Excellent comments. I doubt they'll dismantle their own extremist Islamist agendas. After all, they set them up for a particular purpose, which they still want to achieve.

To embrace modernity is going to take a good couple of centuries. Unfortunately.

Posted by: S Perry at April 21, 2008 8:22 AM

Well yes Muslims are victims of this ideology and so are non Muslims. However, the choice between democracy and Islamic rule is a clear choice in the Islamic state. It will always be Sharia and Islamic law. Pakistan at the time of Independence when the British left was given the Parliamentary democratic system of government, but it collapsed into successive dictatorships. At the same time India was also left with the Parliamentary democratic system and is still in place although they are internal and external threats. So Pakistanis made a choice and chose what the Islamic doctrines dictated and that was to wage Jihad. Democracy is not in the way of thinking for Islamic minds in general. However, through exposure, International pressure, sanctions, cutting off aid, and more truth about Islamic violence and less appeasement and apology from western leaders it is possible for these states to look at and examine their own condition and the roots of those causes.

Posted by: savsiv at April 21, 2008 8:33 AM

I think there are significant numbers of people in the government/military/intelligence services of both countries who have been in league with each other and the jihad forces for many decades.

I see no significant ideological opposition to Jihad within either country. In fact, public sentiment appears to be even more on the Jihadi side than on ours.

The history of US government action in respect of both countries is a classic example of blowback on a massive scale.

We are now in the midst of an international insurgency of Jihadis being funded by Saudi Arabia and trained by Pakistan.

Just as Joe Kennedy (father of JFK and RFK) when US ambassador to Britain let his anti-British sentiment blind him to the US national interest in opposing Nazism, so did the anti-communist sentiment of Reagan and Bush blind them to the US national interest in opposing Wahabism.

I agree that both countries need to choose which side their on, but I fear that they have chosen a long time ago and the West has still not recognised their choice. Instead we continue to provide both countries with billions of dollars (one for purchasing oil and the the other for 'fighting' jihadis). Wake up and smell the coffee, we should be instituting boycotts of both countries until verifiable changes are made.

The message to all western govts should be - stop funding the Jihad!

Posted by: veil416 at April 21, 2008 8:42 AM

Any ruling elite, when faced with a choice, will always choose what seems most likely to keep them in power. I am not aware of any exceptions to this.

If the people want a hard-line Islamist state, the government will give it to them rather than lose their own power.

In reality, a majority of the people are not necessary for the creation of an Islamist state. As the saying goes, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". That is, the hard-line Islamists will always be the loudest, the pushiest, group, therefore they will be the ones that the governments will kowtow to.

In a country such as Saudi, the government does not need to worry about being voted out, but armed rebellion is always a concern. Which group is more likely to take up arms: radical Islamists, or moderates/secularists? Again, the government's primary concern is to keep themselves in charge; they will not risk losing their own power.

So it would appear that the nations listed in the article are not really "facing a choice" at all; the choice has already been made.

Posted by: shortfattexan at April 21, 2008 8:56 AM

veil416 is right when veil416 penned:

"I see no significant ideological opposition to Jihad within either country. In fact, public sentiment appears to be even more on the Jihadi side than on ours."

Jihadi and non-jihadi all celebrate the Eid together. They individually cut the throat of a large mammal at least once a year calling each other brother. They have occasion to see each other five times a day, seven days a week. They share the same opinion of the infidel.

The West needs a dose of realism, or it will be destroyed by these marauding lunatics.

Posted by: David England at April 21, 2008 10:33 AM

Jihad vs democracy?

It depends on what each of these terms mean. Many people will say that democracy is majority rule and Iraq, Gaza and Turkey have all had elections.
Others say it includes protecting the minority but these same countries will tell you their minorities are protected within sharia law.
Turkey might have had greater protection of minorities when it was ruled by a military junta. Many say similar things about Iraq under Saddam.
Democracy is messy. "Modernisation, democracy and the ideologies of freedom and religious coexistence" are all inconsistent with Islam. They require accepting that the Koran is not the supreme law of the land. More than jihad (no need to give up the internal struggle to become a better person), the choice is between sharia and democracy. Surely it is becoming ever clearer that the ideologies of freedom and religious coexistence are incompatible with sharia. Only one of them can prevail.

Posted by: PMK at April 21, 2008 10:53 AM

So many muslims are also victims because islam allows anyone to accuse anyone else of not being a true muslim. Therefore, attack anyone, it's ok.

