| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
Winning in Iraq is important. And we need a return on our investment: 3,000 dead, nearly 25,000 wounded, about $700 billion so far spent or committed in future unavoidable costs, with estimates for the total ranging between $1 trillion and $2 trillion.
And winning can only be done if the definition of "victory" is first made clear.
What is the correct definition of "victory" for the United States? It is the Camp of Islam and Jihad rendered weaker than it was before. The Administration keeps saying that bringing "democracy" itself somehow weakens the appeal of what it inaccurately describes as "extremists who have hijacked a great religion," but since those "extremists" or merely the more religious and less secular have only increased their power whenever free elections have been held -- in Algeria, in Egypt, in the "Palestinian"-controlled territories -- the clash of theory and reality is never explained. How can the Camp of Islam be weakened if American efforts are directed at ensuring a united, stable, and prosperous Iraq?
And if that impossible goal were somehow attained after another few years of expensive and depleting American efforts and expense, and focus remains on Iraq while every other matter is somehow pushed to the back or the side, including that of Iran's steady nuclear project, how would this Iraq serve as a Model? How could an Iraq that was once the place of the Abbasid Caliphate be lost to the Shi'a? After all, that was where so much of that "glorious Islamic past" upon which Muslims like to dwell took place. It is a place so important to their sense of themselves and their rightful role in the universe, that if it were lost by the Sunni Arabs and came to be dominated by the Shi'a, those "Persians," those Rafidite dogs, this would be worse in the eyes of both the Egyptian press and Saudi clerics than Jews and Christians dominating Iraq. Yes, that's just how bad those Shi'a are.
How would the achievement of the stated goals of the Bush Administration in Iraq weaken the Camp of Islam?
The way to weaken the Camp of Islam, and thus to justify the incredible expense in men, money, materiel, and morale both civilian and military, is to allow a situation within Iraq to be created (and still better if that situation is entirely a creation of the people in Iraq -- not "the Iraqis" who do not exist – themselves) in which Muslims who would otherwise be waging jihad against us are divided and demoralized. This will weaken the Camp of Islam. Two of the three major fissures within Islam -- sectarian and ethnic -- are pre-existing conditions. Their origins can be found in the first century of Islam.
The ethnic fissure is that between Arabs and Kurds. The Americans did not cause the mistreatment of the Kurds by both kinds of Arabs, but a not-impossible Kurdish state would serve American interests in two ways. It could weaken both Syria and Iran, that have circumjacent Kurdish populations. And in the case of Iran, not only Iranian Kurds but other non-Persian minorities (Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis) might be inspired by an independent Kurdistan. And the very existence of an independent Kurdistan could have effects far beyond the immediate area for other non-Arabs, including Berbers in North Africa and black Africans in Darfur. They might be heartened by the example of a non-Arab Muslim people throwing off the Arab yoke. And in the "war of ideas" that some like to refer to, anything that reveals Islam to have been and to remain a vehicle of Arab imperialism, cultural, linguistic, economic, and political, is to be encouraged -- so that non-Arab Muslims will begin to view Islam in a new, more accurate, less attractive and more disturbing light.
The much larger fissure is that between Sunni and Shi'a. It goes back to the seventh century and the proper succession, after the Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs, to Muhammad. But it became a difference in ritual and in some doctrines as well, though not in the teachings about, and attitudes exhibited, toward non-Muslims. This too was not encouraged by the Americans. The war being conducted on Shi'a by Sunnis centuries ago led to the former adopting the doctrine of taqiyya (which is now essentially practiced by Sunni Muslims as well, relying on Qur'an and Hadith for justification), that is, religiously-sanctioned dissimulation about the faith. Sunni-Shi'a tensions, and Sunni discrimination against or persecution of the Shi'a, including deliberate campaigns of murder as in both Iraq and in Pakistan, will go on whatever the Americans do. These tensions can be seen in Saudi Arabia, in Pakistan, in Lebanon, in Bahrain, in Kuwait.
The "victory" in Iraq that would result from the continuation, and enlargement, even beyond Iraq's borders, of ethnic and sectarian hostilities and warfare within the Camp of Islam, is the only kind of "victory" that makes sense. And though it was made possible by the removal of the iron regime and mailed fist of Saddam Hussein, the conditions that cause those fissures were none of America's doing. All the Americans have done is try to prevent the very things that they should be deliberately not preventing, but exploiting.
