The Emerging Muslim Middle Class

Iran has just completed a third round of missile tests. This news comes shortly after it was disclosed that the country has been secretly developing an underground uranium enrichment facility. Only a few months have passed since thousands of Iranians flooded the streets to protest what was believed to be a crooked election.

Iran continues to make news for its nuclear ambitions, bitter denouncements of Israel and America by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the country’s backing of militias in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. But look closer and you might see a hidden world – middle-class Muslims going about their daily lives, enjoying the fruits of modernity and hoping for stronger economic and cultural ties with the west. They are scientists, entrepreneurs, bankers, and manufacturers.

In his new book Forces of Fortune, longtime Mideast observer Vali Nasr argues that winning the war against extremist Islam means engaging an emerging Muslim middle class. He’s a professor of international relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a senior adviser to the Obama administration.

Read an excerpt from Forces of Fortune

(Photo by Hamed Saber via Flickr/Creative Commons)