The way to divide the Camp of Islam and Jihad is to first identify those pre-existing fissures, large and small, that exist, and to figure out what should, or should not be done, to widen them.
I have written many times about what I think are the three main divisions or fissures:
1) The sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shi'a that may not be of great significance worldwide, given that the Shi'a constitute only about 15% of the world's Muslims.
However, those 15% are concentrated, are to be found mostly around the Gulf: in Iran, a Shi'a state, and in Iraq (65-70% Shi'a, especially in the south where the major oilfields are located), and in the oil-bearing Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and in various Gulf sheikdoms -- Bahrain (70% of the population), Kuwait (25%), and in two places that do not possess oil but are significant for local stability. The first is Lebanon, where the overbreeding by Shi'a now makes them the largest group in that country, and in Yemen, which, though without oil wealth, is populous and a potential threat to stability in both Saudi Arabia and in the Horn of Africa -- and with a population that is almost evenly divided between Sunnis and Shi'a.
2) The ethnic divide between Arab Muslims and the non-Arab Muslims who constitute 80% of the world's Muslims is not imaginary, though it takes a while for non-Arab Muslims to think clearly about how the Arabs use Islam -- have always used Islam -- as a vehicle for Arab supremacism. The cultural and linguistic imperialism which the Berbers of North Africa (especially in the Kabyle) have endured, and which some of them are determined not to endure any longer, is not sufficiently discussed. The murderous attitude of Arabs toward the Kurds -- an attitude that Kanan Makiya noted, and puzzled over, but could not bring himself to connect to the very nature of Islam as that "vehicle for Arab supremacism" (thus vitiating the value of his work in "The Republic of Silence" as more than mere reportage) -- is another example. The Arab pressure, or the pressure from Islam itself, to make the Muslims of the subcontinent (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India itself) indifferent to their own pre-Islamic heritage, and the same kind of attitude toward the not-completely-extinguished pre-Islamic or non-Islamic heritage of Muslims in Malaysia and, still more obviously, in syncretistic Indonesia, is something that some Malay intellectuals have noticed, and written about. But the theme needs to be taken up by Infidels, and pointed out on every possible occasion.
3) The third great divide in the Camp of Islam is that between the oil-and-gas rich, thinly-populated states, such as the sheikdoms (Qatar, U.A.E., Kuwait) and even Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim states that do not have oil, and consequently are much poorer than their fellow, oil-rich members of the Umma. Unfortunately, Western Infidels have been inveigled or self-inveigled into believing that they have some kind of duty to supply large amounts of aid to these oil-poor Muslim countries, such as Egypt (nearly $70 billion from America alone), Jordan, Pakistan, and of course to what is optimistically called "the Palestinian Authority." They do not have any such duty, and they should cease all such aid, for it is received not as aid, with gratitude, but rather as Jizyah, that is owed, and that must be continued -- because the Muslims deserve what becomes, in the attitude of both donor and donee, a disguised Jizyah. Indeed, the classic form of Jizyah, paid by non-Muslims to Muslims in a Muslim-ruled domain, can be seen in Malaysia, with the Bumiputra system that requires Chinese and Indians to transfer wealth to Muslim Malays, simply because they are Muslims.
If the Infidels remove all of their misguided support for Muslims, and force the poorer Muslims to demand a sharing of the oil wealth by the rich members of the Umma, this will put those rich members uncomfortably on the spot. If they deny the poorer Arabs, that will increase mutual hostility. And if they agree to supply aid, that will increase mutual hostility, hostility felt by those Arabs or other Muslims receiving aid, and for whom such aid will never be enough, especially as those poorer Arabs already know something --- and the Infidel intelligence services can help them find out a great deal more -- about the unbelievable riches, the limitless luxury, and the nauseating decadence that characterize the lives of these Gulf Arabs.
There are other divisions that can be played upon, such as that division between the "primitive Arabs" of the Gulf and the more sophisticated and civilized -- as they see themselves, a kind of consolation prize for being much poorer -- Arabs of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. (Egypt is a special case, because in Egypt there was formerly a sense -- it may be recoverable if deliberately encouraged -- that Egyptian Muslims were different from, superior to, mere "Arabs.")
