Getting Our Priorities in Order

Mark of New Jersey

Mark is a Founding Editor of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, the predecessor of Ordinary Times.

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14 Responses

  1. Will says:

    It’s tough to thread the needle on this one, Mark, as most interventionists are pretty adept at paying lip service to the need for exit strategies and carefully targeted measures. One reason I’m sympathetic to Freddie’s principled anti-interventionism is that it removes any hint of ambiguity from our strategic calculus.Report

  2. Will: I totally understand. This subject is probably the single most maddening subject for me to get a hold of, if only because it’s so damn difficult to articulate a vision with which I can be even remotely comfortable. I do know that trying to impose liberal democracy by force has a pretty bad track record; but even there, I can’t discount the possibility that it can work in certain situations or even that it can work in most situations if the larger nation is willing to invest a really, really large amount of resources over a really, really long period of time in order to nurture the seedlings necessary for a successful liberal democracy where few such seedlings exist.

    But as I say, my inclination is towards Freddie’s general non-interventionism, so for me the burden necessary for intervention is extremely high. The best I can do is to say that a long-term military intervention that will require nation-building is probably only appropriate where the threat it seeks to prevent is, in fact, existential. For lesser threats or for human rights-based interventions, I’d say that intervention needs to be limited to actions that can be achieved within relatively short time horizons with little collateral damage, and only after there is sufficient evidence that the basis for the intervention is essentially proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But I’m even deeply uncomfortable with this formulation.Report

  3. Roque Nuevo says:

    But for many of us, including many people like myself who were directly affected by 9/11, a few years of reflection led to the realization that terrorism was not the existential threat to the US that it is for Israel.

     Israel faces an existential threat from Hamas, who want to replace the state of Israel with an Islamic state. We face exactly the same threat. The tactics are asymmetrical—they include terrorism, but are not limited to this at all.

    Freedom Housejust released their annual survey. Nations of the Middle East and Africa are “not free.”

    These nations are also hotbeds of terrorism. “Not free” and hotbeds of terrorism… What’s the explanation? Are these two facts related somehow?

    First, they are “not free” because “freedom” is not one of their political values. Islamic states value Islamic law, not “freedom.” If Islamic states made a Map of World Peace, we’d be colored “not peaceful” because the only way to achieve peace is by accepting Islamic law. We think “peace” means either “no war” or “harmony.” Our idea of “peace” is based on “freedom.” The Islamic idea of “peace” means “God’s rule,” which to us is “not free”—witness the Freedom House map. There are no states in Islam’s world map; there is only the community of believers. There are no communities of believers in the Western world map; there are only states, which have rights.

    This is why there is an existential challenge today, not because of the tactic of terrorism.

    We are not fighting a war against a tactic. Jihadists use terrorism against us but it’s their ideology that is the existential threat. Their ideology is called “Islam.” They must confront us from a position of weakness, hence the “irregular” or “asymmetrical” warfare called “terrorism.” Our challenge is to fight an asymmetrical war without giving up our commitment to the values we hold important. This challenge has not been met and no one has even tried to meet it. Instead, people simply hurl insults at one another for being either nazi-like warmongers or appeasement junkies to score points in sterile debates. Meanwhile, troops have to fight because…yes, it’s true, we face an existential threat from jihadists. This war will not end until either we submit to the rule of God or they submit to the goal of freedom, which means a reform of Islam itself. Neither of these alternatives will happen in the forseeable future.Report

  4. Roque:

    In the case of Israel, the issue of terrorism and/or Islamism is definitely an existential threat, or at the very minimum is justifiably perceived as such. However, I’m not so sure that this holds true in terms of the US. In my own experience, having lived within sight and within walking distance of the Pentagon on 9/11 (and thus experiencing terrorism in a way that Middle America simply cannot understand), I found that over the course of time, the effect of our response to terrorism was having such a tremendous effect on me as to cease to justify the marginally lowered risk of a terrorist attack.

    But that’s not your point, which I take as being more that Islamism must be viewed in much the same way that we viewed the threat of Communism during the Cold War. That strikes me as a legitimate argument, although I don’t think Islamism has achieved nearly enough power to yet present the kind of existential threat once posed by the Soviet Union. But if it were to spread sufficiently, it certainly could eventually come to do so.

