There is an assumption about the war on Expansionist Totalitarian Islam that is shared by both the left and the right and is worth questioning. In theory, the assumption leads to diametrically opposed policy prescriptions from the two poles but, in reality, if my thesis is correct, the short-term policy prescriptions will prove to make very little difference to the longer term outcome.
The common assumption, overtly made by the left and tacitly accepted by the right, is that the Islamists are inherently weaker than the West and therefore, do not pose an existential threat to the West. In other words, neither side of the political divide believes the West can lose this war. This belief animates much of what passes for strategic thinking. There is a clear difference in how both sides assess the current threats. The Left is unable to take the military aspect of the war with any seriousness. They do not see Iran as being a particular threat to anyone and worry much more that if the Western powers fight back aggressively, even with the limited weaponry we have thus far brought to bear on the Islamists, we will only succeed in alienating more and more young Muslims and creating more enemies. I think this is wrong and that there is nothing we can do to prevent the growth of Islamism, but the position is at least defensible.
On the right, the assumption leads to such disconnects as the Coalition forces fighting in Iraq and Israel fighting in Lebanon using techniques that can only be seen as "warfare-lite". Worse, despite all evidence and provocations, there seem to be minimal efforts to address the source of the problem, Iran (and to a much lesser extent, Syria).
Before anyone comments on my premise that we could actually lose this war and that Iran must be addressed, if we are to avoid a disastrous outcome, sooner rather than later, allow me to posit a few points to consider:
First, the focus on Iran is crucial because terrorists without a state sponsor are an annoyance with the ability to cause mass casualty atrocities and indirectly effect national policies, but with a state sponsor they become armies with access to strategic weapons.
Second, the idea that we could lose to Iran might seem ludicrous on its face. Their economy is in shambles, they have no modern industrial base, and their armed forces are unlikely to pose much of a threat to anyone except their equally inept neighbors, so how can anyone see them as a threat? The analogy so many make is to Germany in the 1930s but Germany had a sophisticated population and a state of the art industrial base; they also had a long martial history. Iran has the history but no industrial base. Unfortunately, because the International Community sees Iran as a tool which can be used to weaken the hegemony of the United States, and Iran also has nearly unlimited money to spend on weapons, Iran has access to some of the most sophisticated weapons available for use in local conflicts. In other words, Iran does, in fact, have an adequate industrial base upon which to rest their war fighting abilities. It is not necessarily located within Iran, but its functional existence can not be in doubt. It is not even certain that nuclear weapons are unavailable to Iran. Some lip service has been made to the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, but too much of the International Community (China, Russia, France) see Iranian nuclear weapons as less of a threat to their own interests than a helpful threat to American influence in the Middle East.
Noting that Iran ultimately, is the greatest engine pushing the Ummah toward confrontation with the West, and that Iran has the potential to wage offensive war against the West (after all, Hezbollah just showed the way) sets the stage for my next point.
The Questionable Assumption:
The Left believes that if we essentially give in to the Islamists, by allowing them to establish rules for censoring the free press, agreeing to separate and more than equal laws covering Muslims within the West (Sharia law), abandoning Israel (eventually along with Kashmir and Spain), allowing Iran to pursue and acquire nuclear weapons, etc, that the Islamists will be satiated and will be willing to consolidate their victories and make peace with the West.
The Right, in the form of the Neocons, believes that by confronting the Islamists now and defeating them in Iraq and Lebanon, especially, while treating them as a law enforcement problem elsewhere (England, Continental Europe, America) we will inflict enough damage on them to discourage the young from becoming radicalized and swelling the ranks of the Islamist battalions. This rests on the assumption that we can effect changes in the behavior of the Islamists without having to confront them in a world wide war, despite the fact that they see themselves engaged in a world wide struggle with us.
I believe that, in practice, the assumption that we can meaningfully effect the course of Islamic totalitarianism short of full scale war is unwarranted, and whether our policy is controlled by the left or the right, any actions short of full scale war will only delay the final confrontation. I also do not see any way to square the circle.
The Islamists are at war with us.
If we appease the Islamists, it means they are winning. They then see themselves as more powerful, on the move. Censoring cartoons in Europe is seen as a battlefield victory. Attacking Jews with impunity is another victory. Blowing up nightclubs and airplanes are further victories. Their banners proudly proclaim "Islam is on the March!" and the ranks of their followers swell.
Yet if we fight back, even if we achieve tremendous tactical victories, their ongoing control of the information war via the passive complicity of the Western media, and the active propaganda complicity of the Muslim media, means that such victories are turned into recruitment campaigns for Muslims around the world to answer the call to arms in any way they can.
We are faced with an unpleasant realization: if we appease, we will get more war, and if we fight, we will get more war.
It is a truism that too few appreciate that wars only end when there is a winner and a loser. We will only start winning this war when we confront and defeat Iran. The dictates of reality in a democracy are such that even if our government was completely convinced that a confrontation with Iran is an existential necessity, without a sufficient provocation, there is no way the public would support such an effort, especially in light of the threat to all of us from the enemy within our midst. The saddest realization is that with each passing day our enemy gets stronger and the fight gets more hazardous.
The Bush administration can be brought to task for squandering much of America's will to win after 9/11. By treating the war in Iraq as a battle against the government of Iraq and not the nation of Iraq, an admirable attempt in my mind, they have made further such attempts unimaginable. By invading with "warfare-lite" we failed to defeat the enemy in Iraq and are now left with the attempt to win hearts and minds, an effort that the counter-insurgency people tell us is always difficult, takes a long time, and often requires tactics that are difficult for us to use. It remains quite possible that we will eventually win for Iraq a stable, representative democracy of a type never seen before in the Arab world. Unfortunately, even the most optimistic would admit that such a victory is far in the future. In this war, victory delayed is victory denied.
I sincerely doubt the West can win this war without societal mobilization and such mobilization can only take place once people begin to sense that they have a personal investment in the outcome. Tragically, before this war ends, we are all likely to find that we have a personal stake in the outcome.
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