A topsy-turvy strategy. A crazy quilt of plans and counter-plans that miss the essential point.
A mad world, my masters!
Posted by Hugh at January 18, 2007 1:07 PM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
|
Thank you Hugh,
I have waited in the last 6 months for you to say this.
Thank you 1000x
Posted by: ssa![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 18, 2007 1:22 PM
Stir that pot and let it boil over baby!
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at January 18, 2007 1:33 PM
I think you [all of us on JW] have different objectives than our "leaders" have. Namely:
How can the Camp of Islam be weakened if American efforts are directed at ensuring a united, stable, and prosperous Iraq?
Answer: every time they get to vote they vote in islamists. Ergo they do NOT want democracy.
Therefore it is indeed best to weaken their camp by benign disengagement and letting them do what they do best: fight amongst one another.
In reality WE cannot show them the light. They need to get so sick and fed up by their lives [and we cannot bail them out either] so that they will begin to honestly search for root causes.
The ROOT CAUSE being islam.
Until then - there is no hope for them and we should not be dragged down with them.
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 18, 2007 1:35 PM
I agree with you, Hugh. I'm especially leaning more and more towards the idea of a Kurdish state. The Kurds have proven truer friends to Americans than any other group in that region -- why not capitalize on the divisions in the Middle East where that is concerned, and establish a fortress-like hold in a new Kurdish state, and from there we can make life hell for Iranian & Syrian leaders.
Yes, at this point we had better pull some kind of defined victory out of the Iraq debacle, or all these lives spent will have been for nothing -- and that just can't be allowed to get the stamp of history on it.
Muqtada Al Sadr also needs to be hung from a tree to swing in the wind while we are at it.
Posted by: Foehammer at January 18, 2007 1:35 PM
Hugh said,
The "victory" in Iraq that would result from the continuation, and enlargement, even beyond Iraq's borders, of ethnic and sectarian hostilities and warfare within the Camp of Islam, is the only kind of "victory" that makes sense.
Agreed 100%. Bush's initial folly of assuming Iraq would embrace our mandated exported democracy on them is only being compounded by our refusal to exit without a last ditch effort to save face. Destroy al Sadr, even the playing field a bit between the Sunnis and Shias and then leave promptly. Neither sect will allow Iraq to be absorbed without a fight.
Knowing that Bush is still a politician, I doubt we will still be in Iraq before after his tenure is over. The overwhelming pressure from Republicans, cognizant that anything short of a full withdrawal from Iraq come election time will all but guarantee a Democratic president in 2008, will make sure of that.
Indeed, "victory" in this case is difficult to define. Although I believe you to be 100% correct Hugh, I also doubt your sentiments will be echoed anywhere in the MSM. Regardless, the validity of your position, in my personal opinion, is still irrefutable.
Posted by: awake at January 18, 2007 1:37 PM
"I have waited in the last 6 months for you to say this."
-- from a posting above
But I've been boringly repeating the same thing on the matter of Iraq, even deliberately repeating the same fixed phrases, for the past three years -- since the begining of 2004. Go back into the Archives and look around.
And over the past six months how many have said the same thing? A hundred postings? Two hundred?
But that's okay. If you missed it the first 200 times, or thousand times, here it is again. And it will be posted here again.
Watch This Space.
Posted by: Hugh at January 18, 2007 1:39 PM
In reality WE cannot show them the light. They need to get so sick and fed up by their lives [and we cannot bail them out either] so that they will begin to honestly search for root causes.
The ROOT CAUSE being islam.
Until then - there is no hope for them and we should not be dragged down with them.
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 18, 2007 01:35 PM
Now that is a marvelous analysis- 100 percent correct and frighteningly logical.
Too bad the do-gooders will still try their damndest to save these fools from their own stupidity.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at January 18, 2007 1:40 PM
As I have been advocating under my writer's name in other letters, I agree with the beginning of your balkanization of Islam Mr. Fitzgerald, but as a short fix and not a long fix to buy time.
The long fix is pulling Islam's teeth with it's god of doom and burning fire by implementing a woman's movement to defang Islam by making the imams have to deal with hospital care, schooling and housing for Muslims. The same feminization of capitalism which now has the west paralyzed and unable to conduct war as it should be against terrorists is what Islam needs to defeat it.