    One of the things that I try to make clear above (admittedly, this is not my most coherent piece of writing ever) is that the great problem with our current foreign policy thinking is that it does not seem to have any unified primary goal. In many ways, I think that simply uniting behind any primary goal, even one with which I don’t necessarily agree, would be preferable to the current status quo of sort of trying to do all things at once.

    So then the question becomes whether deterring the spread of Islamism could be that primary goal. I think this would be a hard sell. First, much of the rhetoric of those who most intensely advocate for this view would treat (or at least appears to treat) all Muslims as enemies. This creates a visceral backlash amongst other groups who justifiably are opposed to stereotyping such a large percentage of the world’s population. Worse is the fact that many of those (not you, I fully acknowledge) who are most vociferous in their attacks on Islamism are themselves fairly open advocates of mixing church and state here at home, which destroys their argument’s credibility.

    All this, of course, leaves the issue of how best to deter the spread of Islamism once we have achieved some form of consensus that should be the primary goal of our foreign policy. That is obviously another issue altogether.Report

  5. Roque Nuevo says:

    So then the question becomes whether deterring the spread of Islamism could be that primary goal. I think this would be a hard sell. First, much of the rhetoric of those who most intensely advocate for this view would treat (or at least appears to treat) all Muslims as enemies. This creates a visceral backlash amongst other groups who justifiably are opposed to stereotyping such a large percentage of the world’s population.

    It’s true that the ideological aspect of this war is muddled almost beyond redemption. However, a concerted effort at clarification by people like Obama (famous for his rhetoric, right?) would still be effective.

    One problem is the political correctness you allude to. Nobody wants to treat Muslims as an enemy. They have a right to their religion under our system. We are sensitive to stereotyping people because we know the pernicious effects this can have on everyone, quite apart from the “backlash” problem.

    Obama could explain to people—that is, if he understands this himself, which I doubt—that “Islamism” is not the same thing as “Islam.” Today’s Islamism, although it is founded in Islam to a degree that makes it almost impossible for Muslims to criticize it, is a modern movement based on the “invention of tradition” in the words of Bassam Tibi. It’s political Islam. This can and should be distinguished from Islam as an historical religion. Then, nobody would be treating all Muslims as enemies or stereotyping anyone.

    The primary goal must be not only to deter the spread of Islamism but to defeat it entirely. There is no reason why this cannot happen if we had more clarity about it. There is no reason why this couldn’t happen non violently, if we had more clarity about it. Nobody in our world would ever consider Islamist goals to be legitimate, if they were clear to everyone.

    The confusion is the result of Islamists’s success in producing the confusion in the first place. This is one of their “ways of war.” In the second place, it’s the result of our own value system, which includes respect for religious expression. Islamists are adept at exploiting this, as long as we are ignorant of the basic distinction between Islam and Islamism.

    The basic geopolitical fact is that the West was attacked by Islam, starting in the Middle Ages. The West overcame these attacks and even converted the world of Islam into a dependency. This is the major conflict that Islamists have: they are indoctrinated with the belief that Islam is superior and must reign over the whole globe; the facts on the ground show abysmal ignorance, poverty, and servitude. So, like Obama did, we should just say “we won.” And be proud of it, too. Our winning does not mean ignorance, poverty, and servitude for Muslims—they have done that to themselves. It means only that they are included in a world organized according to the principle of national sovereignty and pluralism, which is derived from it. In other words, our winning means that they’re just as free as we are.

    One of the tragedies of the rise of Islamism is the situation of Indonesia. Indonesia is the only place where Islam exists (and it’s the most populous Islamic state today) because of peaceful proselytism, not the violent jihad, which subdued the rest of the world. It used to be a center for Islamic thinkers who could integrate Islam into the Western-oriented globalization. That’s all over today, since the Islamists have either murdered or pushed these people out, making Indonesia just another center of Islamist thinking and violence.Report

  6. Roque:
    Thanks for the really excellent comment, which raises a whole host of other questions and issues. Too many, in fact, for me to properly address in even a long-form response post, though I’m certainly going to try to address what I can (if and when I get the time, which is a precious commodity these days).

