@
Raphael
This reminds me of something one of the Chinese guys was saying about China using the Muslim world to leverage their position. None of the great powers (UK, Russia, US) that played the great game have ever managed it before.
I believe that was me
.
Anyway, you bring up an interesting point about no great power being able to "manage" the Muslim world. Some have made admirable progress, but I don't think any has managed to pull the entire project off. The US-Saudi-Pakistani front against the USSR war in Afghanistan, and the invocation of the entire "ummah" in the struggle, seemed like a stroke of genius at the time. But the blowback that resulted from supporting all those (proto-)terrorists eventually culminated in 9/11. The US has tried to repeat the exact same strategy in the far more contemporary Syrian civil war, to far less success. Worse still, the blowback has erupted a lot earlier this time in the guise of ISIS.
The USSR's efforts during the early Cold War to win over key Arab states saw some initial success, but ultimately failed to endear the entire Muslim world to them, and completely evaporated by the time their Afghan war began. Another example, which you omitted to mention, was the German Empire's alliance with the Ottomans during WWI. The Germans really believed they had the Caliphate, and thus the ummah, backing them. Alas they failed to realize how fractious the Muslim world was, and the Brits skilfully exploited this with their own successful Middle East policy.
Anyway, what needs to be realized here is that Islam is a universalist religion that stresses its applicability and suitability for all humanity. Thus it cannot, by its own doctrine, be subordinated to any other state or civilization, even a great power or a superpower. The best we can do is to work with it as an equal partner, and not as a tool with which we can inflict a few cheap shots on rivals.