Islam is male oriented while other religions are female inclusive in their nature of compassion, care and love. Islam gets to spend all it's money on bombs and leaves the women and children to suffer. The moment that Islamic women rise in mass to demand their family rights is the moment Mohammed and his koran are defused.
That is how you defeat Islam in the long term and use it's weakness against itself. Ronald Reagan saw the weakness of the Soviet Union was religion. The same is true in the Islamocommunist religion the world is at war with. The key though is not the sects killing each other.......the key is Benjamin Franklin pillow talk as he accomplished in the French courts to gain American support. Let every Muslim male get an ear full by his wife every night and he will buckle faster just like every man in the world does.
Empower the women and you will defang Islam.
at January 18, 2007 1:44 PM
Thank you Hugh,
I have waited in the last 6 months for you to say this.
Posted by: ssa at January 18, 2007 01:22 PM
Where the hell have you been?
Cheers-
at January 18, 2007 1:48 PM
Democracy wont work in the middle eastern muslim countries. Let the shia and sunnis have at each other.
at January 18, 2007 2:07 PM
Too bad the do-gooders will still try their damndest to save these fools from their own stupidity.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS
Yep. And all at our expense - both in lives in quality-of-life [i.e. having to live among moslems in our lands] and in treasure as well [i.e. wasting tax money on the war, homeland security and on social and legal costs associated with moslems in our lands]
The less we have to do with them - the better.
Only they can realize the destructiveness and foolishness of their ways. You cannot be heard by a wall - no matter how hard you scream at it. Soft whispering a la NPR won't work either.
Posted by: MeanieMo at January 18, 2007 2:10 PM
An independent Kurdistan has some very interesting possiblities indeed.
That would not occur without some difficulties however. Things to consider:
It currently goes against the US stated position of supporting an "unified" Iraq; two, such a declaration would put an end to any federation negotiations between Arab Iraq and the new Kurdish state. This would also entail the possibility that the Kurds would face a newly aroused Iraqi Arab nationalism, this time infused with an Iraqi Shi'a nationalist discourse, rather than a Sunni discourse, which could be even more strident. A declaration of independence would also greatly irritate Turkey which has a strong Kurdish nationalist movement among its estimated 15-17 million Kurds. Turkey has so far supported the US position of advocating a unified Iraq in order to contain the spread and influence of Kurdistan-Iraq, much more prosperous than the poverty laden and economically underdeveloped Kurdish regions in the southeast of Turkey.
If the Kurds of Iraq declare independence, there is no guarantee that Turkey will continue its policy of tolerating such a state. Iran, with a Kurdish population of an estimated 6 million (out of a total population of 69 million) and Syria with an estimated Kurdish population of 1.5 (out of a total population of 18 million) also face strong Kurdish nationalist movements and would be strongly opposed to an independent Kurdish state in Iraq.
The Kurdish leadership also faces certain dilemmas. Kurdistan-Iraq is landlocked and dependent on its Turkish, Iranian and Syrian neighbors for most of its land and air communications. This is especially the case if Arab Iraq were to adopt a hostile position toward the new state. In such a situation how would Kurdistan-Iraq be able to prosper economically? Would Kurdish officials and economic entrepreneurs be satisfied with such a small market to exploit? What would the new state’s position be if the above circumstance compelled the Kurds to become a client state and ward of the US—with US military bases?
This would make its neighbors, especially Iran, but including Turkey, very nervous. If the Islamic Republic or Iran, and the Bashar al-Asad regime in Syria were to topple or there were internal strife in either country, such developments would most assuredly affect Kurdistan-Iraq.
Still, it would be interesting to pursue and probably useful as you suggest.
Posted by: Anti Islamian at January 18, 2007 2:21 PM
The American Campaign to Suppress Islam
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Democracy
Democracy is the political framework of the Capitalist thought, i.e. the ruling
system that the Capitalist states and their like implement. Democracy, for
those who embrace it, means that people rule themselves by themselves with
the systems that they choose.
Oftentimes, Capitalists refer to their system as “The Democratic System”, but
such a connotation is incorrect for more than one reason: Democracy was
not innovated by the Capitalists but had been preceded by the Greeks.
Moreover, they were not the only ones who implemented it; the Marxist-
Socialists claimed that they were democrats and they consistently pretended
that they implemented democracy.
