One thing we have learned about the Islamic world since 9/11 is that they tend to have grandiose fantasies about themselves and as a result tend to be over-confident of their own abilities. In my series on The Arab Mind I discussed how the use of language and the structure of the Arabic language lend themselves to grandiosity:
Raphael Patai [in his brilliant book The Arab Mind] remarked upon the beauty of the language, the belief among Arabs that Arabic is the most perfect of languages, the use of Arabic as a bond which cements the Umma as one, and the centrality of Arabic for Islam:
...
If such was the esteem in which Arabic came to be held in the peripheries, where only a very few scholars attained full mastery of it, in the core area Arabicized after the Muslim-Arab conquest the holy language of the Koran attained a position never approximated by any other language in any other culture. ... The best Arab minds considered the Arabic language the greatest treasure possessed by the Arabs and devoted enormous ingenuity to the fullest possible utilization of its potential. In this they were greatly helped by the rich vocabulary of Arabic, the great variability of Arabic verb structure, the ease with which the language lent itself to rhythmic cadences, and its exceptional suitability to rhetoric and hyperbole. [Emphasis added-SW]
As with any language, how ideas are expressed and what they convey contains multiple layers beyond the manifest content. The tendency of Arabic speakers to use rhetoric, hyperbole, and the relation between words, tenses, and action are all important considerations when trying to understand the Arab Mind.
The Arab tendency to hyperbole is obvious once you spend any time reading translations of actual content rather than Arabic discourse in English designed to sooth and calm the English speaking audience. Yasser Arafat was a master at appearing reasonable when speaking to Westerners while using the most blood curdling language when speaking to Arabs in their own tongue.
Some recent examples from MEMRI:
Syrian Ambassador to U.S. Slams Bush Administration over Syrian Nuclear Plant Allegations:
"The current U.S. government is very upset about losing the momentum for waging a war or aggression against Iran, because political public opinion in the U.S. does not support such a war. The administration thought - this is my analysis, but I can't swear to it - that it could once again increase the tempo of the drumbeat of war by unleashing a new nuclear crisis in our region all of a sudden, and then lumping together all of us - the countries of the 'Axis of Evil,' the rogue states."
"Sometimes It Amazes Me That My Enemy is So Naïve, Superficial, and Stupid... The American Media, Legislative, Political, and Intelligence Establishment Has Already Begun to Pound Away At This Account "
Although there are many Americans who might agree with the Ambassador's assessment, the salient point is that the language is far from typical of diplomatic discourse.
Most people probably remember Baghdad Bob declaiming on the various disasters being meted out by the triumphant Iraqi forces to the invading American armies, disasters which occurred on a regular basis right up until the time that the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled off its pedestal in the middle of Baghdad.
There are two important points that must be understood which emerge from the Arab use of language:
1) Because of the Honor-Shame dynamic in Arab culture, Arabs must act as if their hyperbole is reality. Under the influence of truth serum or in private they may admit that their language is exaggerated, but in public, they are forever more powerful, more intimidating, and more righteous than their enemies.
2) The requirement to act as if their grandiosity is real leads them to under estimate their enemies and act far too soon, in a strategic sense.
As an example, Osama bin Laden convinced himself that by striking a terrible blow at the American heartland, that America, "the weak horse", who retreat and leave the Arabian Peninsula in defeat. Similarly, Hezbollah miscalculated Israel's response to the attack which precipitated the war in Southern Lebanon. Because they believe in their own superiority they will always strike too soon. A person whose position depends on his ability to be the "king of the hill" must eventually put his money where his mouth is or be challenged by those who will. The Arabs for many years have insisted they will destroy Israel and return "al Quds" to Arab control. The Egyptians failed; the Saudis have failed; the Iranians are on the ascendant, in part because of their willingness to use their proxies to attack Israel and the United States. Now, in a frightening escalation, a new competitor for the leadership of the Umma has appeared. Few commentators appreciate this aspect of the recent Gaza flotilla fiasco but ultimately it is the most significant aspect of the entire affair:
How Can Turkey's Government Be a U.S. Ally if it's an Ally of Iran?
Erdogan called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "friend." He said, "Countries with nuclear weapons are not in a position to turn to another country and say: 'You are not supposed to produce nuclear weapons.'" The Turkish prime minister insisted:
"Iran has consistently spoken of the fact that it is seeking to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes and that they are using uranium enrichment programmes for civilian purposes only....That is what Mr Ahmadinejad has told me many times before."
