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| Interesting Times: The Islamist bubble | ||
| 2008-02-16 | ||
| Here's a word that ought to be reintroduced into our vocabulary: winning. To his credit, John McCain, in his speech to a conservative convention, used the "w" word. "I intend to win the war," he said, speaking of Iraq. But Iraq is not the only war that needs to be won. Or more precisely, it is only part of the war. And the whole war is eminently winnable. There is a feeling in the air that if we are in a war at all, it is an unwinnable one, or one that will be with us for generations. In attempting to rally Americans, President George Bush has understandably urged perseverance and promised ultimate victory, but the net result has been to reinforce a sense of endless conflict and stalemate. In the back of our minds, we assume that the West will eventually be victorious against militant Islamism, just as we were against Soviet communism and Nazi fascism. But those victories are not exactly ideal models. European and Japanese fascism were defeated, but only in a war in which 55 million died or were murdered (including the Holocaust), and the US was compelled to use nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed, but only after half a century of direct or proxy wars in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere and central European suffering behind the Iron Curtain. Under Joseph Stalin alone, 20 million people died of starvation and in purges. Our job is not just to win, but to prevent the tolls of human life and freedom inflicted by these other totalitarian ideologies. This means beating Islamofascism before it becomes stronger and before a true world war is left as the only option. The first step to doing this is to realize that democracies often overestimate both their own weakness and their enemy's strength. The classic example of this was the resonance of the surprise bestseller The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. The book, which burst onto the scene in 1987, portrayed American academia as hopelessly polluted by moral relativism. "If Bloom is right, America's founding principles, taken from Hobbes and Locke, may be compared to AIDS," Tom West wrote of the book. "The body whose immune defenses are breaking down may appear healthy for many years before it becomes obviously sick. Thus, although in Bloom's view our founding principles were atheistic and relativistic at bottom, the body politic continued to look healthy for about 180 years before the disease began to manifest itself openly." This message spoke to conservatives, who wondered how such a morally weakened society could prevail against the Soviet regime which seemed able to ruthlessly concentrate on amassing power. Only two years later, however, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union imploded into a tremendous heap. The collapse of the Evil Empire left behind a huge mess, but ideologically it was almost as if this supposedly formidable foe had never existed. At times, President George Bush has suggested the possibility of such an Islamist collapse. Speaking of Iraq in June 2004, soon after Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a foxhole, Bush said: "As the entire region sees the promise of freedom in its midst, the terrorist ideology will become more and more irrelevant, until that day when it is viewed with contempt or ignored altogether." Almost four years later, this statement invites ridicule. But Bush wasn't wrong; he had just left out part of the equation.
Among other tactical changes, the "surge" in Iraq has been successful partly because US forces have suppressed and captured Iranian agents and their allies. Iran itself, however, has barely been touched, aside from weak economic sanctions. The war in Iraq, the struggle against Syria and Hizbullah in Lebanon, and the Arab-Israel conflict are all now battlefields within the wider war against militant Islamism. The Islamist front is based in Teheran, which fights on all these battlefields by supporting proxy forces such as Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaida. IT IS glaringly obvious that the only way to win the wider war is to defeat the Iranian regime, just as the Soviet regime had to be defeated to end the Cold War, and the fascist regimes had to be defeated to end World War II. This is not as tall an order as it is made out to be. The Iranian regime is vulnerable. The people can't stand the regime, both because they are sick of being ruled by a corrupt theocracy (much as Russians had become sick of communism), and because it has mismanaged the economy so badly that there are rolling electricity blackouts in the depths of winter despite $100-a-barrel oil. Iran accounts for only 1 percent of Europe's global trade, while 40 percent of Iran's trade is with Europe. So if Europe cuts off this trade, much of it supported by government subsidies, it will have a negligible impact on Europe's economy while profoundly worsening the Iranian regime's already precarious situation. Combine this with a cut in diplomatic relations and tightened UN sanctions, and there is every reason to believe Iran could be forced to back down without firing a shot.
