We watch the fate of Syria with sorrow — a once relatively tolerant government swept away and replaced by fanatical killers. Many blame the United States or “the West” for this tragedy. And they are not wrong.
Yet we must also recognize a difficult historical truth: episodes like this are not unusual in much of the Islamic world. Time and again, periods of pragmatic, even moderate rule have been followed by waves of blood-soaked fundamentalism — a hell for non-believers and for Muslims deemed insufficiently zealous. Even the dynasties we now romanticize as moderate or enlightened (think of medieval Muslim Spain) passed through such phases. Typically, they brought one or two generations of terror, barely acknowledged today, before a more livable order eventually returned.
In the end, the cause that brings a ruler to power matters less than the recurring pattern itself. This cycle has been part of political life in Muslim-majority societies for centuries.