The most important element of democracy is that it makes the human being
and not the Creator as the legislator, which is logical for those who call for
the detachment of religion from life because this detachment means to
transfer the right to legislate from the Creator to the human being. The
Capitalists, in this issue did not discuss whether the Creator has obliged man
to follow a certain law and implement it in his life, nor did they even examine
this issue at all, rather they appointed man as the legislator without any
discussion.
For Muslims to adopt democracy means to disbelieve in all - may Allah forbid
- the decisive and conclusive evidences, among which are many Qur’anic
verses which oblige them to follow the law of Allah and to reject any other
law. Moreover, these verses consider any one of them who does not follow
or implement the law of Allah as either a Kafir, a zalim, or a fasiq, “And those
who do not rule by whatever Allah has revealed are non-believers
(Kafiroon).” [TMQ 5:44]
“And those who do not rule by whatever Allah has revealed are oppressors
(zalimoon).” [TMQ 5:45]
“And those who do not rule by whatever Allah has revealed are transgressors
(fasiqoon).” [TMQ 5:47]
Thus, whoever does not rule by whatever Allah has revealed, denying Allah’s
right to legislate, as is the case with those who believe in democracy, is a
Kafir according to the explicit words of the Qur’an, because by doing so he is
rejecting those decisive verses, and denying a conclusive text makes a
person a Kafir as the Muslim Fuqaha’ agreed unanimously.
The Kafiroon and their agents who rule the Muslim countries, as well as all
those who call for democracy who are counted from among the Muslims,
whether they are individuals or movements, realise that the basis for
democracy is the rejection of the law of Allah and putting man in the place
of the Creator. For this reason, they do not present democracy from this
perspective, but instead claim that democracy means people ruling
themselves by themselves, with equality and justice prevailing among the
people, and the accountability of the ruler guaranteed. Although
democracy explicitly implies the rejection of the laws of Allah and following
the law of His creation, the advocates of democracy intentionally avoid
addressing the issue of rejecting the law of Allah.
So much for democracy.
Posted by: Dsinc at January 18, 2007 3:35 PM
Oh, don't worry, winning is going to come ! When the Bomb is dropped, a new generation of compassionate Islamics will come crawling out of the ashes of decay.
Posted by: Jeff at January 18, 2007 5:50 PM
The Muslim world has lots of money thanks to our oil imports and lots of angry young men thanks to their birthrates. Whether or not 100,000 or so Sunni and/or Shia kill each other really doesn't matter in the long run.
For morale purposes leaving them with the impression that America will run from a fight is a bad thing. OK so "surge the troops", knock them back hard and then get them the hell out of there!
Long term there are only three things that matter:
1) Nuclear proliferation in Islamic countries.
2) Demographics of Muslim vs non-Muslim populations especially in Europe and Russia.
3) Finding substitutes for petroleum imports. This is the real war we should be spending $200 billion a year on!
When we reduce our petroleum consumption by half we can ask our military for a plan to shut down petroleum exports out of the Persian Gulf region. Should take about two weeks. That would be the beginning of real victory.
Posted by: Malta_1565 at January 18, 2007 6:36 PM
Hugh,
I see Bush is getting your message loud and clear! NOT!
From Chicago Tribune (Tribune got an exclusive interview w/Bush):
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/01/bush_troops_on_.html
...
With the U.S. warning Iran and Syria to stop aiding insurgents fighting in Iraq, Bush maintained today that Iran poses a potential threat to Iraq’s stability. With congressional leaders calling for a start of redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq over the next four to six months, the president warned that “if we were to leave before our job is done or withdraw our troops as some are suggesting, it will invite Iran in. And, if Iran comes in, other Sunni nations will be… Sunni radicals will be heading into Iraq and we will have a cataclysmic situation that will affect the future of America’s security.’’
at January 18, 2007 7:14 PM
"if we were to leave before our job is done or withdraw our troops as some are suggesting, it will invite Iran in. And, if Iran comes in, other Sunni nations will be… Sunni radicals will be heading into Iraq and we will have a cataclysmic situation that will affect the future of America’s security.’’
-- from an interview with George Bush, the man currently taking a leadership role
Cataclysmic, eh? Yes, indeed, a "cataclysmic situation." But he has the subject wrong. It should not be "we" but "they." "They" being the Sunni Arabs and also the Shi'a Arabs.
