No, Nasser was an example of a more secular period

Submitted by sara (United States), Jun 22, 2012 at 20:03

You are reading too much in to my example. I was illustrating that Nasser was secular, that is all. The problem with today's Islamists is that hatred of the West and Israel are the cornerstone of their foreign policy. We have seen many dictators use the tactic of uniting people in hatred against Israel to deflect the focus from their corrupt rule, and the Islamists will do the same in spades. The assumption seems to be that corrupt despots treat their citizens inherently worse than islamists would /do. It is an unfortunate fact that hate motivated violence is an essential part of Islamism by definition. So how would we assume that an Islamist government would not undertake aggression? It is expected of them! How many missiles have been fired into Israel over the past week? Even more reason to keep people distracted and looking outside when they are being restricted socially and otherwise.

see this piece: Sinai's Emergence as a Strategic Threat to Israel Michael Herzog

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/sinais-emergence-as-a-strategic-threat-to-israel

Mubarak and the military were doing their best to keep the Islamists in check and they failed due to a fallout between themselves. Don't you think it is pretty awful that all of these countries have the choice of either a dictator type or Islamists? No democratic option whatsoever. Why do you think that is? And what of Islamist run KSA? Does the government have to be officially Islamist to impose the consequences of Sharia? There are plenty of Islamists groups sanctioned or tolerated by more secular governments.

So in theory, I agree with you that it doesn't matter who is governing them, but the reality is that it does affect us, as in the Iran example I mentioned and the missile increases to Israel. The nature of the rulers determines the tactics and strategies we implement.

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