Islam and Petroleum: An Old Alliance and its Future

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The collapse of the price of oil over the past few months has sent shockwaves through an already vulnerable global economy, slowing the ascent of China, threatening the recovery of America, and causing stock markets from London to Shenzhen to wobble precariously on their foundations. But surely no part of the world is more affected by fluctuations in the oil market than the Muslim Middle East, specifically the nations of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates of the Persian Gulf.

If the downward trajectory in oil prices continues for just a few more years, the economies of these countries will be plunged into crisis, their social order, military upkeep and political power undermined and potentially destroyed. And there is something else to consider in all this. Seeing as oil and Islam have been locked in a very profitable alliance for the past 50 years, what will this decline mean for the civilizational balance of power? Can Islam’s political and military ascendance survive the shock of a post-oil era?

Optimists imagine that without oil, states like Saudi and the UAE would be without influence in the world. Since their economies are based entirely on energy revenues, they reason, such countries would – in the case of an oil collapse – be reduced to the diplomatic grade of Burkina Faso or Zimbabwe. This is not entirely accurate. While it is certainly true that without oil the nations of the gulf will see a massive decline in standards of living, this will not necessarily mean the end of their mischief-making in world affairs. Saudi Arabia, to take a prominent case, has invested much of its gargantuan wealth in blue-chip Western companies – companies which will continue to reap the Saudi state considerable profit for as long as they are trading. The Saudis have also purchased an astonishing array and quantity of modern weaponry, including – according to some – nuclear missiles from Pakistan. This military power will in the short term (or with nuclear weapons, in the very long term) guarantee the country a louder voice than it deserves.

As for Iran, Saudi’s arch-enemy, the outlook is rosier in some respects, and murkier in others. Since the revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced the boycott of its energy industry by much of the developed world. This has meant that Iran’s state finances have remained in poor shape, and also that they haven’t managed to buy up stocks in Western companies to the extent that Saudi has. On the other hand, this long period of boycott has forced Iranians to build an economy unreliant on the energy sector – a post-oil economy, if you will – and this will give the country a very important head start in the rush to regional economic diversification. The same is also true of Iraq, which has until very recently functioned without a petroleum economy.

Taken overall, the Islamic world will only face a sub-regional decline in diplomatic power from the collapse of oil. Outside of the oil-producing area itself, many Islamic countries have high economic growth rates even without energy reserves – these include the nations of Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia, all of which also possess considerable military strength to increase their bargaining power. Thus, the collapse of oil will sink Islamic power in the short-term, only for the power lost to be replenished later in different places. Given that these places will be less extreme than Saudi and Iran, the prospect for a general moderation of Islam is very real, if hardly as curative as liberal commentators would have us believe.

Here in the modern world, the end of oil politics is surely something to celebrate. A nasty and corrupt stench is about to be cleared from the air. The Islam-Oil alliance, even in so brief a period as it has existed, wrought real damage on the world at large. It is directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks in America, as well as for the crippling of Western economies in the 1970s. It has perverted American and British politics, enriched soulless monarchs and dictators, and radicalised much of the Islamic world against its will.

Good riddance.

D, LDN

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The Islamic World isn’t Weak

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One of the biggest obstacles in trying to educate a typical Westerner about Islam is the common Western tendency to view Islam, the Islamic world and Muslims as being ‘weak’, ‘poor’ and ‘third world’. This is an obstacle because of human nature. Excluding some pathological extremes, nobody likes mocking or ganging up on the poor and the powerless. It offends human esteem and is considered little more than bullying.

But is the presumption really accurate in this case? Are Muslims and the Islamic World ‘weak’ or even ‘powerless’? The answer is absolutely not.

It is no exaggeration to say that in combined economic and military measures, the Islamic world is on a par with the EU, Russia, China or America. It is a superpower, able to absorb and respond to violence without any aid. Let’s look at some facts.

Nearly one in four human beings are Muslim. In the course of this century, that portion may creep closer to one third. There are more Muslims alive today than there are Han Chinese, Hindu Indians, or White Europeans. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, with demographic growth rates far in excess of Buddhist, Christian or Hindu numbers. Added to this, most Christian demographic growth occurs in impoverished areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, while Islamic growth is occurring in economically competent regions such as Indonesia, the Gulf, Mesopotamia and North Africa. Islam has a presence in every major country in the world, including a quickly growing community in the United States. In the course of this century – barring radical action by the Moscow government – over one quarter of Russians will be Muslim. India and China, developing superpowers both, have very large Muslim populations of their own. On military matters, the Islamic world contains numerous states with military capabilities at or above European standards. These include the armed forces of Iran (unofficial estimates posit more than 2,000,000 soldiers), Turkey (1.300,000+ soldiers) Egypt (1,000,000+ soldiers), Pakistan (1,000,000+ soldiers), Indonesia (485,000+ soldiers), Saudi Arabia (250,000 soldiers) and the UAE (100,000+ soldiers). Two Muslim states have nuclear weapons – Turkey (200+ as part of the NATO nuclear sharing agreement) and Pakistan (120+). Islamic States with active nuclear power programmes include Egypt, Algeria and Saudi Arabia. Some of the richest countries in the world (per capita) have Islam as the state religion. These include Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE. Resource-wise, the Muslim Middle East has the largest oil reserves in the world, dwarfing Russia and the United States many times over. Economic growth rates in states like Indonesia, Egypt and Turkey are far in excess of the declining or hobbling prospects of Western powers.And so on.

It is important, vital even, to remember that in facing down the world (and culture) of Islam, we are not picking on a starving child, but wrestling with a behemoth, a monster of gigantic and terrible proportions. If any culture has reason to fear for its existence in this world, it is not Islam, but the West – once so high and mighty, and now so pitiably weak.

D, LDN

The Power of Self-Belief.

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We could cease to exist at any moment. The game of bluff in Eastern Europe is getting older, less careful and more honest. Russia – it can no longer be denied – has invaded Europe. The scenario long dreamed of in spy novels and video-game fiction has become a banal reality.

How do you feel about that? I suppose, given the worst case scenario, we should be frozen in fear, unable to think or consider anything else. That doesn’t seem to be the mood I observe though.

Perhaps we are so shocked that Putin, the charismatic leader of a kindred state, would be so bold, so seemingly foolish to risk a terminal war with America, that we can’t bring ourselves to realise the truth.

The incredulity is natural. Why has Putin done this? Russia is much weaker (economically, militarily, politically) than the West. To be sure, if nuclear weapons were not a factor here, we could have reduced Moscow to rubble by now.

The truth is that Russia, for all its flabbiness and eccentricity, possesses something we have lost – self-belief.

Russia believes in itself. Europe does not. Russia fights for something it understands down to its bone marrow. Europe fights for reasons devised in a smoky room by unelected suits. The Russian people are by-and-large behind their government. The European people feel occupied by theirs.

Although I strongly oppose what he is trying to achieve there, I must concede that Putin’s success in Ukraine represents a triumph of the human over the mechanical; the spirit over the machine. He has faced down vastly more complicated forces by the virtue of his willpower alone. It is no wonder his reputation is gaining in dark glamour for every week that passes.

D, LDN