I will be William E. Simon distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine
University in Malibu, California, during the spring semester of 2007.
(For the press release on my appointment, see "School of Public Policy
Announces 2007 Distinguished Visiting Professor.")
To prepare for teaching, and also to take a break after 285 straight
weeks, I am suspending this column for the next 15 weeks, from early
January to mid-April. I plan to resume it on April 17.
Yours sincerely, Daniel Pipes
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How the West Could Lose
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
December 26, 2006
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4227
After defeating fascists and communists, can the West now defeat the
Islamists?
On the face of it, its military preponderance makes victory seem
inevitable. Even if Tehran acquires a nuclear weapon, Islamists have
nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor
the Soviet Union during the cold war. What do the Islamists have to
compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The
Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the gulag?
Yet, more than a few analysts, including myself, worry that it's not so
simple. Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred
law of Islam, the Sharia) might in fact do better than the earlier
totalitarians. They could even win. That's because, however strong the
Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs.
Three of them – pacifism, self-hatred, complacency – deserve attention.
Pacifism: Among the educated, the conviction has widely taken hold that
"there is no military solution" to current problems, a mantra applied in
every Middle East problem – Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Kurds,
terrorism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. But this pragmatic pacifism
overlooks the fact that modern history abounds with military solutions.
What were the defeats of the Axis, the United States in Vietnam, or the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan, if not military solutions?
Self-hatred: Significant elements in several Western countries –
especially the United States, Great Britain, and Israel – believe their
own governments to be repositories of evil, and see terrorism as just
punishment for past sins. This "we have met the enemy and he is us"
attitude replaces an effective response with appeasement, including a
readiness to give up traditions and achievements. Osama bin Laden
celebrates by name such leftists as Robert Fisk and William Blum.
Self-hating Westerners have an out-sized importance due to their
prominent role as shapers of opinion in universities, the media,
religious institutions, and the arts. They serve as the Islamists'
auxiliary mujahideen.
Complacency: The absence of an impressive Islamist military machine imbues
many Westerners, especially on the left, with a feeling of disdain.
Whereas conventional war – with its men in uniform, its ships, tanks, and
planes, and its bloody battles for land and resources – is simple to
comprehend, the asymmetric war with radical Islam is elusive. Box cutters
and suicide belts make it difficult to perceive this enemy as a worthy
opponent. With John Kerry, too many dismiss terrorism as a mere
"nuisance."
Islamists deploy formidable capabilities, however, that go far beyond
small-scale terrorism:
* A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate
Western life.
* A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying
power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.
* An impressively conceptualized, funded, and organized institutional
machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill, and electoral
success.
* An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape,
from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from
the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians. The movement
almost defies sociological definition.
* A non-violent approach – what I call "lawful Islamism" – that pursues
Islamification through educational, political, and religious means,
without recourse to illegality or terrorism. Lawful Islamism is proving
successful in Muslim-majority countries like Algeria and Muslim-minority
ones like the United Kingdom.
* A huge number of committed cadres. If Islamists constitute 10% to 15%
of the Muslim population worldwide, they number some 125 to 200 million
persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists,
combined, who ever lived.
Pacifism, self-hatred and complacency are lengthening the war against
radical Islam and causing undue casualties. Only after absorbing
catastrophic human and property losses will left-leaning Westerners
likely overcome this triple affliction and confront the true scope of the
threat. The civilized world will likely then prevail, but belatedly and at
a higher cost than need have been.
Should Islamists get smart and avoid mass destruction, but instead stick
to the lawful, political, non-violent route, and should their movement
remain vital, it is difficult to see what will stop them.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and
author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers). This column will be on
hiatus for the next 15 weeks, until mid-April, while Mr. Pipes teaches at
Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
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