we often tend to frame the conflict in the region as being islam v the west, but this is rooted in ignorance. the west mostly supports the islamicist regimes in the region, which consistently root out any sort of populist movement for any sort of freedom with violence and tyranny and oppression; these regions have vicious religious dictators because we put them there and prop them up.

the uprising in egypt was a secularist movement before it got co-opted, and while there never really was much of a movement in syria, the initial protesters were leftists and not religionists.

that is the real struggle on the ground in the middle east: the struggle against the tyranny of islam (which our governments support), and that is the struggle i support.