Also if they are a true muslim and they get attacked by mistake, they still get to be martyrs. So it's all good, either way. Keep on jihading. There is no supreme leader to tell them they are wrong.

Posted by: Borg at April 21, 2008 12:24 PM

If the demos has been taught to uncritically bow to "Islamic thought", they will naturally and democratically enslave themselves to the 7th century ramblings of a pedophile warlord.

How is the ballot box method of submission to eternal ignorance, intolerance, misogyny and terroristic dogmas any advantage?

Without a basic belief in inalienable individual rights and the guaranteed liberty of thought and behavior nothing worthwhile will come from a mere front of "democracy".

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 21, 2008 12:52 PM

While I'm pleased to see those ideas in print, and hope they gain recognition, I myself am not so optimistic.

History shows that when a country or culture adopts irrational, oppressive and anti-human ideas, the people who suffer first and worst are always the members of that country or culture -- not their alleged "enemies".

Consider what the soviets did to Russia, the maoists to China, the other communists to East Germany, North Korea and Cuba. Look at what Mugabe's country is going through.

I don't know, off hand, of any case where the locals said, "Hey! Wait a minute. We're getting shafted worse than the bad guys.", and threw the bums and their sick ideology out.

And on the mohammedan side, it's not a recently adopted and new ideology. It's a damned religion, DEEPLY integrated into several interacting countries and cultures.

So, really, I don't see the mo's waking up all of a sudden and saying "Hey! Wait a minute. Those damned jihaddis are killing more of us than they're killing damned kaffers. Let's throw the bums out!"

I just don't see it happening.

I think that the west is going to have to fight like hell. The same as with the nazis and communists.

And I'm pretty sure that the fight has barely started yet.

Where there's the possibility of reason and free will, some folks will always find grounds for hope.

I personally wouldn't bet on any meaningful self-motivated improvements from the mohhammedan populations or gov'ts.

Posted by: joeblough at April 21, 2008 3:02 PM

While I'm pleased to see those ideas in print, and hope they gain recognition, I myself am not so optimistic.

History shows that when a country or culture adopts irrational, oppressive and anti-human ideas, the people who suffer first and worst are always the members of that country or culture -- not their alleged "enemies".

Consider what the soviets did to Russia, the maoists to China, the other communists to East Germany, North Korea and Cuba. Look at what Mugabe's country is going through.

I don't know, off hand, of any case where the locals said, "Hey! Wait a minute. We're getting shafted worse than the bad guys.", and threw the bums and their sick ideology out.

And on the mohammedan side, it's not a recently adopted and new ideology. It's a damned religion, DEEPLY integrated into several interacting countries and cultures.

So, really, I don't see the mo's waking up all of a sudden and saying "Hey! Wait a minute. Those damned jihaddis are killing more of us than they're killing damned kaffers. Let's throw the bums out!"

I just don't see it happening.

I think that the west is going to have to fight like hell. The same as with the nazis and communists.

And I'm pretty sure that the fight has barely started yet.

Where there's the possibility of reason and free will, some folks will always find grounds for hope.

I personally wouldn't bet on any meaningful self-motivated improvements from the mohhammedan populations or gov'ts.

Posted by: joeblough at April 21, 2008 3:02 PM

While I'm pleased to see those ideas in print, and hope they gain recognition, I myself am not so optimistic.

History shows that when a country or culture adopts irrational, oppressive and anti-human ideas, the people who suffer first and worst are always the members of that country or culture -- not their alleged "enemies".

Consider what the soviets did to Russia, the maoists to China, the other communists to East Germany, North Korea and Cuba. Look at what Mugabe's country is going through.

I don't know, off hand, of any case where the locals said, "Hey! Wait a minute. We're getting shafted worse than the bad guys.", and threw the bums and their sick ideology out.

And on the mohammedan side, it's not a recently adopted and new ideology. It's a damned religion, DEEPLY integrated into several interacting countries and cultures.

So, really, I don't see the mo's waking up all of a sudden and saying "Hey! Wait a minute. Those damned jihaddis are killing more of us than they're killing damned kaffers. Let's throw the bums out!"

I just don't see it happening.

I think that the west is going to have to fight like hell. The same as with the nazis and communists.

And I'm pretty sure that the fight has barely started yet.

Where there's the possibility of reason and free will, some folks will always find grounds for hope.

I personally wouldn't bet on any meaningful self-motivated improvements from the mohhammedan populations or gov'ts.

Posted by: joeblough at April 21, 2008 3:02 PM

Sorry about multiple post. I was getting errors back from the server and re-posted a couple of times. But the errors apparently weren't real.