The West must not follow the World War II model, when we failed to stop the Nazis while they were weak in the 1930s, or the Cold War model, when for decades we were satisfied with "containment" and "deterrence," before Ronald Reagan started talking about consigning Soviet communism to the "ash heap of history." The sooner we start believing in our own strengths and opening our eyes to the other side's weaknesses, the sooner we can win again, and at the lowest possible price. | ||
| Posted by:Fred |
| #9 Elder, I'd say Iran is more like a baboon in crystal meth... |
| Posted by: Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2008-02-16 17:40 |
| #8 No feeding the trolls, Elder |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-02-16 14:03 |
| #7 Gromky, you are truely mistaken. In my active service days I fought in three different wars and served countless days in military reserve service. Not once during these days did I or anyone else around me ever want or expect American blood to be shed on our behalf. What you fail to perceive is that a fanatic Moslem regime with nukes is a threat to the entire world (including other "saner" Moslem regimes- if you believe any exist). The combination of Ahmadinajad + Nukes is almost like a combination of a wild baboon on heroin being given a machine-gun and being let loose in a crowded restaurant. I think the USA should take very active measures including sheding blood if necessary to prevent this nightmare scenario from happening. Not because of Israel ! I guarantee you that Israel will take the necessary steps in the face of and maybe despite the obvious American internal weakness and political incapacity to aggressively end this threat. Except that when we go alone to fuck the Iranians, don't bitch if you get ricochetted in the process and if we do not stricktly adhere to preserving American interests in the region. It is clear to me that Israeli (and probably American) blood is going to be shed in this crucial conflict and I think we prefer it to be shed in the minimal possible amount when we strike first than to have it shed involuntarily and in exponentially larger amounts when the Irani Nukes hit Tel- Aviv (and maybe NY and San Francisco ?....). So don't be so cynical, and don't let roumors and little connivings and short sightedness fool you. The Shiites and Ayatollahs are serious, dead seriouss in their attempts to gain strategic nuclear capabilities. and they will if nobody stops them. We (Israel) will stop them if we can. If you cant or don't want to - please sit aside and STFU. Respectfully Yours, Elder of Zion. (Oh, what a befitting nickname I chose without knowing how useful it will become) |
| Posted by: Elder of Zion 2008-02-16 12:31 |
| #6 'moose, are you a professor, philosopher, oracle, rabble-rouser, or what? Very well done. Clear, concise, and convincing, to this dreamer, anyway. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2008-02-16 10:24 |
| #5 Yeah really, I can think of no scarier place on this planet to be than in the middle of that den of vipers. God help us all if they get the nuke. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-02-16 10:14 |
| #4 The author makes a basic error. Democracy, unlike socialism or communism, doesn't win because it is forced on people. It wins because the *logic* of democracy sells itself, even to the most primitive illiterate peasant. Not only is democracy more efficient than any other system, which is obvious, it just makes common sense. It is "the better way", of doing much of everything. Importantly, this *used* to be the big selling point of Islam, that it was, truthfully, a "better way" than anything else that existed in the 7th Century, be it tribalism, feudalism, or having a multitude of gods. At the time, it not only ran circles around, and superseded the pagan religions, but also did so with what passed for government. And to this day, that is why Islam has had such staying power. Not because it is a religion, but because they have hypnotized themselves into thinking that because it *was* a better way, it must *still be* a better way. You see this refrain used frequently by Islamist apologists, that there *can be* no better system. And the *obvious* nature of the superiority of democracy gives them ulcers, because any objective person sees the truth for what it is. So what does this mean in the Middle East? Democrats in the woodwork. From peasant to prince, secret democrats, those who are objective, compare and contrast democracy with both Sharia and their dictatorial government, and see that democracy is better. It is like a virus in how it spreads, and damn near impossible to eradicate. Every country in the Middle East has been infected to some extent, and nobody can tell who the democrats are, and who are not. But the democrats work within the system to introduce democracy at every turn. And they infect others. An excellent example is Saudi Arabia. A country, more than anything else, ultra conservative, in the most basic sense. They abhor and fear change. Somehow a democrat convinced them to try a simple and totally controlled experiment in democracy, and they did, scared half out of their wits. A minor and unimportant local election, with security people everywhere in case it threatened a violent, national revolution. The result? Boring. Only modest interest from the new voters, with mediocre turnout. No excitement, to suspense, no violence at all, no cheating, mostly indifference. Importantly, the election results showed that the public voted pretty much exactly the same way as the king, electing almost the same people as he had previously appointed. If anything, a *tad* more conservative than the king. The government was thrilled. This democracy stuff worked great! Overnight, many leaders were turned into democrats. Still wanting to move in baby steps, mind you. But much less afraid. And the idea of democracy spreads. It needs no coercion, no foreign army except to interfere with those that would violently prevent it. But in a time of peace, democracy eventually wins out, once the idea, the virus, circulates. It is even infecting much of the Chinese countryside, picked up as an idea from TV game shows, of all things. It is hard for some local communist leader to just order the peasants around anymore, without someone chiming in: "Let's vote on it." And there is no, zero logic that a communist can use to convince even peasants that it is better to just do what he says, just because. And though they fume and angrily curse the peasants for this, it just shows they are impotent. And democracy spreads. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-02-16 10:03 |
| #3 Gromky ... if you are going to cast aspersions, it pays to learn to spell. |
| Posted by: doc 2008-02-16 07:42 |
| #2 Good read. "For GENERATIONS" > PRAGMATICALLY, the GLOBAL AGENDA = OWG JIHADIST-ISLAMIST STATE ambition of Radical Islam can't wait that long as per DUBYA/US REGIONAL-GLOBAL ENTRENCHMENT. D *** NG IT, forgot the source but IIRC IT WAS RECENT NET ARTICLE > HOW US POWER IS SO GREAT UNDER CERTRAIN CIRCUMSTANCES IT HAS TO BE RESTRAINED, AND NOT ALLOWED TO BE FULLY RELEASED = EXERCISED??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-02-16 01:27 |
| #1 Yeah, I'm sure that the Isrealis will fight to the last drop of American blood. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-02-16 00:40 |