Subject: [Homestead] Perspective in foreign affairs
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:23:43 -0700
It is easy to misjudge the course of current history when we are
inundated with conflicting views. Some of the worst current news may be
resolved with a whimper instead of a crash of civilizations. While I
have a jaundiced view of institutionalized religion, and know for
acertainty the world is worse off because of them, it is quite possible
the Jihadists are losing their war with more moderate Muslims against
whom their threats are primarly focussed. We don't see that, being
absorbed in the immediate effect against us and our reaction to it.
washingtonpost.com
Are the Terrorists Failing?
By David Ignatius
Tuesday, September 28, 2004; Page A27
Looking at the gruesome images of beheadings and suicide bombings in
Iraq, it's easy to think that the Islamic holy warriors are winning. But
a new book by a distinguished French Arabist named Gilles Kepel argues
the opposite case. For all the mayhem the jihadists have caused, he
contends, their movement is failing.
Rather than waging a successful jihad against the West, the followers of
Osama bin Laden have created chaos and destruction in the house of
Islam. This internal crisis is known in Arabic as fitna: "It has an
opposite and negative connotation from jihad," explains Kepel. "It
signifies sedition, war in the heart of Islam, a centrifugal force that
threatens the faithful with community fragmentation, disintegration and
ruin."
Kepel was in Washington last week promoting his book, and his comments
provided a useful antidote to the political debate surrounding the visit
by Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi. The struggle against
Islamist terrorism is neither the rosy success story painted by Allawi
and President Bush nor the disastrous free-fall described by John Kerry.
Instead, it is one unresolved battle in the long-term struggle
summarized by the title of Kepel's new book, "The War for Muslim Minds."
The French scholar argues that the West has been misreading the
aftermath of bin Laden's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He cites a December
2001 pamphlet, "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner," written by al
Qaeda's key strategist, the Egyptian doctor Ayman Zawahiri. The
jihadists should attack the "faraway enemy" in the United States,
Zawahiri urged, because it would help mobilize the Muslim masses to
overthrow their rulers in the "nearby enemy."
Kepel believes that the United States has stumbled badly in Iraq, and
he's sharply critical of U.S. policies there. But that doesn't mean the
jihadists are winning. Quite the contrary, their movement has backfired.
Rather than bringing Islamic regimes to power, the holy warriors are
creating internal strife and discord. Their actions are killing far more
Muslims than nonbelievers.
"The principal goal of terrorism -- to seize power in Muslim countries
through mobilization of populations galvanized by jihad's sheer audacity
-- has not been realized," Kepel writes. In fact, bin Laden's followers
are losing ground: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been toppled;
the fence-sitting semi-Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia has taken sides
more strongly with the West; Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in
retreat; and the plight of the Palestinians has never been more dire.
And Baghdad, the traditional seat of the Muslim caliphs, is under
foreign occupation. Not what you would call a successful jihad.
Kepel argues that the insurgents' brutal tactics in Iraq -- the
kidnappings and beheadings, and the car-bombing massacres of young Iraqi
police recruits -- are increasingly alienating the Muslim masses. No
sensible Muslim would want to live in Fallujah, which is now controlled
by Taliban-style fanatics. Similarly, the Muslim masses can see that
most of the dead from post-Sept. 11 al Qaeda bombings in Turkey and
Morocco were fellow Muslims.
A perfect example of how the jihadists' efforts have backfired, argues
Kepel, was last month's kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq.
The kidnappers announced that they would release their hostages only if
the French government reversed its new policy banning Muslim women from
wearing headscarves in French public schools. "They imagined that they
would mobilize Muslims with this demand, but French Muslims were aghast
and denounced the kidnappers," Kepel explained to a Washington audience.
He noted that French Muslims took to the streets to protest against the
kidnappers and to proclaim their French citizenship.
Kepel believes that the war for Muslim minds may hinge most of all on
these European Muslims. In countries such as France, Britain and
Germany, large Muslim populations are living in secular, democratic
societies. All the tensions and contradictions of the larger Muslim
world are compressed into the lives of these European Muslims, but
they're free to let the struggle play out in open debate. Thus, it's in
Europe that Islam may finally find its accommodation with modern life.
Perhaps it takes an outsider -- a Frenchman, even -- to help Americans
see the war on terrorism in perspective. Saturated in terrorism alerts
and images of violence from Iraq, Americans may miss the essential fact
that the terrorists are losing. And because we see this as a war against
America, rather than one within Islam, we may miss the real dynamics.
