasing Morale for their enemies. Thousands of people died in these attacks but they set a dangerous precedent for the Muslim world as these men were seen as martyrs for Islam, some even given plastic keys to unlock the gates of heaven. These attacks were in no small part the inspiration for suicide bombing attacks regularly employed in the region specifically by the Iranian counterpart in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Iraq's "defense" came via chemical weapons, used throughout the war to kill thousands of Iranians and, in the wars final days, to gas the native Kurdish population as part of the genocide carried out by Saddam's Iraq.
Following the nearly ten-year war, the bloodiest regional conflict in modern history, it seemed that little had changed. Iran remained a theocratic state while Saddam maintained his dictatorial status. If the war accomplished anything it was deepening the divide between Sunnis and Shias. Sunni Muslims came to support Arabian doctrine more and called upon their leaders to protect their faith from the Shias who they viewed as heretics owing their loyalty to Iran rather than Islam. To their credit, many Shias did, in fact, feel an affinity for Iran and revolution. Across the world and particularly in Iraq, the Shias felt ostracized by their countrymen and looked to Iran for spiritual and political inspiration while they continued to lie in wait for their appointed time. This turned out to be closer than they could have ever guessed.
LEBANON, THE VICTIM OF CHANGING TIMES
Lebanon has had a difficult history both for the people living within its borders and the people who study it. To begin, we start with a group that would find itself in Lebanon after being removed from its home. The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO for short was created in 1964 for the "liberation of Palestine through armed struggle" and was led most notably by Yasser Arafat. Recognized as a terror group by most of the world but as a band of freedom fighters by some, their place in history is heavily disputed. The PLO, having no control over the West Bank after the 1967 war with Israel, operated mainly from Jordan. The stream of refugees from Palestine diluted the Jordanian population and threatened the Hashemite monarchy. Attacks by Israel on the PLO caught Jordanians in the crossfire. After attempts on the king's life by Palestinian militants, the Jordanian army expelled the PLO from the country, killing thousands in the process. In response, the PLO shifted to Lebanon while a splinter group planned a violent attack culminating in the murder of nine Israeli athletes at The Olympics in Munich in 1972. This movement badly tarnished the PLO's already violent reputation.
One only needs to glance at this map to understand how a 15 year war could rock Lebanon.
(14)
The PLO's new home in Lebanon was probably the most diversely populated state to be established after WWI. Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims made up the majority of the north while Shias constituted the vast majority of the southern half of the country. The Christians had, at the behest of their European friends, held most of the political power. Tensions were high before the arrival of the PLO but exploded after their entrance. In the south, Shias rallied around the new militia, Amal, which was led by a cleric of Iranian origin. In the north, the western supported Maronite Christians and right wing politicians sought to maintain their dominance. Arab Nationalists and leftists most likely allied with the Soviet Union also wanted their own slice of the pie. The displacement of Palestinians tilted the balance in favor of leftists. The arrival of the PLO served as the spark that ignited the very short fuse of Lebanese stability.
Foreign powers would come to dominate the struggle seeking a solution which would further their own best interest. First, Syria intervened on the side of the Christians. Fearing that a partitioned Lebanon would leave a wholly Christian state as Syria's neighbor was alarming as was the growing trend of Palestinian nationalism in traditionally Syrian areas. Syria opposed the PLO's takeover of Lebanon and preferred that the normal order resume. Syria began to act as a "peacekeeping" force throughout Lebanon however their intentions were not all altruistic. As many believe, Syria sought to take the area for itself. Peace, however, did not come and in 1978, after more than a year of PLO attacks into Israel from South Lebanon, Israel invaded. After withdrawing at the behest of the UN, Israel was provoked by an assassination attempt and again invaded in 1982, this time coming to besiege Beirut, a bombardment which was so brutal in its scope, world opinion briefly turned against Israel. Even President Ronald Reagan, a staunch supporter of Israel called the attacks “unfathomable and senseless”. The PLO eventually caved and agreed to leave Lebanon.
A coalition of American, Italian, British, and French forces entered hoping to keep the peace in Beirut and supervise the withdrawal of PLO fighters. After the coordinated withdrawal, US forces were again inserted into Lebanon for more nebulous “peacekeeping” activities. Peace did not come and these western peacekeepers were increasingly understood by many of the local population to be in Lebanon only to do Israel’s bidding. Leftist militias came to attack the US forces who, after allying themselves with the Lebanese government, were seen more and more as a belligerent in the war. Tensions between the US and the rebellion exploded with the suicide bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. Escalation by the US followed as they became just another faction in the multi-sided war.
