Bush gave a speech before the National Endowment for Democracy that was widely panned as a hoary rehash of worn themes. It certainly wasn’t effective at rallying support for his Iraq policy (currently hovering at 40% or less) or at convincing people that terrorism is job #1 (only 7% of the public think it the most important issue). What it did do was describe the new specter said to be haunting the Middle East: a pan-Islamic movement bent on global domination and competition with the West whose revolutionary vanguard is al Qaeda network terrorists.
How realistic is such a bugaboo? What are the prospects of what is essentially the negative correlative of the Neo-Con democratic domino theory for the Muslim world?
The lands with majority Muslim populations, especially those of the Middle East, have long been home to super-nationalist sentiments. The imperial past of Islam under the Caliphates is a golden age to the minds of many. Such internationalist sentiments have historically taken the form of pan-Arabism - an appeal to the allegiance to the common ties of language, culture and history – embracing people from North Africa to Mesopotamia. The very party we just toppled from power in Iraq, the Ba’thists, were the failed secular embodiment of that aspiration. However, in recent history it is pan-Islamism that, much like Christo-Conservatism here in the U.S., seems to have gained populist traction among average people.
There is a growing tendency to see the possibility of a pan-national political entity born of the religious affiliation among the people of the Middle East. Certainly, al Qaeda and its ilk are a product of, and proponent of, such dreams. The threat of an extremist, international, and totalitarian Islamic Superpower brought into being by a violent and revolutionary vanguard has a toehold in reality, but little more.
Such a dystopian vision suffers a few key delusions: it vastly overestimates the political appeal of radical fundamentalist Islam to the average Muslim; it vastly underestimates the strength and resiliency of national governments and the secular order in the Muslim world; it assigns far more power and resources to violent terrorist organizations than they actually possess; and it overestimates the political appetite among Middle Eastern people for confrontation with the West. In short, it is a boogyman with far less substance and reality than the Red Menace of the Soviets which it is intended to replace in the American political lexicon.
Article comments
1 - Alethinos
Good post... And I agree with most of your assessment,however... We tend to forget that given the axiology of the region, family-is-center and strong-father-figure is the center of that center, it doesn't take much to overhaul a country. Look at Iran - by far the most educated and forward-looking people right up to the point of the Islamic Revolution. They've yet to shake the fools that lord it over them though they are loathed by millions...
The mindset in that region is to bow before the man with the big stick. Nothing can be done about it. Unfortunately, due to a very poor reading/understanding of what Mohammad said in the Qu'ran there is wall-to-wall fatalism.
Those that run AQ and other terrorist/Pan-Islamic movements know the cattle they are trying to corral - they know that it only takes a few who are unafraid to go to the whip to subdue millions...
I despise Bush & Co., and their attempts to play on our fears. Despite that these terrorists cannot be easily written off. The average Egyptian might not WANT them ruling in Cairo, but he won't do a damn thing to prevent it...
Alethinos
2 - alienboy
Great article with lots of food for thought...
3 - Tumi Mokau
It's good to see the American media waking up and taking notice of the real war. Some of us had thought it might never happen. It's damn near impossible to overcome enemy who is fighting for independance while all you're fighting for is foreign conquest. I'm an African. I know.
It was a different world that nominated America as its policemen, back when the buzz words were "Hiroshima" and the "Red Menace", light years ago. September 11 proved that.
What's happening in Iraq is simply an indication of a new era. That war a microcosm of the continuing struggle between Islam and the West. It is no longer about when America will win, but if. And what happens when the mighty USA, to use the Post's own phraseology, the vanguard of the West is defeated?(and pulling out is just as bad, perhaps worse)
The vast majority of planet earth, billions upon billions of people base their very lives on America's supremacy on the world stage. The very basis of international finance is the US dollar. What happens when America loses the "Battle for Iraq"? How does that bode for the rest of the war? And make no mistake this is a war; the first volley was fired by Al Qaeda.
History is filled with examples of a seemingly superior foe defeated at the hands of a more determined enemy. If this, along with the many other wars, coups, and armed conflicts the US has orcherstrated, financially suorted, as well as taken part in since WWII, is just its attempt to become Rome in the next Bible - then it should take heed; even the Roman Empire was defeated by the Barbarians.
My heart goes out to Israel.
4 - deanna
hayyyy
5 - Temple A. Stark
This post was chosen by the section editor as a BC pick of the week. Go HERE (link) to find out why.
And thank you
- Temple