Friedman goes over how the Mideast it's still 1979. In 1979, the Mideast was at its worst. There was multiple incidents in 1979 with multiple radical people in Iraq involving the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca where the extreme Islamists were questioning the religious credibility of the Saudi family. They responded by saying "Let us stay in power and we’ll give you a freer hand in setting social norms, relations between the sexes and religious education inside Saudi Arabia — and vast resources to spread the puritanical, anti-women, anti-Shiite, anti-pluralistic Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalism to mosques and schools around the world." It is shown how the extremity of the religious conflict has been at a horrible extreme during the whole 36 years that passed by and they act still like it's 1979 with the religious chaos overall.