In Part I of this series I described how Islamic culture impedes the development of those skills and talents that facilitate entry into modernity by the young people of the Muslim world. The more stringently a Muslim country adheres to Sharia, the less prepared are its young men (the young women being completely marginalized) for the modern world.
In Part II I described how the collision of demographics and culture combine to make the ongoing clash between the Islamic world and the modern world nearly impossible to mitigate.
Our historical approach to the Middle East has led to the current difficult straits in which we find ourselves. We have traditionally ignored internal Muslim politics and appeased the powerful in the Middle East; this approach reached its peak when the Carter administration facilitated the overthrow of the Shah by the Islamic fascists in Iran and ended on 9/11 and continues to characterize our approach to the Saudis.
Since 9/11, there have been two main approaches suggested for dealing with the problem.
The Bush administration took the approach that in order to change the status quo, an invasion into the heart of the Middle East and subsequent establishment of a democracy which would synthesize and integrate Islam and democracy, would be the best way to defuse the appeal of the Islamic Jihadis. Whether by design or necessity, American and coalition troop levels were too low to do the job of clearing and holding and the intensity of the opposition insurgency was consistently under-estimated. The recent change in strategy, the "surge", has shown early signs of progress but as a beacon for the rest of the Islamic world, Iraq shines weakly, if at all. The recent rapprochement between the Sunni Arab League and the Shias of Persia bode poorly for democratization in the region.
The Democratic opposition has taken an approach best described as neo-isolationist appeasement. Buoyed by the support of a growing number of Americans who want nothing more than for Iraq to just "go away", they are attempting both to appease, by "talking" to Bashar Assad and proposing to talk to Ahmadinejad, and committed to neo-isolationism in their efforts to bring about the abandonment of the fight in Iraq.
In part this is based on the well worn meme that it is our behavior that is accelerating the clash and only by correcting our misbehavior can we defuse the conflict.
And a key reason for these dramatic spikes is the American misadventure in Iraq, which under the U.S. occupation is the central Middle Eastern recruiting ground for militant Islamists. The old Bush administration line on the Iraq War as a means of fighting the terrorists there so we don’t have to fight them here has turned quite squarely in on itself: We are fighting them there because we invited them there.
In fact, al Qaeda has repeatedly called Iraq the central theater of their war with us, yet to take the obvious point, that when you start to fight your enemies, they rally and fight back with renewed vigor, does not in any way support the statement that if you didn't fight back they would abandon their goals.
In this view, as soon as we pull out of Iraq, the violence will decrease. What is left out of this perspective is that the violence in Iraq will only decrease after the Peace of death descends on all the pro-American democrats in the neighborhood and when ethnic cleansing has been fully accomplished. To many Americans in the anti-war camp, such quibbles are immaterial; they neither spend much time considering nor do they care about the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions who will perish in the post-withdrawal Middle East. Nor do they care much that the most ruthless killers are almost certain to emerge as the new leaders in the area or that the great victory thus obtained will be an even more potent recruiting tool than the losing war that they have been fighting. The belief is that as long as we appease their concerns, in effect allowing the radical Sunni Islamists (al Qaeda) to gain control of Anbar province, tolerate the establishment of a Shia radical state in Southern Iraq, sit idly as Iran attains a nuclear weapon, and excuse the occasional terror atrocity in Israel and Europe, that all will be well. In a concession to morality and vestigial ethical behavior, there is often an obligatory reference to supporting the Kurds, however, having abandoned them twice in the past, no one can be sanguine about such an outcome.
The biggest problem with these outcomes is that none of them can work in the medium to long term.
For the benefit of those who seem to either be ignorant of history or unable to learn from history, appeasement cannot work with people who desire to obliterate you. When Pelosi "talks" to Bashar Assad, she is speaking to a man who supports terrorists who continue to insist that their goal is to kill the Jews; they no longer even make much of a pretense of opposing Zionism in distinction to opposing Jews:
Hamas Calls for Genocide in Arabic
Please note: Dr. Ismail Radwan is simply quoting the hadith, the record of the sayings and deeds of Mohammed.
The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: “Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!”
We must remind our Arab and Muslim nation, its leaders and people, its scholars and students, remind them that Palestine and the Al Aqsa mosque will not be liberated through summits nor by international resolutions, but it will be liberated through the rifle. It will not be liberated through negotiations, but through the rifle, since this occupation knows no language but the language of force... O Allah, strengthen Islam and Muslims, and bring victory to your Jihad-fighting worshipers, in Palestine and everywhere... Allah take the oppressor Jews and Americans and their supporters!