Posted by: joeblough at April 21, 2008 3:42 PM

"The reality, across the world today is that while non-Muslims are the proclaimed targets of the Islamist extremists and the so-called global jihad, it is Muslims who are its principal victims," he said.

Well if in fact that's the case I support this type of policy. It should be determined how to encourage such then implemented. That may relieve pressure on non-muslims. It may be be that after prolonged, intense victimization of muslims by muslims the victims will turn on those doing the victimization and everyones problems will disappear..NOT!

Posted by: solomonpal at April 21, 2008 8:14 PM

Harvard Magazine runs, in each issue, a series of mini-reviews ("Off the Shelf") of "recent books with Harvard connections." The May-June issue contains, on p. 27, a paragraph about "The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State" by Noah "After Jihad" Feldman.

It's worth quoting:

"After long reflection on constitutional change in the Islamic world, Feldman obswrves that 'the Islamists contine to promise justice and the rule of law' -- and that trying to deny them power will likely backfire."

Now we all are aware of Feldman as a type, the "thrusting young academic" mocked, for example, by Tom Stoppard in "Arcadia." We know hw how he has been one of the Iraq folly's war profiteers, for by depicting himself artfully -- and now, at the right moment, undepicting himself -- as one of the main Framers of the Iraqi Constitution, Feldman was able to add to his glowing endorsements as to his "scholarship" from the likes of John Esposito and Roy Mottaheden, the complementary aura provided by that bit of largely pointless constitution-writing that he took part in in Baghadad (for more on Feldman's performance see Ali Allawi's intelligent book)-- because the resulting document was expressly held to be invalid wherever it was held to contradict the Shari'a. That means, of course that it is the Shari'a, and not the spanking-new Iraqi constitution, that is the true analogue to the American Constitution --that is, the highest law, the law that cannot be contradicted.

The Iraqi Constitution -- he one that Feldman had a hand in writing (you'd practically think he was a one-man Philadelphia Convention to hear how stories used to read -- before he found it prudent to de-emphasize his supposed contribtuion) subservient to the Shari'a) hasn't helped Iraq and will soon be irrelevant. But it did help one particular war profiteer: Noah Feldman. For he was no longer merely the party-trick man, whose trick was being raised as an Orthodox Jew who, we were assured, had become a first-rate Scholar of Islam, but to that scholarship, to that disinterested life of the goddam mind one could now usefully add another dimension, that of the Man of Policy, \Doing Good In The Real World, and this combination proved irresistible to the naifs at Harvard Law School who, while they knew nothing about Islamic law, were prepared to defer to those whom they were told did (such as Esposito, such as Mottahedeh), and did not, alas, consult the real scholars of Islam, such as those still in Leiden (Hans Janssen) or Aix-en-Provence (Claude Gilliot et al), or others, nostly still to be found, curiously, in Western Europe (academic standards in such fields, where the center or department has not been founded by, or bought by, Arab money, still remaining high), or by Bernard Lewis, who might have explained that while Feldman may impress the likes of Sam Tanenhaus, he would not impress, but would appall, the ghost of Joseph Schacht, and that some standards, coute que coute (even that $20 million in Saudi money for Harvard, even that endowment for the Guardian of the Two Noble Sanctuaries Adjunct Professorship that Frank Vogel has held for some time), would just have to be maintained. Islamic law -- those who know nothing on the subject are easily impressed, easily bamboozled, and such trivia as Feldman being a Jew help to deflect the justified criticism of him as not only an apologist, but what is worse, as someone ignorant of the spirit, and letter, of Islamic law, as of so much else that animates Islam.

Here's the bit of Feldman quoted in the "Off the Shelf" reveiw that deserves note:

"The Islamists continiue to promise justice and the rule of law."

"The rule of law."

Think about that phrase. Think about what any ordinary reader will take that phrase to mean.

"The rule of law" in the Western world means that the will or whim of the despot is no longer the final authority, but it, as all other wills and whims in the polity, must now submit to the "rule of law." But not just any "rule of law" is meant. It does not mean "the rule of law" according to, for example, the Canon Law of the Catholic Church. It does not mean the "rule of law" according to any authority but, nowadays, that of the people who elect representatives, and those representatives, and the government of which they are a part, who owe their entire legitimacy to the will expressed by those people, cannot do as they think they should do, but according to "the law," the man-made law, the law made that is by those same people or by their representatives.

