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I thought I would include this piece by William Dalrymple in The Guardian because, despite its general muddle-headedness, it nonetheless indicates some kind of improvement in the media's grasp of the nature of the Islamic danger.
Six years after 9/11, throughout the Muslim world political Islam is on the march; the surprise is that its rise is happening democratically - not through the bomb, but the ballot box. Democracy is not the antidote to the Islamists the neocons once fondly believed it would be. Since the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been a consistent response from voters wherever Muslims have had the right to vote. In Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Algeria they have voted en masse for religious parties in a way they have never done before.
Now that is a very trenchant point. We've said it here before, of course, but the idea that "democracy" -- i.e., giving people what they want via the ballot box -- is somehow going to solve our problems in the Muslim world is utter fantasy. While it sounds unseemly, we should be grateful for the dictatorships of Egypt and Jordan -- and the Turkish army -- that keep the hard-core Muslims out of power. Of course, there are good dictatorships and bad dictatorships: Iran and Saudia Arabia are examples of the latter. But we have got to get over the progressivist nonsense that all dictatorships are created equal and that "democracy" can do no wrong. Throughout Islamic history there have been only two types of government: Islamic dictatorships and secular dictatorships: I know which I prefer.
Of course, that "not through the bomb, but the ballot box" quip is hardly accurate. The jihadists are plainly happy enough to use bombs.
Egypt is typical: at the last election in 2005 members of the nominally banned Muslim Brotherhood, standing as independents, saw their representation rise from 17 seats to 88 in the 444-seat people's assembly - a five-fold increase, despite reports of vote-rigging by President Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Alliance. The Brothers, who have long abjured violence, are now the main opposition.The figures in Pakistan are strikingly similar. Traditionally, the religious parties there have won only a fraction of the vote. That began to change after the US invasion of Afghanistan. In October 2002 a rightwing alliance of religious parties - the Muttahida Majlis Amal or MMA - won 11.6% of the vote, more than doubling its share, and sweeping the polls in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan - Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province - where it formed ultra-conservative and pro-Islamist provincial governments. If the last election turned the MMA into a serious electoral force, there are now fears that it could yet be the principle beneficiary of the current standoff in Pakistan.
The Bush administration proclaimed in 2004 that the promotion of democracy in the Middle East would be a major foreign policy theme in its second term. It has been widely perceived, not least in Washington, that this policy has failed. Yet in many ways US foreign policy has succeeded in turning Muslim opinion against the corrupt monarchies and decaying nationalist parties who have ruled the region for 50 years. The irony is that rather than turning to liberal secular parties, as the neocons assumed, Muslims have lined up behind parties most clearly seen to stand up against aggressive US intervention.
Religious parties, in other words, have come to power for reasons largely unconnected to religion.
Now we are starting to drift, but there still is some good stuff there. It is certainly possible that the US war in Iraq has helped galvanize Muslims against us. But it is not correct to infer that, "Religious parties, in other words, have come to power for reasons largely unconnected to religion." Religious (i.e., Islamic) parties have come to power -- for example, in Iraq -- because of the push for democracy that has opened up the Islamic option hitherto repressed by more secular dictators.
The usual US response has been to retreat from its push for democracy when the "wrong" parties win. This was the case not just with the electoral victory of Hamas, but also in Egypt: since the Brothers' strong showing in the elections, the US has stopped pressing Mubarak to make democratic reforms, and many of the Brothers' leading activists and business backers, as well as Mubarak's opponent in the presidential election, are in prison, all without a word of censure from Washington.Yet on a recent visit to Egypt I found everywhere a strong feeling that political Islam was there to stay, and that this was something everyone was going to have to learn to live with; the US response had become almost irrelevant. Even the Copts were making overtures to the Brothers. As Youssef Sidhom, who edits the leading Coptic newspaper, put it: "They are not going away. We need to enter into dialogue, to clarify their policies, and end mutual mistrust."
The reality is that, like the Copts, we are going to have to find some modus vivendi with political Islam.
That's easy: pay the jizya and feel yourselves subdued (Quran 9:29).
Posted by Greg at September 23, 2007 1:11 AM
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Islamic democracy is a long way from anything like it in the West. We have 20 plus centuries of civilization, Greco-Roman republican styled government, refined in time with a separation of church and state, and then further improved with the balance of powers in our constitutional rule of law. They, the Islamics, are not even at the republican polity level yet, but stuck in the despot power stage, never mind separation of church and state or balance of power between judicial, executive, and legislative branch. They have a very long way to go, about 20 centuries worth, to even get close to catching up to western styled democracy. Iraq or Afghanistan are prime examples of their despot driven, militia warlord driven, corruption driven ideas of democracy, bested only by Hamas democracy. They don't get, GW, so give it up. Pull out of Iraq. It's a lost cause.