Even for those Americans and Europeans who seem quite willing to tolerate another Holocaust, there is no reason for them to be comfortable; just as the Islamists have their sights on Israel, they are also interested in Europe:
We had hoped to cripple al Qaeda by facing them down in Iraq and Afghanistan. But clearly some of their blood thirsty fanaticism has leaked out into Europe and elsewhere. There is no way to stem this tide by handing a win to al Qaeda. If the US backs down even a modest amount (and the Democrat surrender plans are anything but modets) then the dreams of a Jihad sweeping the world will be awoken across the globe and we will be in the fight of our lives. The truth is the EU problem is minimal because there is now stable base of operations in the ME outside Iran and Syria. And we must make sure even these havens are dealt with if we are to survive.
The neo-isolationist believe we can effectively wall off the Muslim world and, when a terrorist atrocity reaches a level which truly vexes us, send in JDAMS to remove the offending parties. We will also flood the Middle East with Special Forces who will wage a dirty war out of our sight and awareness so that no taint of immorality will accrue to those who want the fight to go away. Usually such suggestions are made by people who have no idea where we would get our Superheros and what it takes to create a Special Forces soldier and unit. Michale Fumento recently summarized the state of ignorance of the anti-military Left in The Democrats' Special Forces Fetish, which should be required reading by every member of the House and Senate, and by every candidate for President who is pushing the withdrawal meme.
Unfortunately, this is the prescription that will more than likely emerge out of the next Presidential election cycle, unless the Islamists make the mistake of pressing their advantage and over-reaching. Another one or two 9/11s will step up our awareness of the war we are in the midst of and evoke a terrible response.
Our world is now so connected that even the marginal can leverage our power against us; isolationism cannot work with the Islamic world though if a Democrat wins in 2008, the appeasement-isolation access will provide a period of illusory peace during which the enemy will become stronger and more invasive until ready to strike again at a time of their choosing.
EJ Dionne made a comment to Hugh Hewitt on his radio program which fairly reflects the opinion of many in our chattering classes:
HH: Now numerous, do you think, are the hard core jihadis, who would, if they could, strike at Americans or Westerners generally, with the intent to kill as many as they could? How many of them do you think there are?
...
EJD: I honestly don’t…I don’t know how you count this. I also don’t know how you count people, how many sympathizers are there, how many people would actively be willing to engage in suicide attacks. I don’t know the answer to the question. (Emphasis added.)
Dean Barnett, who writes cogently about everything except the Boston Red Sox, offered to help educate EJ:
Not too long ago, they held an election in what is commonly called Palestine – you know, Yasser Arafat’s old stomping grounds. Among the parties was Hamas, a hard core terrorist organization dedicated to things like suicide bombing and eliminating the Zionist entity. Hamas won that election. Honestly, I’m surprised that this development escaped E.J’s notice. It was in all the papers, including his own. Because so many people voted for Hamas, I guess you could say that a solid majority of Palestinians “sympathize” with things like suicide bombing.
But wait – it gets worse. Much worse. If free elections were held in Jordan, the diminutive Hashemite, King Abdullah, would not win. The Jordanian people (who are 70% Palestinian) would almost surely elevate a Hamas-like entity to power. What would happen elsewhere in the region if free elections were held? In Egypt, the radical Muslim Brotherhood sect would almost certainly supplant Hosni Mubarak. In Saudi Arabia, a Wahabbist sect sympathetic to Osama bin Laden would enjoy a victory that would send the House of Saud hurtling to history’s ashbin.
Estimates of Jihadi sympathizers and supporters run into the hundreds of millions. If only 0.1% of all Muslims are willing to become active combatants, that is 1,300,000 people. If the number is closer to 10%, we are talking about 130,000,000 people. Most polls show the level of support for radical Islam to be well in excess of 10%, up to 70% in some surveys.
Few Americans have the requisite patience or tolerance for a long war and have thus convinced themselves that the war in Iraq is separable from the greater war being waged against us by Islamic fascism. The sad fact is that there is nothing we can do, short of all out war such as was waged against racial fascism of the last century, to change the cultural underpinnings of the Islamic war against modernity that is at the core of our clash of civilizations.
We are clearly not prepared to wage such a war at this time which means that the long war will continue to be fought as a series of skirmishes until the enemy gains enough strength and (over) confidence to mount what they would consider a more definitive offensive.
Unfortunately we are behaving in ways that seem precisely designed to encourage the Jihadis in their beliefs that we are weak, decadent, and believe in very little worth fighting for. Eventually we will be called upon to prove them right or prove them wrong.
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