Most of the 18 countries considered part of the middle east have outputted their share of young men - especially if you rank the countries by population. And a significant percentage of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan were foreign fighters from middle eastern countries not central asia, particularly the leading figures. I believe most people on HN are aware extremists represent a small percentage of the total populations.
I would rank these middle eastern countries as the origin nationality of most jihadists.
High: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt (most members of the original Al-Qaeda and current leader were Egyptian, and then there are Sinai groups)
Medium (mostly just financing since they have low populations and high income): United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain.
These are obviously based on nationalities of jihadists, not based on percentages of populations whom become jihadists - which I suspect you are confusing my comment as implying.
Iran high? I wasn't aware of that. Could I ask what you are basing that on. Do you mean Iranian militias which are effectively the army and doing things which could be said to protect their country (as with US soldiers in all kinds of places they probably shouldn't be). If so I don't think that comes under the heading "angry young jihadis"
Iran has backed many jihadist groups. Two examples: Hamas, they are a group against Isreal which receives support from Iran. Iran also backed the Shiite "Mahdi army" during the Iraq war which fought a jihad against American/coalition forces, and today are still involved in a 'defensive jihad' against IS.
There are other examples. Jihad has been fought by both Sunni and Shiite groups. But more so by Sunni groups such as IS and AQ - who have tended to have more of a global objective against the west. While Iran and Shiite groups (such as in Syria/Lebanon) are mostly interested in local power grabs to keep spreading their Islamic Revolution outside of Iran.
I highly recommend this New Yorker piece on Iran and their secret proxy wars:
You're shifting the topic. We're talking about how many young Iranian men become terrorists, not the support of various groups by the Iranian state.
Most nation states, certainly including the USA, have at one time or another given material and financial support to terrorist groups. I don't condone it, but Iran is hardly exceptional in that regard.
>These are obviously based on nationalities of jihadists, not based on percentages of populations whom become jihadists - which I suspect you are confusing my comment as implying.
You asked why many Middle Eastern countries produce "so many" jihadists, implying that the majority of these countries are producing a high number. Thus, it makes no sense to respond by listing examples of terrorists or terrorist groups originating in Middle Eastern countries, since one could give similar examples for more or less any European country or for the USA. We have our homegrown terrorists too (both Islamic and otherwise).
Ok, we are getting bogged down because you're persisting in the belief that I'm misinterpreting you in a certain way. I'm not. Let me spell this out as clearly as possible:
I know that you don't care about the number of extremists as a percentage of the total population. I never thought that you did. Neither of us does. Ok?
You're still avoiding the main issue. Are most Middle Eastern countries producing an unusually high number of extremists? You can't show that they are by showing that they produce some extremists. But that's all you've done so far.
In other words, what distinguishes most Middle Eastern countries, in your mind, from e.g. Britain, France and the USA? All of these countries produce some Islamic extremists. So clearly, if you're going to say that there's something special about Middle Eastern countries in this regard, you're going to have to crunch the numbers. I don't see any numbers in any of your posts so far.
Again, none of this has anything to do with the number of extremists in comparison to the total population. The question is whether the number of extremists is significantly larger than the number produced by non-Middle-Eastern countries. In other words, when you said "so many" in your original post, were you correct to imply that the number is generally higher in the Middle East than elsewhere?
I guess you don't want it to be the case, but the answer really is "most of them". Exceptions would be Israel (if you consider Palestine separately), UAE, Kuwait.
I don't think you've looked very carefully at the graphic in the second article. You might want to compare the bar chart on the right against a list of countries in the Middle East. The Middle Eastern countries listed are:
Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen
Of those, only Jordan and Saudi Arabia are contributing large numbers of fighters. On the whole, the Middle Eastern countries on the list are contributing relatively few. The next biggest contributors are Tunisia, Bosnia and Kosovo, none of which are in the Middle East.
On top of that, note that BELGIUM is sending at least as many fighters as all of the following Middle Eastern countries (and yes, I am taking into account the different scales on each chart):
Way to put words in my mouth. "Brown people" all over the world thank you for your brave service. I know what the Middle East is, jackass. Nowhere did I say that other parts of the world were not contributing large numbers of fighters. That's irrelevant to my original point. Way to massively ignore Iraq and Syria, too. Like, did you think you would just sneak that by somehow? The truth is, most Middle Eastern countries are contributing hundreds if not thousands of fighters, and you can't ignore that, no matter how all-caps you can type Belgium. Oh and the people in Belgium, France, UK, etc.? Middle Eastern expats (or their children), many of whom hold dual citizenship.
I didn't mention them because they're not listed on the bar chart. But including them would skew the analysis for obvious reasons.
Again, your source doesn't show that the Middle East is producing more Islamic extremists on the whole than many other regions of the world. If you agree with that, then we agree. Of course, pretty much every country in the Middle East is producing a non-zero number of Islamic extremists -- as is pretty much every country in the West. If that is your only point, why draw attention to the Middle East specifically?
>Middle Eastern expats (or their children), many of whom hold dual citizenship.
You'll need another source on this. It might be true, but it's important to bear in mind that (i) many Muslims are not from the Middle East and (ii) Islamic extremism is not limited to the Middle East. So I am not sure that e.g. the majority of homegrown Islamic extremists in the UK have Middle Eastern backgrounds. It's possible, but I'd like to see some evidence.
Can't reply to juliangregorian's latest comments, so I'll reply here.
>I didn't draw attention to M.E. specifically, you did.
You’re missing the context of the thread. I was replying to someone who singled out the Middle East. From what you say, it seems that you’re not attempting to defend what the OP said, you’re just pointing out that most Middle Eastern countries are producing some number of Islamic extremists. Well, ok, no disagreement there. However, on the evidence we’ve seen so far, it seems that Middle Eastern countries don’t produce an unusually high number compared to many other regions of the world. For that reason, I object to the OP’s singling out of the Middle East as a source of Islamic extremists. It would be better to single out the countries responsible.
I’m still a little skeptical of your claim that most homegrown terrorists in Western countries have Middle Eastern backgrounds. This certainly isn’t true in many cases. For example, the 7 July bombers had Pakistani backgrounds. Do you have a source on this or is it just a hunch?
Now you're changing your argument. I realize yesterday was a long time ago, but you were the one arguing that extremism was limited to small pockets of the Middle East. I didn't draw attention to M.E. specifically, you did.
When you make an argument it's a good thing if you provide the sources you're using. That way you check your own biases; other people know if you're just cherry-picking or if you're being misled by faulty sources.
