Deep Thinking

In a piece in today's Post, President Carter's National Security Adviser decries President Bush's use of any label that involves references to Islam -- jihadist, Islamofascist, Islamist -- because of the harm it might do semantically. Unfortunately, he has all of his arguments exactly backwards for the simple reason that he doesn't think the terrorist threat we currently face has any kind of an ideological basis.

Contemporary terrorism -- though nasty and criminal, whether Islamic or otherwise -- has no such political reach and no such physical capability. Its appeal is limited; it offers no answers to the novel dilemmas of modernization and globalization. To the extent that it can be said to possess an "ideology," it is a strange blend of fatalism and nihilism. In al Qaeda's case, it is actively supported by relatively isolated groupings, and its actions have been condemned without exception by all major religious figures, from the pope to the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia.

Its power is circumscribed, too. It still relies largely on familiar tools of violence. Unlike communist totalitarian regimes, al Qaeda does not use terror as an organizing tool but rather, because of its own organizational weakness, as a disruptive tactic. Its members are bound together by this tactic, not by an ideology. Ultimately, al Qaeda or some related terrorist group may acquire truly destructive power, but one should not confuse potentiality with actuality.

This is a misanalysis so profound one hardly knows where to begin. The list of books I could send one to is so long I hardly know where to start.

But if this is what passes for deep thinking from the opposition, I am profoundly depressed right now. Thank God for Benjamin and Simon.

Comments

[Enoch]

The good doctor hates the GWOT because it is a distraction from the "global effort to keep Russia from bothering Poland ever again." =)

The "Islamic" jihad is, at best, a fragmented and limited movement that hardly resonates in most of the world.

Ahhh, except for the small part of the world between Morocco and Indonesia that has over a billion people in it. Osama's message kinda sorta seems to resonate there...

[Clint]

Thank goodness someone is responding to this silliness.

My first take was that part of Secretary Brzezinski's problem is his rhapsodic recollections of Communism ("stature and historic significance".. "doctrine of universal significance"... the whole paragraph on Communism's "undeniabl[e] worldwide appeal"... "a vision of a perfectly just society".) One almost has the sense that he's insulted that the murderous thugs we face today could be compared to men of such "stature and historic significance" as Lenin, Stalin or Mao.

That's just creepy.

[Observer]

Creepy???
Gimme a break.
Zbig is absolutely right here. How many people on this planet ever voluntarily, willingly, enthusiastically joined a communist party, or expressed support for the movement? The number must be in the tens, or even hundreds of millions. Thats why it was so dangerous. It was far more than a protest movement, it was an alternative worldview. If you dont understand that, then you dont understand anything about the history of the 20th century.
How many people have ever joined al-Q? Perhaps a few thousand? How many people do you really think are longing to be ruled by an al=Q state? Perhaps a few more thousand? I'm talking about more than just cheering when they land a punch on the big guy - how many people really want to seem them win something?

al-Q at heart is a negative movement. Its unifying theme is to drive the west, and its influences out of Arab lands. Beyond that is a lot of nothing, some ill-defined mumblings about caliphates etc. but no real program for what they would actually do if they ever were in charge of anything.

Sorry but i think Zbig is right-on with this analysis.

[dauber]

If you really think they don't have a program for what they would do when they got control, you don't understand these guys. And you have to think more broadly than al Q. Tens of thousands went through the training camps alone, and if only the smallest percentage of people are sympathizers, that could be tens of millions of people world wide. Underestimating this movement does no one any good.

[David J. Starr]

Zbig is both right and wrong. Islamic terrorism is not as dangerous an opponent as a nuclear armed super power. However, said nuclear super power never destroyed New York skyscrapers either. Islam is an ideology, with lots of true beleivers. Islam does offer answers to "the novel dilemmas of modernization and globalization". The Islamic answer (destroy modernism and globalization) is a bad answer, but it is an answer and that answer resonates within the Islamic community. That Islamic community has a billion members and stretches from Gibraltar to the Phillipines. It is too big to ignore, we have to do something about it.

[Enoch]

How many people do you really think are longing to be ruled by an al=Q state? Perhaps a few more thousand? I'm talking about more than just cheering when they land a punch on the big guy - how many people really want to seem them win something?

I think if you had a genuinely free election in some countries - for example, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - Osama would have a good chance to win it. That would be the last genuinely free election in a long time, of course.

[Steve]

Zbig's analysis comes at an interesting time. He has previously recommended a go-easy approach to Iran, in the hope that the mullahs will eventually be deposed. The CIA graciously helped by estimating that Iran would not have nuclear weapons for some ten years. Now Khatemi is no longer in power, and is trotted out by the Guardian Council only when the terrorist-in-chief puts his foot in his mouth. And even el-Baradei estimates Iran is only six months away from a nuclear bomb. But Zbig thinks we should accept his narrow view of al-Qaeda, some of whose top guys (OBL?) are sheltered by Iran. Has it ever occurred to him that Iran, which uses Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad as instruments of its foreign policy, had the same designs on al-Qaeda, and that an accommodation between them was long ago reached? Iran (aided by Russia and China) is deadly serious about extinguishing Israel, and will use its terrorist clients to this end. Of course, Zbig couldn't care less about Israel, but as they say in Araby: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."

[dauber]

To be clear, Islam is a religion. Islamism is the ideology, and the threat. The fact that a billion people are Muslim means that they are recruiting FROM AMONG those billion, not that those billion are adherents to the ideology that's a threat to us.