    But one follow-up item for right now: how can and should President Obama re-brand the War on Terror (and for that matter, how should President Bush have branded it) such that it does not reinforce the perception that we are fighting a religion rather than the politicization of a religion?

    Branding it as a fight against Islamism specifically seems to me fraught with peril because it requires the listener to understand a form of nuance that is highly unlikely, especially, I would imagine, when translated into other languages.

    And, again, part of the problem here is that so many of the advocates of going after Islamism don’t even attempt to distinguish it from Islam more generally (see, e.g., the way in which so many on the political Right joyfully called the family that was removed from the AirTran flight but cleared by the FBI “jihadis”).Report

  7. Katherine says:

    Roque –

    These nations are also hotbeds of terrorism. “Not free” and hotbeds of terrorism… What’s the explanation? Are these two facts related somehow?

    Absolutely, but not in the way you seem to be implying. In some nations, terrorism has been a response to the fact that the government is a dictatorship. At any rate, dictatorship in the Middle East existed well before the emergence of Islamic politics in the 1970s. Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Iran – dictatorships all, for many decades, a situation that was not caused by Islam (and that in some cases such as the Shah in Iran, was caused by the United States).

    You are confusing the ideology of al-Qaeda with the ideology of most other Islamic political movements. Most wish their nations to be governed by shari’a law, but that is not the same as having as a central part of their ideology the desire to impose this situation on the rest of the world. Nor would they ever have the power to do so. Many are also supportive of democracy, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s succession of Islamic parties since the 1970s. Turkey current has an Islamic government that has been if anything more favourable to democracy and human rights than previous governments, including reducing the incidence of torture (yes, that does say a lot about how far Turkey has to go) and granting more linguistic rights to the Kurdish minority. Their most controversial action relating to Islam is also pro-freedom in it’s inclination – supporting the right of women to attend university regardless of the clothing they choose to wear.

    Islamic parties work within the state system; they recruit, engage in political activity, and when possible run for office within their nations. The interests of their popular base is largely connected to their nation; the interests of their leadership likewise. Any attempt at a unified Islamic state would fail for the same reasons the United Arab Republic did – all national leaders would be protective of their own authority.

    Look at Hezbollah, for example. They have run for elections – and won quite a few – within Lebanon. They do not dispute that the state of Lebanon exists. They work with other parties within this state to achieve their goals. Their primary goal is to wage war against Israel; but that very fact has made them inclined to focus less on shari’a than other Islamic parties because it would undermine their base of support, which they require to continue the war on Israel. In other words, these are not madmen whose actions and motives will always be obscure to us. They are inclined to act pragmatically, in the context of their goals.Report

  8. Bob says:

    Katherine addressing Roque writes,”You are confusing the ideology of al-Qaeda with the ideology of most other Islamic political movements. Most wish their nations to be governed by shari’a law, but that is not the same as having as a central part of their ideology the desire to impose this situation on the rest of the world.”

    I can’t accept that notion.

    As part of this series E.D. posted “Idealism with a Sword.” There I made the following comment, “Islam, to it’s very bones, rejects western values. Islam is male dominated. It rejects pluralism. It rejects democracy. It places god’s law above civil law. Islam does not value the state, it places value in the religion. It values a sort of pan-Islamic notion where coreligionist are valued more than the artificial nation state where Moslem’s reside.” Roque replied, “Exactly! This is why they declared war on us. This is why no negotiations are possible because to negotiate, one must accept pluralism and the nation-state to begin with. If Islamists did that, then there would be no war.”

    Sorry to quote myself but that may be the quickest way to establish my position on this topic. I think my statement is accurate but it offers no solutions, no way forward. It paints a picture of another “irrepressible conflict.” And that is a picture I really don’t like.

    I realize the League likes to address the big issues, the meta-this, the existential that, but I am more concerned with particular questions and policies designed to address problems, in this series foreign policy problems, interventionism.

    Roque, above, draws a distinction between “Islam” and “Islamism.” (A distinction I’m not really sure he buys.) But he says President Obama should draw the distinction and explain it to America and the world. Okay, what next?

