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Just when you thought
things couldn't get worse in the Middle East, along comes another coup. Not
just any coup, but a power grab in Cairo, the most populous Arab capital.
Not that precipitous regime changes are novelties in the Muslim world;
coups have a better history than democracy in Arabia and elsewhere. Indeed,
the Roman Empire may have been the last memorable vestige of tolerant
republicanism in North Africa and the Mideast.
The advent and spread
of Islam (557-632 AD) was not good news for the enlightened Greco-Roman
polytheists of the littoral and the Levant, and today, Islam still cuts two
ways. Religion is both the tie that binds and the wedge that divides.
Hence, the fellaheen of
contemporary Egypt are again impaled on the horns of that raging bull of
Islamic history, a Hobson's choice. Such is the simple truth of much Muslim
history, a millennial struggle between religious absolutism and secular
oligarchy. If generals are the occasional problem in the Ummah, Muslim
clergy are always the problem. Today, the imams, mullahs, and ayatollahs
still have the upper hand.
Secular dictators and
Janissaries, dare we call them transients, might come and go, but only
Muslim clergy and the Koran abide. The clerical conundrum is at the heart
of Muslim civic pathology. Priests seldom make good politicians, and
politicians, God knows, are seldom priestly. Catholic priests are prohibited from
holding public office globally for any number of prudent reasons. The
Islamic church/state dilemma was not resolved in Muhammad's time and that
historic blister still accounts for much of the suffering in Muslim
countries.
Withal, voting is often
confused with democracy. But the vote, as we see now again in Egypt, is
just so much sand in the wind. None
of this seems to matter to wishful thinkers in the West. No matter how many
regimes abort, no matter the silly rhetoric of jasmine and spring, no
matter how many Muslim psychotics kill in God's name, no matter the body
count, the West still clings to the illusion that Jeffersonian democracy
will be the default setting after every Muslim upheaval.
And the violence is
masochism! The victims of chronic social malpractice are mostly other
Muslims. Fratricide and suicide have literally become cultural norms.
Surely, attacks against the West garner disproportionate media coverage.
Alas, the real victims, the significant genocidal carnage is intra-mural.
The ongoing atrocities in Egypt and Syria are cases in point.
Not that infidels and
apostates are without fault. Since 1979, American and European tactics for
dealing with the Muslim world have vacillated between passive inertia and
intemperate intrusion. The pattern was set during the Carter years, when
American policy became anchored to appeasement and Palestinians. The Shia coup
in Persia was not resisted, while the Sunnis, indeed the Muslim world, were
made promises that could never be kept.
Indeed, you could argue
that Carter era blunders lost the Shia world to theocracy only to make
common cause with a Sunni fifth column. Ironically, Jimmy Carter won a
"peace" prize, and lost a presidency. An Israeli prime minister
won a prize too -- and lost his life. Men and political careers die easier
than illusions in the Middle East.
Nonetheless,
schizophrenic foreign policy in Europe and America cannot be attributed to
any political persuasion, Left or Right. Modern Mideast policy malpractice
may be enabled by the wishful thinking of liberals, but the usual response
from American and continental conservatives has been "me too."
There were little or no
policy differences between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama on all things
Islamic during the last presidential campaign. Recall also that Ronald
Reagan's courage with Communism was not evident when Muslim terrorists
slaughtered US Marines in Lebanon (1983). Shia Hezb'allah and the Beruit
precedent subsequently found an echo with the Sunni sponsored carnage at
the Kohbar towers (1996) in Saudi Arabia and the Twin Towers attack in
lower Manhattan.
Yet, the West continues
to pander to Arabia. Never mind that Salifism and Wahhabism, and associated
terror, are impossible without moral and financial support from Saudi
Arabia and the emirates. The post-Carter Sunni tilt in American foreign
policy is too transparent by half. The enemy of your enemy is not
necessarily your friend.
Taking sides in the
Ummah, divide and conquer tactics if you will, is perilous for larger
interests too. Americans and Europeans are now pariahs among both major
Muslim sects.
