George Eaton on the political advantages of minority government and the possibility of a second election in Football agent Jon Holmes : Fifa is now plumbing new depths of comic-book villainy. Armstrong explains how this religiously conservative movement was exported from Saudi Arabia and how its values are now embedded in much of the Muslim world:.
The old military jihad to spread the faith was now replaced by a cultural offensive. In all these places, they funded the building of Saudi-style mosques with Wahhabi preachers and established madrasas that provided free education for the poor, with, of course, a Wahhabi curriculum. At the same time, young men from the poorer Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Pakistan, who had felt compelled to find work in the Gulf to support their families, associated their relative affluence with Wahhabism and brought this faith back home with them, living in new neighbourhoods with Saudi mosques and shopping malls that segregated the sexes.
A whole generation of Muslims, therefore, has grown up with a maverick form of Islam that has given them a negative view of other faiths and an intolerantly sectarian understanding of their own. Understanding that Islamic State is not a remnant of a primitive past but a product of modernity is key to dealing with the threat, Armstrong warns.
She believes the movement might finally be running out of steam:. IS may have overreached itself; its policies may not be sustainable and it faces determined opposition from Sunni and Shia Muslims alike. Interestingly Saudi Arabia, with its impressive counterterrorist resources, has already thwarted IS attempts to launch a series of attacks in the kingdom and may be the only regional power capable of bringing it down. The big conclusion I take away from ten days in Damascus is that the regime of Bashar al-Assad seems more comfortable than at any time since the war started in The Syrian president has lost control of large parts of the country.
Groups that include the Free Syrian Army are more than holding their own in the south. But in Damascus, the war seems to have receded. The city no longer shakes quite so much from the cracks and booms of outgoing artillery fire. The Syrian armed forces have taken ground around the capital, and negotiated local ceasefires. Rebels are still fighting and plenty of people are still dying.