Corrected, that phrase now reads:
"[T]hey will have a cataclysmic situation that will affect [for the better, the very much better] the future of America's security."
There. That's much better.
Posted by: Hugh at January 18, 2007 7:45 PM
An independent Kurdistan has some very interesting possiblities indeed.
Just F.I.Y. The Kurds are no angels either. They are in Germany and have been there for decades. They are even more radical than the Turks. They assasinate Turks on our soil and then the Turks retaliate and assassinate Kurds.
They're not good guys I tell you.
That said, it's always a good idea to let these people kill each other - but NOT on European soil!
THEY NEED TO HASH OUT THEIR DIFFERENCES AT HOME in islamo-land!
at January 18, 2007 8:14 PM
Has there ever in recorded history been a war [sic] with no definition for victory?
A victory-less war is doomed to failure by its very definition, or lack thereof I should say.
Would the undefined nature of this [sic] have been possible if it not conducted in a Fictive Reality?
How many people in Dar al Harb fail to see that pink elephant in the corner of the room? It's a big bastard, and terribly excitable.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at January 18, 2007 10:39 PM
Hi Hugh: First, let me start by agreeing with you 100%, on what our strategy should have been from the beginning, unfortunately our politicians on both sides of the aisle lack knowledge and vision. Secondly, we must continue to be engaged militarily, everywhere there's an opportunity to kill Muslims, but we need new rules of engagement. Thirdly, we must expand our military and pay our patriots as well as we pay our professional law enforcement officers, such as FBI agents, etc.
I truly appreciate your foresight and I will continue to follow your proposals with great interest. Keep it up.
at January 18, 2007 10:55 PM
I think history will look at Iraq as an early 21st Century victory. We’ve taken out an efficient dictator, established a footprint to project power in the Middle East, and most importantly, we’ve been forced to learn about Islam.
In the longer term and before the next round, the West will be strengthened by the failure of the social safety net. We spend $166 million daily in Iraq and the budget is strained. But every day the US also incurs around $3 billion (with a B) in unfunded liabilities. These liabilities do not show up in the budget and Congress has just announced that it will not address the issue this session. Taxes cannot close the gap and my guess is that the US will lose it's credit-worthiness sometime between 2020 and 2030. It may happen sooner. When we emerge from Grapes of Wrath, the Sequel, it will be without a lot of the baggage we have to deal with today.
And with considerably different rules of engagement.
at January 18, 2007 11:33 PM
"we must expand our military and pay our patriots as well as we pay our professional law enforcement officers"
-- from a posting above
And a one-time payment of at least $10,000 (and possibly twice as much) should be made to every soldier, full-time, Reservist, or National Guardsman, who served for six months or more in Iraq or Afghanistan. They have been grossly underpaid, and in the case of the civilian soldires, misled. They deserve it. And they deserve to have their original understandings of the contracts they signed honored -- not unilaterally changed by the government.
How to pay for all that? Why, with a tax on gasoline, and another on uses of oil. And in the end, we should recoup several hundred billion dollars of the amount we have spent by demanding, from the sheiklets of the Gulf (Qatar, Kuwait, the U.A.E.) and from Saudi Arabia, payment if, in the heat of the Iranian-Arab proxy war that will be fought in Iraq, they feel they will need our protection. They should not be allowed to assume we will protect them. We should instead make clear that they will have to buy an insurance policy to pay for such protection.
How much? Oh, possibly $200 billion, from all of the interested and worried parties, for the first two or three years of such protection. And the premiums on that insurance policy will go up, steadily. It is their oilfields. And the very idea that the United States, alone, should be "protecting" the oilfields, without any aid from other oil-consuming nations save Great Britain (and in Iraq that is about to end, and was never a large force), and without those who actually receive the revenues from those oilfields being told it is their problem, not ours (and that is how we should talk of it, instead of allowing the House of Saud, for example, think that the Americans will always be there to defend them, and that they can count on that, rather than have to take out an insurance policy). Why successive American governments keep being suckered into meeting the smug assumptions of the rich Arabs, about Who Is To Pay, is a fascinating question.
Posted by: Hugh at January 18, 2007 11:51 PM
Luttwak catches up with Hugh on Iraq.
Civil war: the only way to bring peace to Iraq
By Edward Luttwak
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 07/05/2006
at January 19, 2007 9:49 PM
Comments are turned off and archived for this entry.
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)