    Tom Friedman, of the NY Times, likes to blame oil for most of the problems in the Middle East. What is his term? “Petro dictatorships.” Something like that. Well, I wonder if every drop of oil were gone from the Middle East would that make a difference? Or even oil at $20 a barrel? Would that end the hatred directed at Israel?

    I have questions and no answers. But I’ll keep my eye on this series and see if anything pops up.

    I will also be watching the administration and Ms Clinton.

    I’m very pessimistic.Report

  9. Roque Nuevo says:

    Katherine,
    I’m not sure what you’re implying that I’m implying. Just to make sure, I’m saying that “not free” and “terrorism” are related in the Arab/Muslim world because both derive somehow from Islam. You seem to disagree and you say there is a simple cause/effect relationship such that “not free” causes terrorism, or that terrorism is a response to dictatorship. You say that dictatorship in the Middle East has existed for many decades, even before the rise of political Islam in the ’70s (although the Muslim Brothers was founded in the ’20s and there were Islamist thinkers in the 19th century). You imply that terrorism, as a response to dictatorship, has freedom as its goal.

    This is unfortunate. In part, this is a result of the confusion over the word “terrorism.” This is one of the Islamist’s points: one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. George Washington was a terrorist in British eyes, etc etc.

    It’s too bad that semantics cannot save this situation, where we are under attack by Islamists. They are not “freedom fighters.” They are fighting for god’s law, not freedom. They are fighting for world peace, which will happen only when the world is under god’s law. Their struggle is defensive–god’s law is being attacked by us and Muslims have the obligation to defend it, etc etc.

    Everyone searches for a just world order. But everyone’s ideas about what justice is will differ. We base our system on the idea that justice is the rule of law. For Muslims, justice is a system that is “rightly guided.” They search for the just ruler, not the just system. Therefore, dictatorship is built in to their world view. It has existed since the beginning of Islam.

    Of course we did not cause the dictatorship in Iran, even under the Shah. We used the Shah to further our own interests, which is a different thing entirely. We have been able to use many forms of goverment to further our own interests in the past. In other words, we have used “smart power,” like Obama says. But in no way does this make us responsible for the abismal state of freedom and development in the Middle East.

    I’m not that up on the intricacies of all the different Islamist ideologies. I agree with you that they share the goal of imposing shari’a. I believe that we engage in a dangerous form of ethnocentrism if we think of this as some alternative constitutional system that can coexist in peace with the rest of humanity. It might be comparable to our idea of “law” but it lacks many of our idea’s basic elements–for example, it is not codified in any way (it simply derives from the Koran and the deeds of the Prophet). Mainly, it is not “law” in our sense because it was revealed by god. There can be no constitutional amendments of revealed wisdom. Even constitutional debate is condemned as heresy. Shari’a may be comparable to our idea of natural law, which is the basis of our constitution, but is not the same thing as a constitution. You can see where this leads: if we were governed by natural law, then a lot of what we call freedom would evaporate as whoever took the power to decide would take dictatorial power.

    You say

    Most wish their nations to be governed by shari’a law, but that is not the same as having as a central part of their ideology the desire to impose this situation on the rest of the world. Nor would they ever have the power to do so.

    Unfortunately, this is not correct. Shari’a law means god’s law. God must rule over the whole world, or there will be perpetual war. The Muslim world view is a dichotomy: the community of believers vs. the unbelievers; the world of Islam/peace vs. the world of war. There is no nationalism in our sense involved here at all and if any Islamic group denied this, they would be heretics. Our world is based on pluralism–it’s a world without a center. Their world revolves around one axis.

    That they don’t have the power right now to impose god’s law on the world is an important point. It determines their strategy. For now, they work from a position of weakness, which will allow them to work within the Western world order–until they are strong enough to overthrow it entirely.

    I may be confusing al Qaeda’s ideology with other Islamist groups, but you are as well. The idea of the global caliphate is not part of Islamist ideology, except in the case of al Qaeda. Islamist ideology means imposing god’s law on the world, which does not mean that there is one world government under some super caliph. As an analogy, the Western system of nation-states, national sovereignty and so forth was imposed on the whole world during the decolonization period after WWII. A world government is not necessary for the Western system to operate worldwide as long as the world shares the same political values.