Unlike dreamers in the
West, educated secular Arabs have few illusions about theocracy. They
recognize a coup by ballot -- or by any other means. Pragmatists also
understand that democracy, for Islamists, is a means, not an end. Recent
events in Iran, Algeria, Egypt, and now Turkey underwrite the ephemeral
interpretation of elections, political freedom, and human rights in Muslim
lands.
If we had to give a
name to American foreign policy strategy and tactics in the Muslim world;
the strategy might be called "minus-sum." The dominant tactic
seems to be "regime change," consequences be damned.
Unfortunately, the evidence from Persia, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt,
Syria, and many lesser states suggests that a "lose/lose" world
view might be a kind of global death wish.
Any arm-chair
psychologist would define madness as a delusion that expects the same
behavior to produce different results. In a rational world, results and
outcomes are altered by fundamental changes on both sides of the behavior
equation. To this end, several new tactics recommend themselves; new
approaches to religion, rationalization, and accountability.
Religion is the
epicenter of Muslim angst. Hindus, Jews, Christians and secular
rationalists recognize the wisdom of separating church and state. True
tolerance is also religious diversity. Without these, democracy is
impossible. Those nations that do not "render unto Caesar" should
be ostracized for what they are; totalitarians.
Europe and America did
not become successful societies until after the Protestant Reformation.
Enlightened democracy, as Thomas Jefferson noted so often, is religious
pluralism. The "one God, one religion" world view is
well-intentioned social mischief.
Religious monoculture
is not just at odds with pluralism, diversity, and democracy, fantasies
about "submission," and doubletalk about "peace," are
at the heart of Muslim pain, politics -- and social immaturity. The global
reaction to Salman Rusdie's alleged blasphemy in Satanic Verses says all
that needs to be said about tolerance in contemporary Islamic societies
Religious fascism is
not any more honorable than the secular variety. Moral equivalence,
religious or political, can only be earned, and can never be assumed.
Unfortunately, the many
rationalizations for Muslim social pathologies, especially terrorism, grant
imprudent criminal immunities to Islam. Terror is not purely a minority
phenomenon in any case. When the so-called "moderate" Muslim
majority gets a pass on passive aggression, the lunatics are encouraged.
Fatwas and bombs might be might be relatively few in number, but the
silence of the Muslim majority is the real wellspring of enduring hate and
metastasizing irredentism.
The recent Benghazi
fiasco illustrates the perils of pandering. Every cognizant American
official (Susan Rice, James Clapper, Hilary Clinton, Martin Dempsey, and
Barack Obama) took extraordinary pains to avoid implicating terrorists and
Islamists in that atrocity. Indeed, the most inept foreign policy team in
modern history went so far as to blame Americans, and an obscure video, for
Libyan Islamist rage, for crimes again committed in the name of some
misappropriated God.
And finally, we might
suggest that the nations of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation
(OIC) simply grow up. Islam needs to take responsibility for its adherents,
their behavior, and all those social obscenities that are excused in the
name of culture, honor, tradition, or oppression.
The victim paradigm for
Muslims created by the likes of Arnold Toynbee, more recently reinforced by
scholars such as Edward Said and Tariq Ramadan, was always a better
rationalization than history -- and a poor excuse for history at that.
Toynbee, you might recall, characterized Jews as a "fossil
society." Only children blame history, or outsiders, for contemporary
incontinence. Accountability is the hallmark of all personal, national, and
cultural maturity.
For the moment, Islam
is trading sanguinary insults, mainly, with secular Europeans and apathetic
Americans, cultures too weary to defend the values that made them
successful. Absent fundamental reform, if and when theocrats confront a
larger maturing world, the emerging powers of the Far East -- Russia,
China, and India come to mind -- are unlikely to be as indulgent with
Islamic religious arrogance. The fate of Chechens, Uighurs, Afghans, and
Pakistanis might be the telltales that forecast the future of a global
Islamic culture incapable of reform.
As America and Europe
contemplate yet another intervention, this time in Syria, we might pause to
reflect on what Muslims should be doing. Only Muslims can save Islam from
itself. Every day that Arabs avoid responsibility is another day that Islam
postpones maturity. History always moves in two directions. Backwards is as
likely as forward. Apologies to Hegel.
G. Murphy Donovan is a former Intelligence officer who occasionally
writes about the politics of national security.
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