Speaking Truth to Muslim Power

By REUEL MARC GERECHT

'The United States is not at war with Islam and will never be. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

So spoke President Barack Hussein Obama in Turkey last week. Following in the footsteps of the Bush administration, Mr. Obama wants to avoid labeling our enemy in religious terms. References to "Islamic terrorism," "Islamic radicalism," or "Islamic extremism" aren't in his speeches. "Jihad," too, has been banished from the official lexicon.

But if one visits the religious bookstores near Istanbul's Covered Bazaar, or mosque libraries of Turkish immigrants in Rotterdam, Brussels or Frankfurt, one can still find a cornucopia of radical Islamist literature. Go into the bookstores of Arab and Pakistani immigrant communities in Europe, or into the literary markets of the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent, and you'll find an even richer collection of militant Islamism.

Al Qaeda is certainly not a mainstream Muslim group -- if it were, we would have had far more terrorist attacks since 9/11. But the ideology that produced al Qaeda isn't a rivulet in contemporary Muslim thought. It is a wide and deep river. The Obama administration does both Muslims and non-Muslims an enormous disservice by pretending otherwise.

Theologically, Muslims are neither fragile nor frivolous. They have not become suicide bombers because non-Muslims have said something unkind; they have not refrained from becoming holy warriors because Westerners avoided the word "Islamic" in describing Osama bin Laden and his allies. Having an American president who had a Muslim father, carries the name of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, and wants to engage the Muslim world in a spirit of "mutual respect" isn't a "game changer." This hypothesis trivializes Islamic history and the continuing appeal of religious militancy.

Above all else, we need to understand clearly our enemies -- to try to understand them as they see themselves, and to see them as devout nonviolent Muslims do. To not talk about Islam when analyzing al Qaeda is like talking about the Crusades without mentioning Christianity. To devise a hearts-and-minds counterterrorist policy for the Islamic world without openly talking about faith is counterproductive. We -- the West -- are the unrivalled agent of change in the Middle East. Modern Islamic history -- including the Bush years -- ought to tell us that questions non-Muslims pose can provoke healthy discussions.

The abolition of slavery, rights for religious minorities and women, free speech, or the very idea of civil society -- all of these did not advance without Western pressure and the enormous seductive power that Western values have for Muslims. Although Muslims in the Middle East have been talking about political reform since they were first exposed to Western ideas (and modern military might) in the 18th century, the discussion of individual liberty and equality has been more effective when Westerners have been intimately involved. The Middle East's brief but impressive "Liberal Age" grew from European imperialism and the unsustainable contradiction between the progressive ideals taught by the British and French -- the Egyptian press has never been as free as when the British ruled over the Nile valley -- and the inevitably illiberal and demeaning practices that come with foreign occupation.

Although it is now politically incorrect to say so, George W. Bush's democratic rhetoric energized the discussion of representative government and human rights abroad. Democracy advocates and the anti-authoritarian voices in Arab lands have never been so hopeful as they were between 2002, when democracy promotion began to germinate within the White House, and 2006, when the administration gave up on people power in the Middle East (except in Iraq).

The issue of jihadism is little different. It's not a coincidence that the Muslim debate about holy war became most vivid after 9/11, when the U.S. struck back against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Many may have found Mr. Bush's brief use of the term "Islamofascism" to be offensive -- although it recalls well Abul Ala Maududi, a Pakistani founding father of modern Islamic radicalism, who openly admired European fascism as a violent, muscular ideology capable of mobilizing the masses. Yet Mr. Bush's flirtation with the term unquestionably pushed Muslim intellectuals to debate the legitimacy of its use and the cult of martyrdom that had -- and may still have -- a widespread grip on many among the faithful.

When Sunni Arab Muslims viewed daily on satellite TV the horrors of the Sunni onslaught against the Iraqi Shiites, and then the vicious Shiite revenge against their former masters, the debate about jihadism, the historic Sunni-Shiite rivalry, and the American occupation intensified. Unfortunately, progress in the Middle East has usually happened when things have gotten ugly, and Muslims debate the mess.

Iran's former president Mohammed Khatami, whom Bill Clinton unsuccessfully tried to engage, is a serious believer in the "dialogue of civilizations." In his books, Mr. Khatami does something very rare for an Iranian cleric: He admits that Western civilization can be morally superior to its Islamic counterpart, and that Muslims must borrow culturally as well as technologically from others. On the whole, however, he finds the West -- especially America -- to be an amoral slippery slope of sin. How should one talk to Mr. Khatami or to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the less curious but morally more earnest clerical overlord of Iran; or the Saudi royal family and their influential state-supported clergy, who still preach hatred of the West; or to the faithful of Pakistan, who are in the midst of an increasingly brutal, internecine religious struggle? Messrs. Khatami and Khamenei are flawlessly polite gentlemen. They do not, however, confuse civility with agreement. Neither should we.

It's obviously not for non-Muslims to decide what Islam means. Only the faithful can decide whether Islam is a religion of peace or war (historically it has been both).