In the south, while Amal had the support of many Shias, a new group funded and trained by Iran would come to fully drive the invaders out. Hezbollah, the Shia suicide squad won the ultimate victory for Southern Lebanese Shias; the withdrawal of Israel and western powers from their land. After a suicide attack on the multinational force’s compound by Hezbollah on October 23, 1983, which claimed the lives of 241 American and 58 French forces, the west finally realized that there was no peace left to keep and in early 1984 left Lebanon. Although the civil war officially ended in 1990 after 15 and a half years of fighting, Israel remained until being pushed out by Hezbollah in 2000. Hezbollah grew into a strong political movement which came to overshadow Amal and cement Iranian influence in Lebanese politics up to the present day. The attacks on the west and their subsequent withdrawal left jihadists with another example of the success of insurgency.
The details of the sectarian fighting are difficult to explain in concise terms but perhaps the easiest way to sum up the conflict is that Lebanon fought its civil war at the worst possible time. As the PLO and Israel's most heated exchanges took place, The United States and the Soviet Union fought for control of the World and the 1979 revolution in Iran furthered the split between Sunnis and Shias. All of these world events came to a head at once in Lebanon, the sad victim of a globalized world and the precursor for sectarian violence throughout the region.
RISE OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM AND SECTARIANISM
Rising oil prices from 1974 on allowed Saudi Arabia to amass a great deal of wealth and to expand its patronage of fundamental Sunni/ Wahhabi Islam worldwide. The tide of secular nationalism was largely ignored by the Saudis who's state sponsored religion conveniently made it illegal to criticize the royal family or ruling doctrine. The Saudis, looking to grow their influence and protect their self-interests founded religious schools at home which foreign students flocked to in protest of a secular world, the military disappointments against Israel, and socio-economic injustice. After finishing their educations, these students dispersed as acolytes for Wahhabism to the far reaches of the Muslim world. Wahhabism teaches a strict us vs. them ideology in which anyone who did not subscribe (even other Muslims) should not be accepted and in certain cases, should be killed. The spread of Saudi-Wahhabi Influence advanced into militarized action as a containment tool for Soviet aggression in Afghanistan and Iran's revolutionary practices. What developed was an intricate network of fundamentalist Islamic groups across the Middle East and South Asia.
In Pakistan through the 1980s and 90s, construction of religious schools along the border with Iran funded by Saudi Arabia allowed increasing numbers of people to gain knowledge of radical Wahhabi ideas. A bloody proxy war broke out between Sunni Deobandi fundamentalists and the Shia population, the second largest in the World after Iran. Encouraged by the Saudis, the Deobandi were organized into youth movements and were able to remove many Shias from power. This uprising was seen as another containment tool for Iranian influence which was gaining ground in Pakistan. Shias were slaughtered by the thousands and the country was thrown into chaos.
Along the backdrop of this civil strife, Saudi Arabia and the United States funneled money into Pakistan. With the help of a Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, the US and Saudi Arabia trained guerrilla fighters to oppose the Soviets and Marxist Afghans gaining prominence in the north. Arabs from several countries traveled to Pakistan in order to take part in this jihad (holy struggle). These so-called Afghan Arabs included the now infamous Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was an extremely wealthy Saudi who helped the cause by creating his own recruitment center and training soldiers through his group, al-Qaeda (the base). Afghanistan became, like Lebanon, a tragic victim of its location during drastically changing times.
With the defeat of the Soviets in 1989 and their final disintegration shortly after, these jihadi groups saw themselves as true warriors for Islam who had brought a godless empire to its knees. Secular nationalism had failed to destroy the tiny state of Israel but Islamic jihadism had defeated a superpower. A dangerous precedent of "stateless governments" had begun. The Jihadists returned home, emboldened by their victory to take over the Arab world from the heretics that ruled it.
A new Islamic State of Afghanistan was created by a power-sharing agreement which limited the centralized authority of the new government. Immediate sectarian violence broke out funded again by the opposing forces of Saudi Arabia and Iran in order to try and sway power in their direction. The government was unable to quell the violence. In 1994, a new group previously unknown to much of the World, the Taliban began conquering areas of the now drastically weakened Afghanistan. The continued flow of money by Saudi Arabia into Pakistan enabled the formation and growth of the group while help and training from ISI bolstered the Taliban's organization. After a period of fighting, they attacked the capital, Kabul, taking it in 1996. After declaring “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, the Taliban continued to expand its influence until it was the dominant ruling faction in the country. Today, we recognize the Taliban as the hosts of al-Qaeda who together were the enemies the US faced in Afghanistan and the global war on terror.
Western powers largely ignored Saudi efforts to build up radical Sunni fundamentalist groups throughout the 1980s and 90s. It was revolutionary Iran and their suicide-crazed Hezbollah counterparts that threatened Israel, preached collectivism, and frightened Americans. In contrast, the largely Arab, Sunni Mujahadeen in Afghanistan stood against communism and contained Iran. The era of Taliban governance had begun in Afghanistan yet the United States remained allied with the perpetrators, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.