One can find at MEMRI the odd Syrian who expresses his unease with Islam obliquely, as contempt for the "primitive Bedouin of Arabia." And who brought Islam to the world, or first spread it, if not those same "primitive Bedouin" whom the urban resident of Damascus, with his leather-bound volumes (oh yes, he's a great reader, he allows himself to believe, of Mutanabbi and Adonis and others in-between, and therefore so very different, he likes to think and make others think, from those Saudi plutocrats in Monte Carlo)? And this "northern urban Arab -- southern desert Arab" split can be usefully encouraged, and exploited, by those keen enough, and well-prepared enough, to understand the points of mental purchase.
The envy of the rich Arabs, and the gnawing recognition that Islam simply will not do (but cannot be directly attacked), comes out as this hostility from the presumably suave denizens of Damascus and Beirut and Cairo, those "Arab intellectuals" and journalists who are a poor substitute for the truth-telling of, say, Wafa Sultan, toward the Gulf Arabs and especially toward the Saudis. Those northern Arabs who lack the yachts, and have to forego the call-girl-and-gambling sprees of the Saudis, and the other Arabs from the Gulf sheikdoms, can offer themselves the consolation, in history-haunted Islam, that it is they, and not the rich "desert Arabs," who are the intellectual heirs of what is seen as High Islamic Civilization (roughly, 850-1250), and for which such exaggerated claims are made, and the achievements of the many non-Muslims under Muslim rule during that period claimed, quite misleadingly, for Islam.
Of these three major fissures, two present themselves in Iraq: the sectarian and the ethnic divides.
And it is the recognition, and then the exploitation, of these fissures that has been the constant theme of everything I have written about Iraq, since the first few months of 2004, by which time Saddam Hussein had been captured, his sons killed, his regime's major figures killed or captured, and -- most importantly -- the country had been scoured for weapons of mass destruction, and whatever programs to develop such programs that had existed, existed no longer, and the number of locals capable of putting back such a program greatly reduced in numbers.
Good points all, Hugh. A question: where do muslims living in the desert get water? It seems that there is a fissure, to be exploited, between desert dwellers and this basic, indispensible liquid.
It would be heartening, to say the least, to hear a serious discussion of desert-dwelling muslims vulnerability to militarily-enforced water deprivation. In addition to letting them pound sand, they could also quench their thirst with it.
Not allowing any further Mohammedan Fifth Columns to infiltrate the West under the guise of "immigrants", "refugees", "students", "guest workers", ad absurdum, would be a useful adjunct to this "keep Islam divided" and at home proposal.
The less we permit Islam to ease their internal quarrels by siphoning off the pressure into the Infidel Zones, the more trouble Muslims will cause to themselves.
The Sunni-Shia schism has great potential to distract them from killing us. (Not to mention the Amadiyas and Baha'is, etc.)
If only we'd stop trying to mediate, Islam might have to face itself more seriously.
Good construct Hugh.
Can you find even one national politician, or one emerging or even one in the wings, who will likely operate under these ideas, usefull as they are ?
Or will it have to emerge as a cry from the grassroots ("yes drill for oil, you idiot politicians, or you will be replaced").
Where is the practical vehicle for effecting these policies ?
(is it a public fed up with islam ?)
"If the Infidels remove all of their misguided support for Muslims, and force the poorer Muslims to demand a sharing of the oil wealth by the rich members of the Umma, this will put those rich members uncomfortably on the spot. If they deny the poorer Arabs, that will increase mutual hostility."
While this idea is generally good, it leaves out an important fact. The poorer Muslims have already demanded a share of oil wealth. For example, in Egypt--one of America's largest recipients of foreign aid"--there was recently a rash of bread riots. So, the issue is not "forcing" poor Muslims to demand more, the issue is empowering them to overthrow their oppressors. By the way, these oppressors often fund extremism, then present themselves as the last bastion of moderation in society. Musharraf and Abdullah, anyone?
Therefore, since the hostility is already present, we should encourage Muslims who reject the Madrassah-Military Axis of Islamism, and demand their basic human dignities.