    You seem to show this, even without explicitly recognizing it, when you say that “Islamic parties work within the state system; they recruit, engage in political activity, and when possible run for office within their nations.” This is only a practical matter, which derives from the weakness of Islamists. They organize, recruit, run for office, but when they take power, god’s law means untold repression of freedom for the people, as the example of Hamas clearly demonstrates. It’s “one man, one vote, one time.”

    Just so there’s no confusion about my position here: I say that war will continue until there is a reform of Islam itself. I say that the only solution is for Islam to adapt to our idea of democratic peace, or pluralism. Otherwise, their manichean world view will generate war forever. You may be correct that the Turkish experiment leads to this kind of result. I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion. But I do know that Islamists of all stripes agree that where democracy exists, Islam is absent. There can be no dialogue, engagement, reaching out, or coexistence between democracy and Islam as long as Islam does not assume any responsibility itself and limits itself to claiming victim status and demanding concessions.

    Therefore, the way forward, as Bob might like to put it, goes through a reform of Islam. Otherwise, as he says, there will be irrepressible conflict. Bob doubts that I really believe that there is a distinction between Islam as an historical religion and today’s Islamism. I do believe this and–even more–this is the crucial distinction to be made before any reform of Islam is possible. If Muslims could understand Islam as an historical event, and not as wisdom revealed once and for all by an archangel, then there would simply be no problem at all. Westerners, even Western religious fanatics, understand that their religion is historical. Muslims refuse to accept this at all–people have been condemned to exile or worse for engaging in what we would call the most inofensive textual criticism of the Koran, let alone considering the Prophet as an historical figure, subject to an historical context, like everyone else.Report

  10. Bob says:

    “Therefore, the way forward…goes through a reform of Islam.”

    Well that is a way forward. And I’m sure one you agree is very unlikely any time soon. Or perhaps you see a reform Islam emerging somewhere.

    I understand the point you are making between historic Islam and “Islamism” but that is a western construct, it seems to me. I’m guessing most in Islam would reject your distinction.

    Are you wishing for a secular Islam? That might be the wrong term, secular, I mean, but it is the best I can come up with right now. The term secular Christian is common but I find it an oxymoron. Secular Moslem sounds even more contradictory.Report

  11. Roque Nuevo says:

    You’re correct that I do not see this happening in the forseeable future. I’m not talking about “secular” Islam. I’m saying that Muslims have to reform their own religion so as to be able to coexist with the West. If they come up with “secular” Islam, then fine with me. But I have no idea what reform of Islam would consist of. It’s really none of my business, since I’m not a Muslim.Report

  12. Katherine says:

    Roque,

    Unfreedom in the Muslim world does not derive simply from Islam, and I find that a ridiculous assertion. The rise of military dictators in the 1950s and later cannot be attributed to the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood; you are using a blatant non sequitur.

    I do not suggest that terrorism has freedom as it’s goal. There are many non-terrorist Islamic political groups, however, that do have democratization as a goal. Whether this is an end or a means to power has been a matter of debate, but they do exist. The Muslim Brotherhood is currently one; it participates in the Egyptian political system, although banned as a party, by running its members as independents. And it has significant popularity, not due simply to religious ideology but because it provides services, such as health care and food and housing for the poor in the cities, that are not adequately provided by the central government.

    There are many divisions between Islamic and Islamist groups – some favour the use of violence, some do not; some favour the use of violence to overthrow domestic dictatorships but do not consider fighting the US a priority. It is impossible to come to any useful understanding of Islamic politics without acknowledging distinctions. Your “clash of civilizations” view is not consistent with the actual behaviour of many Islamic political entities and the differences in philosophy between them.

    Do you honestly believe that – for example – were Hezbollah to come to power in Lebanon, the country would simply and automatically merge with Iran in government and try to ignore the existence of nations? People who are in charge of a nation are too invested in it as a power base to ever abolish it; so Islamist participation in the state system undermines any desire to do away with it.