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at September 23, 2007 2:00 AM
Great article: great post too, PofT.
"Pull out of Iraq. It's a lost cause."
at September 23, 2007 2:59 AM
The Copts are just being good dhimmis by sucking up to the Brotherhood. If they are perceived as opposing them, they can be killed for "making mischief", as Islamic law permits.
Posted by: aynrandgirl at September 23, 2007 3:25 AM
From above: "Throughout Islamic history there have been only two types of government: Islamic dictatorships and secular dictatorships: I know which I prefer."
I take it you prefer the latter. Would that include Gamel Abdel Nasser or Hafez Assad, for example?
I take your point, of course - we had less trouble with Iran under the Shah than under the ayatollahs.
If we can't do some covert operations and install friendly dictators, colonialism might be our only remaining option - and that would drain our treasuries in the West.
Posted by: Surak at September 23, 2007 10:46 AM
They're starting to form islamist parties in Europe. So yeah, they're gonna use our Democracy as a tool of pushing sharia.
Another reason why it was a bad idea to invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a MINO who ruled with an iron fist and kept a lid on things.
We had control of the no-fly zone South and North of Baghdad. And we had a counter-weight to iran which now is acting up globally.
Bush is the biggest dipsh*t I've ever seen in office. Yes, that includes Dhimmy Quatar.
Posted by: Allahfanculo at September 23, 2007 4:09 PM
"Another reason why it was a bad idea to invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a MINO who ruled with an iron fist and kept a lid on things.
We had control of the no-fly zone South and North of Baghdad. And we had a counter-weight to iran which now is acting up globally.
Bush is the biggest dipsh*t I've ever seen in office. Yes, that includes Dhimmy Quatar."
Sigh.
Under Jimmy Carter, a record number of countries were lost to communism (in Afghanistan, we found it useful to train a certain set of lowlifes to push back the growing Soviet Empire - who eventually ended up attacking us on 9/11/2001), and Islamic revolution (Iran - the greatest state sponsor of terrorism, sponsor of Hizb'ulah who was the biggest terrorist murderer of Americans before 9/11/2001).
Saddam Hussein used WMD in Halabja, among other places. Chemical weapons used on Iraqi Kurds. Allahfanculo seems to enjoy the memory ("iron fist"!). I don't. By the way, since Saddam used WMD, I deduce that he had WMD. We know from Osirak his nuclear ambitions. He harbored several notorious international terrorists, and paid bounties to Palestinian-Arab terrorists. Those were the good old days, right?
Gadafi gave up his WMD program after seeing the fall of Saddam. Carter wasn't able to pull that off.
Bush is not a d*ps**t worse than Carter - only the people with Bush Derangement Syndrome can claim that dubious distinction.
Posted by: Surak at September 23, 2007 9:13 PM
I'm going to have to back up Allahfanculo here.
Saddam was full of hot air. He was a secular dictator that only paid lip service to Islamism and curbed the Islamists at every step (harshly) as they were a threat to his dictatorship. Osirak happened in 1981 and there's no evidence he tried anything after that. He gassed the Kurds in 1988 because they were a threat to his dictatorship. He had absolutely no WMDs when Iraq was attacked and absolutely no ties to Al Qaeda either. Iraq was so quiet you could hear him farting from Baghdad. He wouldn't dare do anything against Israel (and really didn't do anything since the Gulf War) because he knew it'd cost him his power. Ghadafi gave up WMDs for the same reason.
Compare that to now. Iraq is in chaos. There are a million kinds of Islamists operating in every corner of the place. Christians are fleeing. Once US withdraws there's either be a fundamentalist, unified, Iran-dominated Iraq or three separate fundamentalist new states (largest one dominated by Iran). And you can bet these guys will work against Israel/US non-stop. They don't care about worldly power. They want their martyrdom, virgins and Mahdi. There's little you can do with those types to persuade them to give up their ways. Saddam could be persuaded so easily as is now so obvious.
I think you've got the blinders on if you think Iraq invasion was a good idea for any of us infidels. Bush is perceived as a liar and naked aggressor so now when he is forced to act on Iran (a far bigger threat than Saddam every was), nobody will follow him. That guy is just a bunch of bad luck for us all and not just in regards to Middle East.
Posted by: SerbInfidel at September 24, 2007 2:49 AM
Slight correction: Saddam did try to acquire nuclear weapons up until the Gulf War but not after. I think the rest of my post is correct.
Posted by: SerbInfidel at September 24, 2007 3:01 AM
"Democracy" is meaningless exercise without a secular Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of thought and the other fundamental and inalienable rights ("life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"), first.
Otherwise you get mob rule and hysterical law.
Islam is a deadly thing to unleash, whether by the sword or the ballot.
Posted by: profitsbeard at September 25, 2007 1:37 AM
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