It's going to take a Middle East that isn't war torn and constantly in a state of violence and turmoil. Prior to 9/11, how much Islamic terrorist violence was there in the West, or even in these parts of the Middle East?
In Iraq, there were zero suicide attacks in the country's history until 2003. Since then, there have been 1,892.
In Pakistan, there was one suicide attack in the 14 years before 9/11. In the fourteen years since, there have been 486.
Let's be honest here, the war on terror, $5 trillion dollars later, has not only failed to stop Islamic terrorism, it has actually massively fuelled and empowered it.
Violence, war, bombings, poverty, instability, lack of mobility, limited prosperity etc, all of these things cripple the chances of progress. What the Middle East needs is more infrastructure, education, funding, science, academia etc. Though if the Middle East went back to that, I doubt elements of Western powers could profit from the military industrial complex or oil contracts quite so easily. I can't see this all getting any better any time soon. The self perpetuating cycle of violence and hatred wages on.
