Summary: Just as communism arose out of the contradictions of imperialism a century ago, Islamic revolution is the inevitable result of today’s version of imperialism. IS may be harsh and uncompromising, but it should be treated with respect, not vilified. The caliphate project, implementing sharia, the determination to overthrow the Saudi monarchy, the rejection of fiat money--these are legitimate goals and deserve serious analysis. 

IS continues to confound. Not only negatively for its restrictions on women and its grim revolutionary justice, but because on many fronts, it is spot on.

*It has put the caliphate project back on track after almost a century of Muslim humiliation

*It has made sharia (at least its version) the basis of its social order

*It has (correctly) targeted Saudi Arabia as the font of corruption and decadence, the Muslim world’s ‘enemy at home’

*It is set to become the only ‘state’ to back its currency with gold coinage. ISIS says the new currency will take the group out of “the oppressors’ money system”, and return control over the money supply from bankers to the state.  

Perspective

IS is ghoulishly depicted in western media as blood-thirsty murderers reveling in violence, mad nihilists intent on destruction. To put things in perspective, the US is killing dozens if not hundreds of Muslims (quite a number of them babies) every day, all of them innocent of anything beyond defending their lands and homes. Remember the fairytale of Saddam Hussein killing babies on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War? All revolutions spill blood of those who profess to be hostile to the new order, and IS is no exception. In Cuba, between 500 and 2,000 enemies of the state were executed following the 1959 revolution. 

The Middle East is in revolutionary upheaval, and has been for a century now. Just as the Russian revolution of 1917 was the logical conclusion of upheavals against imperialism in yesteryear, so Islamic revolutions are the logical consequence of imperialism today. The Iranian revolution of 1979 set the stage, and actions of the US in the past two decades (since the first invasion of Iraq in 1991) have ensured that this upheaval will continue and have an Islamic nature. 

The end of communism came by the imperialists wearing down the secular communists through war and subversion until the system was sufficiently weakened, allowing internal dissent to overthrow it. Is this really the plan today? Unending torment and slaughter inflicted by the West on the Middle East? Keep in mind, Islamic resistance is grounded in a much more convincing way than was communism, and will not be defeated so easily.