Is that going to be of any benefit to us? Why you americans are so obssessed with Jihadis, Iraq and democracy in the middle east? the real danger are not jihadists but muslim immigrants in our countries.
If jihadists want to practice Jihad in their lands, God bless them. why would I care? They mean nothing to me.
I just don't want muslims in Europe and in the few remaining western majority countries such as Australia and New Zealand. (north america, with or without the muslims, has just a few decades before turning to a non-western majority country).
Yes, Hugh, but:
These divisions do not seem to persist once Muslim immigrants make their way to the West, at least among the generations born here. I noted, in the TIZA school video broadcast by a local news affiliate earlier this month, the stark contrast between the smiling, and as yet un-tainted Somali youngsters, and the stern, borderline violent, Arab administrators. These administators and teachers, and their fellow-travelers in the Mosque and in the political organizations, will work hard to erase any cultural or religious differences between the Somali Muslim immigrant youth, or those from the Indian subcontinent, or those from the Balkans, and the Saudi-funded Arab supremicists.
The Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq would in all probability become a casualty of American withdrawal from Iraq.
You are doing it again, Cornelius. You know perfectly well that I have written about ways to secure the Kurds, from providing air support, to leaving all the American weaponry that is to be left in the north, with the Kurds, to intervening with Turkey, and in a diplomatic demarche insisting that Turkey has more to gain from an independent but economically interdependent Kurdistan, one that makes no claims on Turkish territory but directs that impulse to the Kurdish-inhabited areas of Iran and of Syria, and that promise can be extracted by the Americans from the Kurds, and then the Americans offer to guarantee it with the Turkish army.
You constantly force me to go over and over the same ground.
You know perfectly well the symbolic importance of a free Kurdistan, to Berbers, to black African Muslims, even to those in Indonesia who may find the Arab supremacism of which Islam is a vehicle at this point too much to take, and would relish the example of a group of non-Arab Muslims who managed to throw off the Arab yoke, and survive, and even thrive.
Why do you keep forgetting or overlooking all this, again and again and again? Am I forever to have to keep answering the same objections, going over the same ground?
Why?
To point number two, the ethnic divide, I would add the most significant fissure of this type: that between Arabs and Persians. The pot of enmity that motivated the 8-year stalemate conflict between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s perhaps needs to be stirred up again. A sudden American withdrawal from Iraq right now might just allow the "love" between Iraq and Iran to flower yet again. All the Americans need to do in that case is just run around the edges to contained it to the region.
Keeping Kurds safe from their arab brothers by leaving military weapons will not be enough, as we saw what happened with Afganistan once the Russians left, the weapons turned on its own people and the arab muslims came and with the help of the taliban created more trouble.
Leaving right now would signal weakness with the US.
victory runs through Damascas and into Iran who sponsors the Hez and Hamas terrorists. Bombing iran with precision would be a start.
HUGH: "You know perfectly well the symbolic importance of a free Kurdistan, to Berbers, to black African Muslims, even to those in Indonesia who may find the Arab supremacism of which Islam is a vehicle at this point too much to take, and would relish the example of a group of non-Arab Muslims who managed to throw off the Arab yoke, and survive, and even thrive."
RESPONSE: I do. I'm with you all the way. That's why I believe withdrawing from Iraq would be so deleterious to the fortunes of the Kurds. The have NO champions in the region. They are opposed by Arab, Turk and Persian alike.
If you were Prez Hugh, there might be some confidence in a post-withdrawal effort on the Kurdish behalf. As it is, the only part of your program that will ever be adopted will be the withdrawal part. Neither the American public nor the coming Obama Administration will have any stomach to re-involve ourselves in Iraq on behalf of the Kurds once the shit hits the fan.
There is nothing in the US constitution that calls for jizya payments, or any kind of 'foreign aid'.
The government routinely gives 'our' money away to foreign despots and other undeserving types.
This is our fault for entrusting gov with our money in the first place. Fiat money is great for jizya payments, the receivers don't care if it's fiat or not. It's still redeemable and they got it for nothing...Sweet huh...
I agree with Matamoros. Unless we end Muslim immigration to the West now, it won't matter what happens in the Mid-East. We are looking down the barrel of an Islamic take over of our culture and the enslavement of our children and grandchildren, but few Western men seem to care. In fact we are supporting them with welfare, and aiding them politically to destroy our own institutions.
