If we look at the map of the Islamic world over the past century, a shocking image appears before us: more than 50 military coups, dozens of civil wars, and continuous foreign interventions that have turned the region into one of the most unstable areas in the world.
From Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Libya, from Afghanistan to Somalia – the proxy wars of great powers have turned countries into testing grounds for weapons and arenas of strategic competition. The Imposed War against Iran, the Afghanistan War, the Yemen War – all are examples of these rivalries in which the inhabitants of these lands have paid the heaviest price.
But perhaps the bitterest part of the story is the direct military interventions of the West in Islamic countries:
• **Afghanistan (2001–2021):** Two decades of military presence costing thousands of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives
• **Iraq (2003–2011):** An invasion based on unproven claims that, after the collapse of the state structure, paved the way for the rise of extremist groups like ISIS
• **Libya (2011):** An intervention that, after Gaddafi’s fall, plunged the country into chaos and fragmentation
• **Syria (2014–present):** A complex proxy war with no end in sight
Alongside these interventions, independent statistics reveal an even bitterer reality. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that arms imports to the Middle East increased by more than 25% in the decade leading up to 2020, with Saudi Arabia, with a 61% increase in arms purchases, becoming the world’s largest arms importer. The United States, with a 37% share of global arms exports, is the largest arms seller to the region.
A vicious cycle is at work: **creating insecurity → selling weapons → intensifying insecurity → selling more weapons**. This cycle secures the economic interests of war‑mongers, but traps the nations of the region in a vortex of violence.
The question is: Is the West truly seeking peace and stability in the Islamic world? Or has it designed a pattern of “controlled chaos” to serve its geopolitical and economic interests? The history of the past century gives a clear answer to this question.
**📚 Sources for further reading:**
1. SIPRI Arms Transfers Database – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, *Trends in International Arms Transfers*, 2020
2. Monshipouri, M. (2022). *Regional Conflicts: Syria, South Caucasus, and Yemen*. In *In the Shadow of Mistrust: The Geopolitics and Diplomacy of US-Iran Relations*. Oxford University Press
3. Khalidi, R. (2020). *The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017*. Metropolitan Books
4. Berman, E. & Lake, D.A. (Eds.). (2019). *Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence through Local Agents*. Cornell University Press
5. NDTV World. (2026). *Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela Among 10 Countries US Has Bombed Since 2001*
