Wall Street Journal | Bernard Lewis | May 16, 200
Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won’t change their view.
During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: “What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?”
A few examples may suffice. During the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s and ’80s, there were many attacks on American installations and individuals–notably the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, followed by a prompt withdrawal, and a whole series of kidnappings of Americans, both official and private, as well as of Europeans. There was only one attack on Soviet citizens, when one diplomat was killed and several others kidnapped. The Soviet response through their local agents was swift, and directed against the family of the leader of the kidnappers. The kidnapped Russians were promptly released, and after that there were no attacks on Soviet citizens or installations throughout the period of the Lebanese troubles.
These different responses evoked different treatment. While American policies, institutions and individuals were subject to unremitting criticism and sometimes deadly attack, the Soviets were immune. Their retention of the vast, largely Muslim colonial empire accumulated by the czars in Asia passed unnoticed, as did their propaganda and sometimes action against Muslim beliefs and institutions.
Most remarkable of all was the response of the Arab and other Muslim countries to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Washington’s handling of the Tehran hostage crisis assured the Soviets that they had nothing to fear from the U.S. They already knew that they need not worry about the Arab and other Muslim governments. The Soviets already ruled–or misruled–half a dozen Muslim countries in Asia, without arousing any opposition or criticism. Initially, their decision and action to invade and conquer Afghanistan and install a puppet regime in Kabul went almost unresisted. After weeks of debate, the U.N. General Assembly finally was persuaded to pass a resolution “strongly deploring the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan.” The words “condemn” and “aggression” were not used, and the source of the “intervention” was not named. Even this anodyne resolution was too much for some of the Arab states. South Yemen voted no; Algeria and Syria abstained; Libya was absent; the nonvoting PLO observer to the Assembly even made a speech defending the Soviets.
One might have expected that the recently established Organization of the Islamic Conference would take a tougher line. It did not. After a month of negotiation and manipulation, the organization finally held a meeting in Pakistan to discuss the Afghan question. Two of the Arab states, South Yemen and Syria, boycotted the meeting. The representative of the PLO, a full member of this organization, was present, but abstained from voting on a resolution critical of the Soviet action; the Libyan delegate went further, and used this occasion to denounce the U.S.
. . .more
The WSJ has it exactly wrong. Bin Ladin wants the US to continue to be distracted by and drawn deeper into confict in Iraq, relying on our false sense of bravado to avoid making the rational decision to leave.
Bruce Reidel writes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs:
Al Qaeda Strikes Back, From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007
Not the WSJ Dean, but Bernard Lewis. Keep the point clear. Lewis, btw, is perhaps America’s preeminent scholar on Islam. Not a lightweight by any means.
Bernard Lewis is indeed one of the leading authorities on the middle-east. However I still think his views on Amereican withdrawl from Iraq are wrong on several points.
Lewis characterizes an American withdrawl from Iraq as a retreat in the fight against Al Qaeda overall. He suggests that the very next front in the war then becomes American soil itself. However, a drawdown of troops from Iraq shouldmeans nothing of the kind. It should more accurately be characterized as a redirecting and refocusing of our resources and efforts.
Al Qaeda in Iraq would not have a free hand, but soon would find itself under attack by the Shiite militias and other less radical Sunni tribesman, who we would still be supplying and supporting indirectly. As natives these other Iraqis might have a better chance of success against Al Qaeda in a struggle where good street-level intel is more important than sophisticated armament.
Meanwhile the US military would have several divisions suddenly available to deal with the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, and the some of the money freed up from the war in Iraq could be used to beef-up our intellegence and counter-terrorism efforts against the Al Qaeda leadership itself. Finally the drawdown would provide a much needed opportunity to rest the remainder of our troops and provide them with additional training, allow them to repair their equipment and rebuild their stores of ammunition.
Lewis is also wrong to suggest that Al Qaeda would view an American drawdown as a victory. Bruce Reidel suggests they would view it as a set back because having trapping us in the quicksand of Iraq, slowly bleeding us of blood and treasure, is Al Qaeda’s real objective. With the Americans gone from Iraq, Al Qaeda is denied the benefit of one of their biggest recruitment and propaganda tools, images of “Crusaders” occupying the Arab homeland, and killing and abusing it’s people.
Dean
it’s hard to take a Clintonian politico’s views seriously when compared to Bernard Lewis who has made the interaction between Islam and the West his life’s work.
JBL – What are your thoughts, I’m curious. Are we doing any good in Iraq or making things worse? Would you send your own son to Iraq to risk his life in another country’s civil war?
JBL –
The fact that Lewis has done some good work in the past (I quote him often), doesn’t excuse the sloppiness of this piece.
For example:
The U.S. had military forces in Lebanon, the Soviets did not. The U.S. actively intervened and started shooting, only with insufficient troops and a bad location that was poorly defended. We shot at Hezbollah, they shot back. Reagan analyzed the situation, new the thing was a loser and so got the heck out.
The Soviets were busy pouring money and equipment into the every anti-American and anti-Israeli government/movement in the Middle East. That is why they were proof against reprisals, not because of some action taken by KGB spooks. The people who would have had the means to attack them were on their payroll.
Oh, and the fact that no Soviets were handy in the Middle East to shoot didn’t hurt either.
We have enough issues with Islam that we don’t need sloppy analysis to just complicate our reaction to it.
Yes, bin Laden was right. Somolia was the example that cemented this impression in the minds of a generation of jihadists, but there were several propaganda victories before. As usual, bin Laden articulates the jihadist viewpoint best of all.
There’s a saying: to be America’s enemy is dangerous, but to be their ally is fatal. Just because Americans can distract themselves with MTV or the cause of the day doesn’t mean people don’t remember what happened to the Shah, to South Vietnam, or at Mogadishu. When things get tough, we take our football and go home. I guess that is inherent in any rich, well-fed, live-in-the-moment society. Unless an event directly affects their paychecks or their neighborhood, the will to fight fades over time. Past wrongs are blunted by everday distractions. Since our society doesn’t even know what its core beliefs are anymore (aside from empty platitudes about liberty or ‘democracy’ – a word that isn’t mentioned once in our Constitution or Declaration of Independence, curiously), that lack of heart is reflected by our society when we go to war….some parts more than others.
Frankly, I see bin Laden succeeding in his stated goal of a new caliphate. Perhaps he won’t live to see it, but the idea will achieve some degree of success. How much really depends on how much we are willing to allow them. Islam’s track record, be it the Iberian pennisula or the Byzantium Empire, shows this is a culture based on military conquest. We are merely seeing the latest expression of this. As Mark Steyn says, one thing is for sure: American represents the only force willing and able to stand against Islam. Don’t look to Europe for military assistance (ex. Kosovo). If we can’t defeat bin Laden and his fellow travelers, we all better get used to the new reality.
Except we caused Kosovo to end in defeat for the Serbs… We have much blood on our hands already.