61% of Americans believe the emergence of an Islamic caliphate is "likely" in the next 10 years, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll, and intelligence officials say the call for a caliphate, while once fringe, has developed over the past few years into a global movement spanning many Muslim countries.
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Will A Nuclear Caliphate Rise From Unrest In The Mideast?
By PAUL SPERRY Posted 03/15/2011 06:55 PM ET
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With the Muslim world reaching a boiling point, U.S. intelligence fears that the unrest could create a power vacuum exploited by al-Qaida and its parent, the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
Both share a goal of bringing the Mideast under a single Islamic ruler, who could control world oil supplies and possibly even nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration finds the idea of such a "caliphate" preposterous. It isn't even concerned about the prospect of Islamist regimes emerging from the revolts. Many of the Mideast protesters are "secular," the White House believes.
Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough called it a "lie" that Muslims want a universal Islamic state. "People across the Arab world are proving the point," he said, by calling for free elections.
Still, 61% of Americans believe the emergence of an Islamic caliphate is "likely" in the next 10 years, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll, and intelligence officials say the call for a caliphate, while once fringe, has developed over the past few years into a global movement spanning many Muslim countries.
The University of Maryland recently surveyed Muslims in Indonesia, as well as Egypt, Pakistan and Morocco, and found that 77% agree with al-Qaida's quest to "unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state."
Experts say the movement is driven in part by growing anti-Western sentiment, but also by a longing for the "golden era" of Islam. At its height, the Muslim empire stretched from Spain in the west to the borders of China in the east.
The Maryland study describes the caliphate as a "collective identity" issue even among Muslims with a nationalistic bent, and a "strong motivator" within the global Muslim community. If so, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida may have soft fields to plow in Mideast countries ousting secular, pro-Western leaders.
"This issue will continue to overshadow other geopolitical issues," said Doug McLeod, a researcher with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror at the University of Maryland.
The pious movement traces its roots to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist group founded in Egypt in 1928. Its bylaws call for Muslims to "fight the tyrants and the enemies of Allah as a prelude to establishing an Islamic state."
Its spiritual leader is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguably the most influential Islamic scholar in the region. After 9/11, he issued a fatwah calling for "the spread of Islam until it conquers the entire world and includes both the East and West, marking the beginning of the return of the Islamic caliphate."
