Challenging the Catholic Church and the divine right of kings was unthinkable too, and was a &quot;full stack&quot; social control model.<p>Ideology doesn&#x27;t do anything. People do things. Ideology is completely instrumental. Material forces dictate the way ideology manifests because, having no power of its own ideology must be propagated by something physical.<p>The enlightenment, first of all a 20th century reinterpretation of history was not ideology overcoming ideology, but material forces of social change outmoding old ideology and fertilizing new.<p>So the question is, what are the material, physical forces driving the political situation in the Middle East?<p>Would it be ridiculous to say that the petrodollar, coups and bombs drive it?