Let’s not even go into the whole Oil-for-Food fiasco. Peter Wehner writes about the new old Hopeychangey realpolitik:
The first is that for 60 years, we tolerated oppression for the sake of “stability†in the Middle East. While much of the rest of the world moved toward freedom, the Arab Middle East did not. It suffered from what Arab scholars call a “freedom deficit†that froze social and material progress. Resentments built up, economies went down, and violent ideologies took hold. They can infect an entire region. Unfortunately, that infection does not always stay contained. We witnessed the brutal manifestation of jihadism on 9/11.
President Obama may be eager to return us to the days of Jimmy Carter, when we spoke about human rights on the one hand and bowed before autocrats and despots on the other; or the days of Bill Clinton, with Madeleine Albright frantically chasing after Yasir Arafat. Such an approach may appear to be less burdensome than advocating freedom, but it comes at a high cost – to the Arab world and, eventually, to our own.
Related, from Roger Gardner at STACLU:
There are two diametrically opposed views on our current “War on Terrorâ€Â, what it is, and how it should be prosecuted. The minimalists hold the view that the problems issuing from Islam are not representative of Islam as a whole, but are rather discreet and episodic criminal actions, perpetrated by a fanatical few. Therefore, they believe, that the proper response to these provocations should likewise be discreet and contained. By no means should we reproach, hold responsible, or punish all Muslims for the actions of a few. It is the minimalists’ fundamental belief in the inherent goodness of all humankind that drives them and sustains their worldview. With a few rather negligible exceptions, for the past four decades American foreign policy has been directed by the minimalists. Beginning with the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979 (and, arguably, even some centuries before this event) we have treated these ongoing and escalating Muslim attacks against the West in general and Americans in particular as isolated criminal activities  as opposed to what many believe are clearly acts of war. Our responses have therefore been  to be somewhat kind and euphemistic  ‘measured’. Our national response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979, for example, was one failed and pathetically ill-advised helicopter attack. And that was it. And since 1979? Here is a partial list of what followed, together with our subsequent responses.
Iraq vet takes on Hollywood, singles out Brian de Palma’s “Prefabricated.” Related.
That ain’t bowing before autocrats and despots that Jimmah is doing.
We should export the shock and awe of democracy. Hamas voters love that ballot box.
You’re right, thor. We should let them keep their benevolent dictators.
I mean, it is the Prime Directive, no?
The Arab world, having never had a “reformation” like the west, believe that the only legitimate government is one that governs by rules outlined in the Quran. And, these rules reinforce, or perhaps explain depending on your point of view, the prediliction for authoritarian rule in that region of the world. Throughout history, strongmen and warlords have come and go, and the lot of the average person has improved little over time…
While in the oil-rich nations, the distribution of wealth has provided many of the creature comforts of the west, they exist in juxtaposition to a 14th century outlook and social structure. It is an environment that promotes practical science and research, but would stand little for all of the multi-cultural and identity politics academic pursuits of the west; hence they have little, and willbrook no, departure from the societal order that has developed over time…
In the countries that lack astronomical oil wealth, most of them, the gap between the have and have-nots, the educated and the illiterate, is mind boggling. And, just as one sees in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories, new strongmen arise and incite the generally illiterate public into the passionate, unquestioning, self-sacrificial fight that is Jihad; and brutally squelch any opposition citing religious justifications…
This isn’t limited to the poor countries though, we just don’t hear about all of the fanatics and “revolutionaries” that are executed, or rot in prisons, in Saudi Arabia; because they won’t allow that to be widely known. They put down dissent in the trafitional, old fashioned way; folks just disappear…
Bush’s action in Iraq will someday prove to be a mile-stone in the secularization of the governments of the middle-east. Let’s hope that just as with the cold war the desire for democratic government will spread throughout the region. My personal opinion though, is that some sort of reformation in Islam will have to take place first; an event that the Islamo-fascists and Wahabbists will not let occur without a fight. One thing about the Iraq war that is unquestionable is that it at once exposed and widely publicized the fact that those types Islamo-Nazi’s will persecute the population if necessary to achieve their ends, that the public can rise up successfully in opposition to that same terror campaign and achieve self governance, and that it is obviously not the will of Allah that they live under strongmen and dictators in perpetuity…
Obama’s supposed “realpolitik” approach, decried by the left when applied by Kissinger but now hailed by the same as pragmatic, will simply enable those tyrants. Very much like Jimmy Carter enabled the rise of the current Iranian that is so repressive and dictatorial, by abandoning the Shah government because of policies that were judged as human right abuses on a western scale. By the same standards we should have no dealings with Saudi Arabia either!
Obama is showing weakness by his ingratiating overtures to the Iranians and the Arab world in general. And in a region where they respect strength amnd revile weakness, this can only lead to problems…
#Comment by thor on 1/29 @ 8:36 am #
Have you taken your pills, hor?
Bad boy, bad!
I don’t get the “Reformation” angle. When the Protestant Reformation occured in the 1500s, it was in response to excesses that had built up in the Church over 1300 years of secular governance. These selling of indulgences, the political favoritism that had gone into selecting priests and bishops, the misuse of church funds, the insistence on holding services in a dead language to ensure the need for a powerful priesthood, and many more.
The goals of the Reformation were to drop the extra-scriptural (obviously, what this consisted of is debated by Protestants and Catholics to this day) and simplify the faith, return to something closer to what’s in the New Testament.