...
The Turkish regime and its new friends--which include Hamas and Hizballah--know which side that government is on, when will the U.S. government notice?
And:
Turkey Tightens Syrian-Iranian Axis after Snubbing Israel
Two decades of close ties between Ankara and Jerusalem appear to be coming to an end, the Asia Times reported Wednesday. It explained that demands from the Arab world and from hard-line Muslims in Turkey have influenced the government to distance itself from Israel, which has supplied Ankara with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of equipment for refurbishing tanks and airplanes.
...
End of an Era?
The change in the friendship between Turkey and Israel, which one senior Israeli official admitted may “have simply ended,” leaves Israel without any friendly nation close to the northern border. The Asia Times noted that the cancellation of the aerial exercise may have severe implications on the effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
As a reminder I would point out that our invasion of Iraq was complicated to an extraordinary extent by the last minute refusal of the Erdogan government to allow our troops to embark from Turkish soil. Turkey has an Islamist, ie no longer secular, government, and it is following the logic and the path of all Islamists everywhere, toward confrontation with the Dar-el-Harb.
Erdogan: Israel to lose closest ally
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sharply criticized Israel for its reaction to the Mavi Marmara raid Thursday saying that "Israel stands to lose its closest ally in the Middle East if it does not change its mentality."
Erdogan argued that "Turkey tried to preserve their relationship, but the Israeli government did not understand this, and performed a historical mistake."
In his entertaining and thought provoking book, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, George Friedman imagines Turkey, emboldened by its Islamic power, in accord with its history, culture, religion, and strategic imperatives, allied with Japan in a war with the United States. He explored some of these ideas in less depth in last year's article in the New Statesman, The next 100 years:
Japan and Turkey form an alliance to attack the US. Poland becomes America’s closest ally. Mexico makes a bid for global supremacy, and a third world war takes place in space. Sounds strange? It could all happen. . .
Turkey has been the "proof" that a moderate, secular Islam was possible. It has been sliding into Islamism for 10 years now and the old dream of re-establishing the Caliphate under Turkish leadership has re-emerged as an important part of the Turkish zeitgeist. We are not yet at War with Turkey in the same way we are at War with Iran, (and the upcoming Turkish elections in November, 2011 will be critical for defining its Nature) but Turkey's turn toward Islam suggests that a rapprochement between the West and the Islamic world has just become significantly more difficult. If this represents a Turkish reversion to its true, ie Islamic, Nature, the Middle East and Europe are at great risk. Further, the tendency to premature over-reach means that the confrontation(s) between us have just shortened George Friedman's horizon.
So, are the Turks reverting to their Nature?
Erdogan and the Decline of the Turks
To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness. Imagine 80 million or so people sitting at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. They don't speak an Indo-European language and perhaps hundreds of thousands of them have meaningful access to any outside media. What information most of them get is filtered through a secular press that makes Italian communists look right wing by comparison and an increasing number of state (i.e., Islamist) influenced outfits. Topics A and B (or B and A, it doesn't really matter) have been the malign influence on the world of Israel and the United States.
For example, while there was much hand-wringing in our own media about "Who lost Turkey?" when U.S. forces were denied entry to Iraq from the north in 2003, no such introspection was evident in Ankara and Istanbul. Instead, Turks were fed a steady diet of imagined atrocities perpetrated by U.S. forces in Iraq, often with the implication that they were acting as muscle for the Jews. The newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's daily read, claimed that Americans were tossing so many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that local mullahs had issued a fatwa ordering residents not to eat the fish. The same paper repeatedly claimed that the U.S. used chemical weapons in Fallujah. And it reported that Israeli soldiers had been deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and that U.S. forces were harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."
The secular Hurriyet newspaper, meanwhile, accused Israeli soldiers of assassinating Turkish security personnel in Mosul and said the U.S. was starting an occupation of (Muslim) Indonesia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. Then U.S. ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman actually felt the need to organize a conference call to explain to the Turkish media that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. One of the craziest theories circulating in Ankara was that the U.S. was colonizing the Middle East because its scientists were aware of an impending asteroid strike on North America.
If a patient expressed such lunatic ideas, he would be hospitalized as a danger to himself and others. Unless Turkey can regain its senses, this will not end well.
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