But it is not the fault of Muslims that this has happened. We elected dhimmis and we continue to elect them. We allow crack pot judges to strike down our traditions. We appoint commissions to report how we need to make Muslims feel wanted. We accept the silence that is the Muslim response to every Muslim caused atrocity and yet we still think "they are just like us". We do not call them liars and barbarians because we do not want to be labelled racists and Islamophobes.
It's 1938. Soon it will be 1939. But here is no Churchill on the horizon, though there are many Chamberlains.
Hugh Fitzgerald:
Religions change over time and Islam is in the beginning of a big change. The Salafis see the writing on the wall and are trying to reverse the flow of history by calling for jihad. There is no point in trying to appease these people. They must be defeated. Killing them is good, but making them look pathetic is better. We want to stop them from creating a real war between Islam and the West.
Killing jihadis and encouraging reformers is our best strategy.
Your strategy—“…the best thing that can be done for Muslims is to weaken the hold of Islam on their minds.” – takes on a bigger target than is necessary. First, let’s attack the militant part of Islam. We can always enlarge the target.
While attacking the militants we need to defend ourselves at home. Islamists have the same strategy we have.
Bernard Lewis is right—we are involved in a clash of civilizations. Both civilizations will survive the clash, but only one will emerge fundamentally unchanged. Islam is changing and will change more. The seeds of change have been deposited deep inside Islam. They are the thinkers who have been raised in Islam but have also lived in the West and cannot avoid making a comparison. Some jettison Islam entirely like Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq and Walid Phares. Others, like Tariq Ramadan, try to put a modern face on desert Islam and become duplicitous.
But some stay and fight jihadist, supremacist elements from inside. Zuhdi Jasser, of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy seems to be such a person.
If the presently feeble efforts at reform do not get assassinated, as they routinely do in Muslim dominated countries, Islam will eventually be just another religion.
You and I disagree on what it means to divide and conquer.
Who are we wanting to divide and what is the definition of conquering?
It is not sufficient to divide rich from poor, Sunni from Shiite, Arab from Persian. We want to divide supremacist from non-supremacist, jihadi from non-jihadi.
Conquering is defined as reshaping Islam so it is no threat to us. The process is the same one that reshaped America from a slave-owning state with limited rights for women to the free and just society we live in.
Hugh Fitzgerald:
Religions change over time and Islam is in the beginning of a big change. The Salafis see the writing on the wall and are trying to reverse the flow of history by calling for jihad. There is no point in trying to appease these people. They must be defeated. Killing them is good, but making them look pathetic is better. We want to stop them from creating a real war between Islam and the West.
Killing jihadis and encouraging reformers is our best strategy.
Your strategy—“…the best thing that can be done for Muslims is to weaken the hold of Islam on their minds.” – takes on a bigger target than is necessary. First, let’s attack the militant part of Islam. We can always enlarge the target.
While attacking the militants we need to defend ourselves at home. Islamists have the same strategy we have.
Bernard Lewis is right—we are involved in a clash of civilizations. Both civilizations will survive the clash, but only one will emerge fundamentally unchanged. Islam is changing and will change more. The seeds of change have been deposited deep inside Islam. They are the thinkers who have been raised in Islam but have also lived in the West and cannot avoid making a comparison. Some jettison Islam entirely like Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq and Walid Phares. Others, like Tariq Ramadan, try to put a modern face on desert Islam and become duplicitous.
But some stay and fight jihadist, supremacist elements from inside. Zuhdi Jasser, of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy seems to be such a person.
If the presently feeble efforts at reform do not get assassinated, as they routinely do in Muslim dominated countries, Islam will eventually be just another religion.
You and I disagree on what it means to divide and conquer.
Who are we wanting to divide and what is the definition of conquering?
It is not sufficient to divide rich from poor, Sunni from Shiite, Arab from Persian. We want to divide supremacist from non-supremacist, jihadi from non-jihadi.
Conquering is defined as reshaping Islam so it is no threat to us. The process is the same one that reshaped America from a slave-owning state with limited rights for women to the free and just society we live in.