But the "rule of law" in Islam can mean only one thing: rule according to the Shari'a. The Law, the Holy Law, of Islam, the Shari'a, is not made by men. It is not the will expressed by the people. It consists of the will expressed by Allah, in the Qur'an, and as usefully glossed in the Sunnah (roughly, composed of what has been recorded in the Hadith -- as winnowed and ranked according to likely authenticity by the most authoritative muhaddithin, such as Bukhari and Muslim, and in the Sira, the sacralized Muslim biographies of Muhammad). True, mere men-- the muhaddithin, Qur'anic commentators and jurisconsultants, long ago settled what the Qur'an meant, and which Hadith were more, and which less, authentic. But then the gates of ijtihad were slammed shut, and they have not been opened since, and the likes of Irshad Manji and Brave Young Islamic Reformers (applying for, and getting, all those Western foundation and government grants to continue their presumably tireless and world-without-end "reforming" work) are not able, despite their declared determinatino to do so, to swing open those heavy gates.

The "rule of law" in Islam does not mean that laws passed by mere mortals, themselves the elected representatives of other mere mortals, even a little merer than themselves, are the highest law. No. The highest law, and really the only law that counts, is that Shari'a which is, as noted, the will expressed by Allah, and communictated to, revealed to, the Prohpet Muhammad, intermittently, over 23 years, and then provided with its gloss and its interpretation, and its finalized version, more than a millennium ago.

One does not know if it is Feldman's ignorance, confusion, inability to state things lucidly to himself and then to others, that is responsible for such a misleading phrase as "the rule of law" by the Islamists. Nor does one know if the innocent precis-writer in Harvard Magazine quite understands what is so inapposite about this phrase. Nor does one know how many of this man's colleagues, or still worse of his innocent, and much-impressed students. Feldman "is an Orthodox Jew who's also an expert on Islam" and "the American government chose him to practically write the whole Iraqi constitution" and "he's amazing, he's brilliant" and other dreamy misinformation to that effect will be, no doubt has already been, communicated from one naive 1L to another, in Ames, in Langdell, in Pound.

Feldman. Author of "After Jihad." Discusser of the Islamic state and "the rule of law."

Think about it.

Think about Paul Freund, Mark DeWolfe Howe, Arthur Sutherland, Erwin Griswold, Roscoe Pound, Austen Wakeman Scott. Go back further, back to John Chipman Gray. Christopher Columbus Langdell, Oliver Wendell Holmes. Or go outside of the confines of Harvard Law School, and think about the scholars of Islamic law. No, think about just one scholar of Islamic law. Think about Joseph Schacht. Compare a single paragraph by Schacht with the collected works of Noah Feldman.

Now think about what several generations of students at Harvard Law School attending classes in Islamic law taught by, or lecture series on Islamic law organized by, the likes of Noah Feldman. Think of a future Administration that would likely call on the likes of Noah Feldman for his “expertise” (after all he is now that appetizing thing, a full professor at Harvard Law School. Therefore he must be be “brilliant” and “ amazing” as one 1L will innocently inform another and must be someone to be counted on to tell the public, to tell us, right here in Washington, what Islam is all about, and what our strategy or stratergy should be). One validation validates another, and so on. And that’s how it works. And that’s how it goes. And that’s how disasters happen, in the Hall of False Fame, in the House of Phony Repute. Feldman is one example. There are many others. But the field he happens to have chosen is, at this point, too dangerous for such people to be allowed to pass themselves off, and to climb to the top, as something they are not.

We cannot entrust our civilizational legacy, or the fight to preserve it, especially in threatened Western Europe, to those whose understanding of Islam is not to be trusted, whose interpretation of things -- is not pres or cy-pres,in the Scott-On-Trusts sense. Not even close.

Posted by: Hugh at April 21, 2008 8:49 PM

Nice catch Hugh.

I've long thought that there is a certain black humor in the likelihood that many people, who when they see the phrase "the rule of law", must immediately think "AHA! So if I can run the law, then I get to run the whole damn country!".

We undoubtedly have many such sitting in congress right now.

And there can be no doubt of what the sharia-heads have in mind.

Posted by: joeblough at April 22, 2008 12:53 AM

I'd say ALL Muslims states face the choice between jihad and democracy...

Eventually, even countries like Turkey can suddenly become Islamic states. Such states will, of course, undermine and destroy democracy wherever and however they can.

Posted by: Stefcho at April 22, 2008 5:10 AM

""Muslim fundamentalist states" face choice between jihad and democracy"

.....never fear, they will make the wrong choice...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 22, 2008 6:41 PM