Tactical Candor and Strategic Illusions

Assumptions about Islamism

Assumptions about Islamic militancy, Muslim imperialism to some, have been as troublesome as attempts to define the threat. When assumptions are miscast, then beliefs are fatally flawed. Beliefs about Muslims in general and Islamism in particular, seem to be predicated on three flawed assumptions, or asserted conclusions:

• Israel is the root of Muslim angst,
• moderates,”
• the Islamic world is the moral equivalent of any other culture.

Blame Israel?

The blame Israel hypothesis reasons from a limited set of particulars to an implausible general conclusion. The Palestine question is, in fact, a regional problem that is commonly used as a rationale for all manner of global mischief. Were it not, Israel might be flying airliners into skyscrapers to make their case also.

And the erosion of support for Tel Aviv, the blame Israel idiom, in Europe and America may serve as a disincentive for settlement and a stimulus for more terror. What kind of message do jihadists get from an American president who visits several Ummah capitals to reassure Muslims, but studiously avoids Israel? And why do Muslims need to be patronized by America about a threat that originates almost exclusively in global Muslim communities?

attitudes towards Jews and Israel are overwhelmingly (90% +) hostile. And the targets are Jews not Zionists – as if jihadists would know the difference. Depredations in places like Bali, Mumbai, Beslan, and French schoolyards have little or nothing to do with Palestinian real estate.

mosques, or Islamic centers, worldwide.

A Moderate Muslim Majority?

And as evidence, if good data were available, the totality of Muslims with hostile or belligerent intentions might be irrelevant. The modern historical record on this matter is clear. Given sanctuary, a motivated minority often prevails. In short, ideology and zeal may triumph, no matter the numbers.

And recall, an exiled ideological fanatic such as Ayatollah Khomeini, like Lenin, is often made possible by European indulgence. Or in America today, a Turkish imam with a global reach, once exiled by Ankara, finds refuge in the woods of Pennsylvania. Ideological tolerance, or apathy, is often more significant than numbers or demographics.

revolutions is also distributing hate, terror, and intolerance. Syria, the Sudan, Bahrain, Somalia, and Yemen, if not most of Arab Africa, are object lessons in progress.

Most declarations about Muslim moderation, or the space between Islam and politics, in the Ummah are projections or asserted conclusions, nothing more. Where there are no good measurements, there is no good science.

Moral Equivalency?

Moral equivalency is the third rail of international politics. And the modern incarnation of Islam has been granted equality by default. Here again we have a kind of unilateral disarmament in the world of progressive ideals. Surely none of the civil or human rights abuses extant in the Muslim world today would be tolerated in any western democracy.

browning</a>;” but the quest of, and quarrel within Islam is religious and political, not racial or ethnic. 

Turkey and Egypt, erstwhile allies, represent special hazards where elections might be confused with democracy. Kamal Attaturk and Gamal Abdel Nasser separated church from state by force. And now religion comes back to Turkish and Egyptian politics through peaceful elections. No election is ever synonymous with democracy or progress.

consanguinity, slavery, religious intolerance, misogyny, child abuse, and lethal homophobia; just to name a few of the more obvious aberrations. We might also recall that Daniel Pearl, a Jewish American journalist, was literally decimated; cut into ten pieces.

As a general proposition, Islam is only moderate where it is a minority. Where Islam is a majority, religious and many other varieties of moderation are often the first casualties. Multi-culture does not become monoculture without absolutism and coercion.

Many observers rationalize the political and social pathologies of the Muslim world as the products of poverty, ignorance, or exploitation. The usual causes cited by Paradigm Alpha subscribers (and opportunistic Islamists) are: colonialism, secularism, capitalism, and cultural imperialism. If PEW surveys are correct, most Muslims agree, blaming backwardness on outsiders. The victim trope is cultivated by Islamic clerics and politicians for obvious reasons, but the analytical spin in the West has darker roots.

Surely, considerations like energy, debt, and migration patterns are relevant. Of these, demographic vectors like immigration and birth rates seem to be the most threatening. Terrorism gets more press, but military tactics do not represent the totality of the threat. The underlying factors, fears if you will, of the Islamist threat are political, cultural, and religious. And pathological policies or Muslim behaviors, justified in the name of all three, are the very evidence that undermines any argument for moral equivalence.

What is to be Done?

Sayyid Qutb, ideological godfather of the Muslim brotherhood. The union of new money and ancient religious passion was facilitated by the European colonial retreat. An explanation for the modern bloom of Muslim irredentism may be simple: Islamism was the best organized and best financed alternative to fill the post-colonial, post-fascist, political vacuum.  

Sufis and modern Kurds are numerically small examples. But, the vector of global Islamic politics is anything but secular, democratic, or progressive.

Egypt, or Afghanistan to name just three), the vector of Islamic politics and the paucity of human rights is painfully obvious.

at risk – on the theocratic block, if you will.