Oil, Islam and Authoritarianism Critical Review Paper Essay

Oil, Islam and Authoritarianism Critical Review Paper - Essay ExampleKathleen Collins shows in her report how the current invoke of affairs has come about by reviewing some of the history behind not only the Afghan and Iraqi nations, but how Russias (formerly the U.S.S.R.) former supremacy and its subsequent downfall has shaped how we operate with the nerve center Eastern nations. Starting with Russia and its five republics of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, we can soak up the changes that occurred when the U.S.S. R. lost power and its domination everywhere overmuch of its territories. While it was thought that Democracy might perhaps take a front place to the new government establishments, there was a turn preferably for the majority to a renewal of authoritarianism and a strong Islamic kin influence through clans. Only Kyrgyzstan seemed able to move to a parliamentary structure, especially through 1991 to 1995. However, by 2000, democracy w as only a former shadow of itself and would finally revert back to a government of authoritarianism. What re primary(prenominal)ed throughout was the clan structure in many of these countries and this would be something of a thorn in the governments side because loyalties and subsequent benefits of sticking together, sometimes clashed with what the government had in mind in terms of governance of the people (Collins, 2009). We can see these same issues in the Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and others in the argona who to a fault happen to have a handle on the oil supply of the world. It is difficult to work effectively with countries when there are so many factions with diametric ideas, mainly because they are made up of clans. That, combined with the Islamic religion, has created many problems and wars, large and small. Brzezinski, in his book, The Grand Chessboard, does not address the clans so much as Collins does, yet he makes many of the same observation s she does in terms of the authoritarianism of Middle Eastern nations and the effect of Russias loss of dominance over Eurasia and its own republics. In the midst of perceived chaos and lack of government stability for many nations in the Middle East after Russias downfall, what we see most often now is the surge of Islamic solidarity. We are seeing this in Egypts effort to build a new government safe now. The Islamic Brotherhood has gained a majority in power, and while Western nations had originally thought Democracy would take hold, just the opposite has happened. Collins observations are relatively accurate but as we can also realize, events happen very quickly these days and while she looks at the hope that Afghanistan will constitute down and find a certain peace, even today we are witnessing disturbance and chaos erupting once more, this time against the Americans and the West (Collins, 2009). Most events in the Middle East today, are shaped mainly by two factors, which wor k hand in hand to affect what happens everywhere else. Oil is one of the main prizes and the nations, who are the biggest producers, are also Islamic. All but one percent of crude oil is based in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The breakdown, as of the social class 2000, is Saudi Arabia with 26 percent, Iraq with 10 percent, Kuwait with 9 percent, UAE with 7 percent, and Iran with 6 percent. Russia and Venezuela have 6 percent, Mexico has 5 percent and the United States only has 2 percent (Salter, et al. 2000).