When Americans ponder the right strategy for Iraq, they need to ask,
with Kepel, whether U.S. policies will help those seeking to modernize
Islam or hurt them. A precipitous withdrawal, leaving the field to the
jihadists, would be a disaster. But so would a bloody and unending
occupation. Kepel reminds us, too, that the best counterattack against
the jihadists would be to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Looking at the gruesome images of beheadings and suicide bombings in
Iraq, it's easy to think that the Islamic holy warriors are winning. But
a new book by a distinguished French Arabist named Gilles Kepel argues
the opposite case. For all the mayhem the jihadists have caused, he
contends, their movement is failing.
Rather than waging a successful jihad against the West, the followers of
Osama bin Laden have created chaos and destruction in the house of
Islam. This internal crisis is known in Arabic as fitna: "It has an
opposite and negative connotation from jihad," explains Kepel. "It
signifies sedition, war in the heart of Islam, a centrifugal force that
threatens the faithful with community fragmentation, disintegration and
ruin."
Kepel was in Washington last week promoting his book, and his comments
provided a useful antidote to the political debate surrounding the visit
by Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi. The struggle against
Islamist terrorism is neither the rosy success story painted by Allawi
and President Bush nor the disastrous free-fall described by John Kerry.
Instead, it is one unresolved battle in the long-term struggle
summarized by the title of Kepel's new book, "The War for Muslim Minds."
The French scholar argues that the West has been misreading the
aftermath of bin Laden's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He cites a December
2001 pamphlet, "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner," written by al
Qaeda's key strategist, the Egyptian doctor Ayman Zawahiri. The
jihadists should attack the "faraway enemy" in the United States,
Zawahiri urged, because it would help mobilize the Muslim masses to
overthrow their rulers in the "nearby enemy."
Kepel believes that the United States has stumbled badly in Iraq, and
he's sharply critical of U.S. policies there. But that doesn't mean the
jihadists are winning. Quite the contrary, their movement has backfired.
Rather than bringing Islamic regimes to power, the holy warriors are
creating internal strife and discord. Their actions are killing far more
Muslims than nonbelievers.
"The principal goal of terrorism -- to seize power in Muslim countries
through mobilization of populations galvanized by jihad's sheer audacity
-- has not been realized," Kepel writes. In fact, bin Laden's followers
are losing ground: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been toppled;
the fence-sitting semi-Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia has taken sides
more strongly with the West; Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in
retreat; and the plight of the Palestinians has never been more dire.
And Baghdad, the traditional seat of the Muslim caliphs, is under
foreign occupation. Not what you would call a successful jihad.
Kepel argues that the insurgents' brutal tactics in Iraq -- the
kidnappings and beheadings, and the car-bombing massacres of young Iraqi
police recruits -- are increasingly alienating the Muslim masses. No
sensible Muslim would want to live in Fallujah, which is now controlled
by Taliban-style fanatics. Similarly, the Muslim masses can see that
most of the dead from post-Sept. 11 al Qaeda bombings in Turkey and
Morocco were fellow Muslims.
A perfect example of how the jihadists' efforts have backfired, argues
Kepel, was last month's kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq.
The kidnappers announced that they would release their hostages only if
the French government reversed its new policy banning Muslim women from
wearing headscarves in French public schools. "They imagined that they
would mobilize Muslims with this demand, but French Muslims were aghast
and denounced the kidnappers," Kepel explained to a Washington audience.
He noted that French Muslims took to the streets to protest against the
kidnappers and to proclaim their French citizenship.
Kepel believes that the war for Muslim minds may hinge most of all on
these European Muslims. In countries such as France, Britain and
Germany, large Muslim populations are living in secular, democratic
societies. All the tensions and contradictions of the larger Muslim
world are compressed into the lives of these European Muslims, but
they're free to let the struggle play out in open debate. Thus, it's in
Europe that Islam may finally find its accommodation with modern life.
Perhaps it takes an outsider -- a Frenchman, even -- to help Americans
see the war on terrorism in perspective. Saturated in terrorism alerts
and images of violence from Iraq, Americans may miss the essential fact
that the terrorists are losing. And because we see this as a war against
America, rather than one within Islam, we may miss the real dynamics.
When Americans ponder the right strategy for Iraq, they need to ask,
with Kepel, whether U.S. policies will help those seeking to modernize
Islam or hurt them. A precipitous withdrawal, leaving the field to the
jihadists, would be a disaster. But so would a bloody and unending
occupation. Kepel reminds us, too, that the best counterattack against
the jihadists would be to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
davidignatius AT washpost.com
[Homestead] Perspective in foreign affairs,
Tvoivozhd, 09/28/2004