What would “Islam” (Sunni, Shia, and Sufi) “reform” down to? What “excesses” do they discard? How do they go closer to Koranic Scripture and what would that entail? Recall that one of the more historically powerful branches of Protestants were the Puritans.
Or, what if there already was a “Reformation” and Wahhabbism is the result?
I don’t know, just throwing that out there.
They want the old post-WWII settlement back; they want the world of the two superpowers. That was nice and neat and easy: one team over here, a second team over there, and a few guys staying kind of out of the fray.
That arrangement is gone; we are back to Kipling’s World, where each nation operates in it sown interest and there are great powers flexing their muscles in their regions, and alliances become more ad-hoc than permanent. Kipling’s World is messy, it is noisy, it doesn’t have the nice, neat order of the post-WWII settlement.
Any wonder why these guys want it to go away?
Techie, it wouldn’t be the same at all. An Islamic “Reformation” would be completely different in all important details from the Christian one. Most of the people who talk about it understand that.
That being said — one vitally important aspect of the Christian Reformation was to complete the separation of Church and State as regards policy. That was a long, drawn-out process that began with, approximately, the Crusades, and vestiges still remain, nevertheless no Western Power incorporates religious doctrine in its governance to any large degree. Islam has had no influences in that direction strong enough to perform the separation, and the history of Islam is quite different from that of Christianity, so it’s hard to find a crack into which that wedge could be driven.
Regards,
Ric
Admittedly I haven’t read the Koran, but — is there anything remotely resembling “render unto Caesar” in it?
That was the basis for Christianity not becoming a theocracy in the first place.
I haven’t read it all McGehee, but what I have read would indicate the separation of Church and State is not only impossible but inconceivable.
Not much room for compromise in “submit or die,” is there?
Ric beat me to it (what else is new, heh.) Islamic Theocracies in their varied forms provide a level of state cover to the concreting of 9th century Quranic values into the fabric of daily lives. Pakistan is a prime example; a supposedly democratically elected government that is helpless to to muzzle the thousands of jihad preaching madrassa schools that pocket the countryside and mold the impressionable minds of young, poor males.
Islam has a mechanism for “reformation” in the concept of greater and lesser Jihad. The ongoing controversy between “mainstream” Muslims and the Wahhabists and their ilk relates to Muhammad’s supposed declaration, after he had largely conquered the Arabian Peninsula, that (paraphrased) the “Lesser Jihad” (conquest and conversion) was done and now commences the “Greater Jihad” (inner conflict and spiritual purification.) Wahhabists and the more radical Shi’ites reject this notion, which appears in one of the Hadiths, as a fairy tale. In fact, once the jihadists drink from the cup of ibn Taymiyya, Wahhab and Qutb any attempt to deconstruct Jihad as a personal fight with one’s self tends to break down.
Islam is also complicated by the shear weight of the scholarly reviews (Hadiths.) There is a never ending discussion/contention as to which are fundamental and true and which mess up the faithful’s understanding of the imperatives of the religion.
Ultimately, I don’t believe that Islam will experience any kind of modernizing “reformation” without being able to face and reject three key tenets of the faith: Theocracies (and Sha’ria Law,) forced conversion and death to apostates and rejection of Jihad as a war making concept.
I would add to that the concept/belief that Allah through his will alone is responsible, on an instant to instant basis, for everything that exists and occurs. There is no “cause and effect” in Islam other than the will of Allah.
McGehee, the Koran is like the Communist Manifesto in that both put forward total systems for how to live life, run a society, rules for government, economics – everything.
Ric and BJT explained more fully what I poorly articulated in my point about the need for a religious “Reformation” in the middle east…
Thanks for the clarification guys; I knew you’d have my back!
There is no reformation in the classical sense. What, Ric said is true (as usual). However, as others have mentioned, we really don’t want Muslims to get closer to Koranic messages or the excamples of muhammed. There is no separation of state/religion. It is a complete and all encompassing way of life. Nothing encroaches on that. A reformation for Muslims is to get away from the original teachings of muhammed. I don’t think they’d be Muslim, anymore. They could still call themselves, Muslims, I guess.
Allah says no to no-Allah. No-Allah isn’t says Allah. Allah isn’t no. No isn’t Allah. No-Allah says nothing says Allah.
Only believe.
[…] LET’S NOT EVEN GO into the whole Oil-for-Food fiasco. Peter Wehner writes about the new old Hopeychangey realpolitik […]
#17 O.I.:
That is the thing. Comparing capitalism to communism, for example, is wrong because capitalism is merely an ecnomic system. Capitalism does not speak about religion, or family life, or civic organizations, or how government is to be constituted. It is narrow in its outlook. Communism is a package deal, with answers and prescriptions to everything dealing with an individual and a society. Islam is similar to communism in that respect. There is no part of life, either for an individual or a society, that Islam does not encompass.
JPost:
If killing people is his complaint, Mr. Erdogan ought to be asked about the Kurds.
Nah, takes away from the drama.
Welcome to Kipling’s World, President Obama.
The other problem Islam has in launching a Reformation has to do with the differences between the Quran and the New Testament. The New Testament is written from many different points of view; even the Gospels are written from a Jewish mystic (John), a secularized Jewish tax-collector (Matthew), a Greek physician (Luke), and Mark, somewhere in the middle.
The Quran is all Mohammed; there is no figure of even roughly comparable standing to provide a different approach.