Only the faithful can banish jihad as a beloved weapon against infidels and unbelief. Only Muslims can decide how they balance legislation by men and what the community -- or at least its legal guardians, the ulama -- has historically seen as divine commandments.

Westerners can, however, ask probing questions and apply pressure when differing views threaten us. We may not choose to dispatch the U.S. Navy to protect women's rights, as the British once sent men-of-war to put down the Muslim slave trade, but we can underscore clearly our disdain for men who see "child brides" as something vouchsafed by the Almighty. There is probably no issue that angers militants more than women's rights. Advancing this cause in traditional Muslim societies caught in the merciless whirlwind of globalization isn't easy, but no effort is likely to bear more fruit in the long term than having American officials become public champions of women's rights in Muslim lands.

Al Qaeda's Islamic radicalism isn't a blip -- a one-time outgrowth of the Soviet-Afghan war -- or a byproduct of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. It's the most recent violent expression of the modernization of the Muslim Middle East. The West's great transformative century -- the 20th -- was soaked in blood. We should hope, pray, and do what we can to ensure that Islam's continuing embrace of modernity in the 21st century -- undoubtedly its pivotal era -- will not be similarly horrific.

We are fooling ourselves if we think we no longer have to be concerned about how Muslims talk among themselves. This is not an issue that we want to push the "reset" button on. Here, at least, George W. Bush didn't go nearly far enough.

Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Source: Wall Street Journal

US shoots down Iranian drone over Iraq

David Byers | March 17

TENSIONS between the United States and Iran increased further today after it emerged that American forces had shot down an Iranian drone flying over Iraqi airspace.

US forces said that the drone was hovering around 60 miles north of Baghdad when it was destroyed last month, adding that the deviation was "not an accident" on the part of Iranian forces.

“The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was in Iraqi airspace for nearly one hour and 10 minutes and well inside Iraqi territory before it was engaged," a military spokesman said.

“The pilots were directed to shoot the UAV down after determining there would be no possibility of collateral damage. The UAV was believed to be an Iranian ’Ababil 3’ model UAV."

The US did not say what it believed the drone to have been doing over Iraq, but America has long accused the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of providing training and funding to Shia insurgents who commit attacks against US troops and Iraqi forces.

“This was not an accident on the part of the Iranians,” the spokesman added.

The report came as it emerged that the reformist candidate Mohammed Khatami, the former Iranian President, looked likely to withdraw from the race to be the next Iranian leader.

Mr Khatami was set to be a strong candidate against Mr Ahmadinejad's hardline government, but is believed to have pulled out of the race to prevent the opposition vote from being split between him and Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran's influential former Prime Minister, who has also entered the race.

Washington has been tentatively seeking to unfreeze relations with Tehran since President Obama's election last November.

As part of his promise to change foreign policy in the aftermath of President Bush, the new US leader has pledged to offer diplomatic engagement with US foes, including Iran, to test if there might be scope for negotiated solutions to conflicts.

Last week, however, Mr Obama said he had extended one of the many levels of sanctions against Iran, imposed in 1995 over charges that Tehran dealt in terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.

In addition, Washington remains concerned about the growing ties between the two Shia-majority neighbours, repeatedly accusing Iranian-linked groups of attacking US troops in Iraq.

Under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime, Baghdad and Tehran fought a devastating 1980-1988 war in which around one million people died.

Source: The Australian

Khatami attacked by angry mob in Iran

Catherine Philp | February 11

IRAN'S former president was set upon by an angry stick-wielding mob overnight amid celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on the streets of Tehran.

The attack on Mohammed Khatami came just two days after the reformist cleric announced he would be running against the hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June's presidential elections.

Mr Khatami, then a little known cleric, came to global attention when he was elected to the presidency in 1997, capturing almost 70 per cent of the vote. Succeeded in 2005 by Mr Ahmadinejad, he blamed hardline elements in the clerical establishment for obstructing his reformist agenda.

During the revolutionary celebrations, attackers waving sticks approached the cleric, shouting “Death to Khatami. We do not want American government.”

According to Mr Khatami’s Baran Foundation, the attackers were repelled by his own supporters, who chanted, “Khatami, Khatami, we support you.”

Mr Khatami was escorted from the street by his bodyguards who took him to shelter in a nearby building.

The attack emerged as Mr Ahmadinejad led Iran in its celebrations by hinting at a softening of relations towards the US.

The President – internationally isolated because of his country's nuclear ambitions, sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas and threats towards Israel – said that he was ready for talks, but only if US policy changes dramatically.

"It is clear that the change (by Obama) must be fundamental and not tactical," the Iranian leader said, in a speech in Tehran. "The Iranian nation will welcome true changes and is ready for dialogue in a climate of equality and mutual respect."

However, cloaking his new rhetoric with threats to respond if the Obama Administration follows the policies of his predecessor, he added: "The world does not want the dark era of (former President Bush) to be repeated. If some people seek to repeat that experience... they should know they will face a much worse fate than that of Bush."

Iran's political system is a combination of theocracy and democratic republic, with the country holding elections for the presidency and Parliament. However, its clerics and – ultimately – its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, decide on the candidates and disqualify those considered contrary to Islamic values.

Source: The Australian