    You present political Islam as inherently uncompromising, but it’s existence in the form of political parties in nations it does not control, and the participation of those parties in the electoral and parliamentary system, contradict that. To engage in parliamentary politics is, inherently, an act of compromise. This is shown more strongly than anywhere else in Turkey. Two early Islamic parties participated in coalition governments with secular parties (one as a minor partner in the coalition government, the other as it’s leader). Turkey is currently governed by as Islamic parties. It does not posses the characteristics you outline of absolutist imposition of Islamic law and inability to accept the state system, or to accept any government that does not adhere to Islamic law. No party would have a chance of implementing this in Turkey; therefore according to your definition of Islamism, Islamists in Turkey could only resort to violence. Political action would not be an option. That this is not the case indicates your view of Islamic politics is in error.

    Of course we did not cause the dictatorship in Iran, even under the Shah. We used the Shah to further our own interests, which is a different thing entirely.

    The United States and Britain overthrew a democratically-elected government and placed the Shah in power so yes, it is indisputable that the US “created” the Iranian dictatorship.Report

  13. Roque Nuevo says:

    There are several misconceptions in Katherine’s post, all of which tend to place the blame for Arab/Islamic poverty, ignorance, and despotism on the US. This is absurd on the face of it to anyone but those so blinded by political correctness and multiculturalism.
    Misconception #1:

    Unfreedom in the Muslim world does not derive simply from Islam, and I find that a ridiculous assertion. The rise of military dictators in the 1950s and later cannot be attributed to the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood; you are using a blatant non sequitur.

    Katherine is confusing Islam with Islamism, while accusing me of the same. Dictatorships have been the only form of government in the Arab/Islamic world since the Prophet’s dictatorship in the seventh century and that of the “Rightly Guided” caliphs who followed him. In fact, one goal of political Islam/Islamism is to regain the glory of these “Rightly-Guided” caliphs in spite of the fact that three out of the four “Rightly-Guided” caliphs were assassinated because they were not felt to be so “Rightly-Guided” by contemporaries after all.

    Since the decline of Islam and the rise of the West, Arabs and Muslims have attempted one reform after another in the hope of regaining their lost hegemony. The praetorian dictatorships that Katherine refers to were simply another of these. But these dictatorships replaced other dictatorships, which had replaced other dictatorships and so forth. The ideologies may have changed but the bare fact of dictatorship has not. If this doesn’t derive from Islam, then what is the explanation, Katherine?

    Misconception #2:With respect to my “Clash of Civilizations” view, first, I do not subscribe to the Huntington thesis in such an unqualified way. But–above all–Huntington’s thesis was preceeded by many decades by Islamist ideologues like Sayid Qtub whose “Clash of Civilizations” view is there for all to see. So, I don’t have to subscribe to the Huntington thesis at all since Islamists do it on their own. Their “Clash of Civilizations” view is part of the problem. You cannot simply wish it away with reference to sterile academic debates.

    Misconception #3:

    You present political Islam as inherently uncompromising, but it’s [sic] existence in the form of political parties in nations it does not control, and the participation of those parties in the electoral and parliamentary system, contradict that.

    There is absolutely no contradiction here at all. If Islamist groups lack power, then they will play with the rules of whatever system they happen to be dealing with. Of course Islamism is uncompromising. All Islamist groups–violent or not–work towards the imposition of god’s law on the world. This is anti democratic at the base. Islamists say, “where there is democracy, Islam is absent.”Report

  14. Roque Nuevo says:

    I fogot to address this:

    The United States and Britain overthrew a democratically-elected government and placed the Shah in power so yes, it is indisputable that the US “created” the Iranian dictatorship.

    Dictatorships have existed in Iran since the beginning of history. There has never been anything like a democratic system in Iran. The culture of democracy does not even exist there as a basis. As part of a Cold War strategy, the US and GB fought interference by the USSR by supporting an overthrow of an elected government, which–they believed–would have turned into a Soviet protectorate. To call this “creating dictatorship” is simplistic and smacks of rank propaganda. It does not even resemble historical analysis. The Soviet idea of democracy–like the Islamic one–uses democracy as an instrument to gain power over the state. Once this is accomplished, then all democracy evaporates. Democracy cannot be reduced to a voting proceedure, as you want to do.

    The overthrow of the Shah did not create a democratic government. It created a dictatorship even more repressive than the Shah’s. I just can’t imagine how people can blame the US for any of this.Report