[dfwgator]

During the Cold War, a lot of the Islamic world sided with the US against the Soviets (Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, etc) because Communism was (obviously) incompatible with their theocratic Islamism.

Secular Arab states, like Iraq, Syria, Nasser's Egypt, Libya sided with the Soviets......Ironically now we would be better off today if those states remained secular.

[ek_hornbeck]

Secular Arab states, like Iraq, Syria, Nasser's Egypt, Libya sided with the Soviets......Ironically now we would be better off today if those states remained secular

That's right - the secular (socialist) Arab nations were often pro-Soviet (though Iraq was also a US ally during the Iran-Iraq war), the Islamist states (with the exception of Iran) tended to side with the US during the Cold War, largely because they saw the Christianity of Americans as a lesser blasphemy than the atheism of the Soviets.