Exporting 'Climate Change' Culture to the Muslim World

"Climate Change" is a comprehensive ideology that is meant to force societies to tilt their economies in progressive, Marxist directions and warp their social decisions. It is a tool of the Davos set for the imposition of World Economic Forum-approved policies on the world's wealthiest nations. All of this is well known. Nevertheless, it is shocking to learn that the U.S. State Department is exporting "climate change" – theory and practice – along with gender and diversity ideologies to, of all places, Iraq. Apparently, this is meant to "strengthen democracy” in that broken country.

Isn’t it bad enough that we destabilized a once functional, if authoritarian, nation by means of our poorly planned and poorly justified invasion? Now we're paying them back by drowning them in our culture’s most toxic ideas. Where once the U.S. tried to force democracy on countries with cultures not well suited to it, leading to the destabilization of their entire regions, now we are asking the people of that region to pledge allegiance to the dogmatic principles of the activist Left, with the justification that they are unalterable tenets of American culture. Which, by the way, they most certainly are not.

As it says about grants on the State Department website, “the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries by means of educational and cultural exchange that assist in the development of peaceful relations.” Peaceful relations? Imposing radical wokeness on a tribal society and depriving an oil-producing nation of the ability to use fossil fuels for energy and profit seems calculated to bring about the opposite. And how are Dutch-style anti-farming policies going to go down in a nation where nearly a quarter of the labor force works in agriculture, with a special emphasis on raising cattle and sheep?

Sorry, you're going to have to knock that off.

Now, chances are "climate change" curricula will have minimal influence in Iraq. According to the Energy Information Administration, "Iraq is the second-largest crude oil producer in OPEC after Saudi Arabia. It holds the world’s fifth largest proved crude oil reserves, at 145 billion barrels, representing 17 percent of proved reserves in the Middle East and 8 percent of global reserves." Oil production is the base of Iraq’s economy, and there is no reason to think it will be changing it’s own consumption habits any time soon. Almost none of Iraq’s energy use comes from nuclear or so-called "renewables." It will take more than a couple of seminars in the religion of "climate change" to change any of that.

Still, to fund these classes, along with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion agenda we are also promulgating, the State Department is offering $12 million. On May 15th, State posted a grant solicitation “offering three universities in Iraq up to $4 million each to develop programs to help fight climate change, and advance gender equity." Recipients must develop "fields of study, course offerings, and/or majors" centered on "gender issues" and "the adaptation to and mitigation of the impacts of climate change," the grant offering shows. Additionally, the State Department wants Iraqi universities to develop recruitment programs for students who will work toward advancing "greenhouse gas reduction" and "other areas of study related to climate change."

Programs also must have “progressive curricula,” and must “strengthen the diversity of the student body.” But of course, "diversity" has a somewhat more sinister sound to it in Iraq, as in many Middle Eastern nations, since one of the justifications for authoritarian rule was to keep the peace between "diverse" tribes and religious sects. The absence of that has tended to mean bloodshed. So chances are the average Iraqi is unlikely to intone “diversity is our strength" as readily as the average American does.

When asked how the grant bolsters America’s position in the area, the State Department told the Washington Free Beacon that "Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not only a matter of human rights and fairness, but when present together promote stability, prosperity, and security." To that end, the grants require that "gender equity" apply to all the possible genders our activist bureaucrats have made up, not just women.

Saddam Hussein: dying for "diversity."

To be sure, $12 million is a drop in the bucket when compared with the money that the U.S. government spent attempting to implant radical wokeness in Afghanistan. A 2021 government report found that the U.S. spent more than $787.4 billion to bring "gender equity" to that country. Needless to say, it didn’t work. At all. Not in the militias into which they tried to integrate women. Not in the universities. Then the Taliban took over and ended all education for women, whether they were working on degrees in gender studies or chemical engineering. These days very young girls are allowed to go to elementary schools. High schools are closed to girls. There is some underground Zoom teaching going on. That’s as progressive as things get. This is a genuine tragedy. And it suggests that all of our money and proselytizing have been for nought.

Just a cavil, but surely the deep historical reasons for women’s limited options and spaces in Iraq and Afghanistan and their neighbors has to do with Islam, which American culture has hesitated to confront head on. One wonders what the State Department’s diplomatic work-around for that is.

In any event, our governing class has refused to learn any lessons from this. The State Department is doing something similar in other third-world countries where few people go to university. For instance, they are offering a grant titled “Galvanizing Climate Advocacy and Peacebuilding with Herders in the Sahel.” Imagine being sent to speak to those tribesmen, barely fending off starvation on the edge of the Sahara, to explain to them that they're going to need to cull their herd by 30 percent and probably hire a D.E.I administrator. Our tax dollars at work.