The second factor was the boogeyman of the West that had been burning bright-hot over the past twenty years - the Islamic Identity movement. It wasn't just fanatics running around the Syrian Desert, or the Afghan/Pakistan border. It was a strong undercurrent in the Muslim world that recalled the halcyon days of the Caliphate.
The original Mongol Khanate hadn't championed any religious doctrine. It had been the Mongol-Turkish successor states that had turned Islam into a weapon to strike down their enemies. That was the history that Temujin and the Earth & Sky were embracing. This was both a jihad and a struggle to reassert their ethnic identity.
The Russian Federation had arrogantly discarded Turkish appeals. Turkish nationalists were incensed, but they were never big fans of Russia anyw
