FDD

Islam and the Sword (KA)

The latest comments made by the Pope Benedict XVI on Islam and its presumed violent past have opened the debate about the use of the “sword” in Islamic history. Before making judgment on how the Islamic Empire was established and how non-Muslims survived under Muslim rule one should take into account the following facts:

First, one should put things in context. In the 7th century A.D.- time in which the Muslim Empire was created- empires were created by the sword. Long before Islam, Alexander, the Romans, the Visigoth and others created their empires through the sword and not through referendum and democratic processes. Long after the establishment of Muslim empires, so called “civilized” nations also used the sword and the gun to create empires in their recent history. The use of the sword in establishing the Muslim Empire was not an exception in history, but a rule in human history that was only recently dismissed.    

Second, the Muslim religion did not only spread as a result of Muslim conquest. In fact, in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia Islam was spread by traders, and Egypt’s Coptic Christians favored and facilitated the entry of the Muslim forces who had better terms on freedom of worship and taxation than the Byzantine ruler who persecuted Egyptians and their native Church.

Last but not least, at the end of several centuries of Muslim rule, the vast majority of the inhabitants of places like the Balkans or the Indian sub-continent were non-Muslim. If Muslim rule was so brutal, how could one explain that after several centuries of Muslim rule the majority of the population was non-Muslim? Needless to add that in Muslim Spain all religions were tolerated in contrast with the Catholic “reconquista” and its Inquisition that brutally rid Spain of its Muslims and Jews- most of whom took refuge in Muslim countries while some had to convert to Catholicism to remain in Spain.

In sum, the statement that the Islamic Empire was spread by the sword might be true – at certain times and in certain places - but it is not the entire truth, and alone, it obfuscates the diversity and complexity of Islam over its fourteen centuries of history, and the thousands of miles of its reach. As does the implication that the use of violence in the name of religion is somehow unique to Islam.

At the same time, if Muslims are hurt by comments that Islam is intolerant, then they should also express it by speaking out against extremist Muslim clerics who spread lies about other religions, particularly Christianity and Judaism, or on occasional cases when extremists try to convert people by force. Each human being is entitled to dignity - and Muslims should extend to Christianity, Judaism and other religions the same respect that we yearn for them to give to Islam.

The fact that so many Muslim extremists today selectively read Islam’s history of conquest to justify the use of the sword, and radicalize disenfranchised Muslim youth, is not an excuse for non-Muslims to make sweeping generalizations of Islam. Non-Muslims should be careful of selective, simplistic readings of history or theology.

A Patient Enemy (WP)

On 9/11, America entered a war that the terrorists had already begun

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, and we review the half a decade of war on terror since, the central question that comes to the minds of both experts and policymakers is this who is winning the war and where are we in its prosecution?  And to refine, is al Qaeda on the retreat, is Afghanistan working, is Iraq surviving the challenge, and is Lebanon's Cedars Revolution on the rise or has it been defeated?   Is Hezbollah's war changing the U.S. strategy regarding Iran and Israel? And finally, is the U.S. homeland secure, or is it penetrated and threatened?

All of these are issues of great importance to Americans, Westerners and societies determined to struggle for democracy and freedom. For even though 9/11 was a  benchmark in the history of the U.S., it also became a rallying date in the eyes of the Jihadists for more lethal future attacks, not just in America, but also in Europe, India, Africa and other parts of the world that have tasted the wrath of terror since 2001.

Iran Freedom Support Act close to passage? (AV)

The Iran Freedom Support Act is, according to the New York Sun, before the Senate today and has a very good chance of passage - it having been scuttled the last time it was considered by White House pressure.

I wrote a backgrounder on the contents of the bill here and an op/ed in The Hill explaining the positive effect the bill will have here.

The next UN Secretary General (AV)

Not quite Koreagate, and as far as we can tell Tongsun Park is not involved, but there is a new chapter in the ongoing bribery of the United Nations apparatus.

Ban Ki-moon, former Foreign Affairs Minister of South Korea, is a leading contender to become the new United Nations Secretary General. This is troubling because he is, frankly, the status quo candidate and is leading in the straw polls, although the lead is not insurmountable.

According to AsiaNews, the government of South Korea may be trying to boost Ban's candidacy through bribery. Last year, South Korea increased its foreign aid budget by 50%, and most of that money has gone to Tanzania and Ghana, both members of the UN Security Council. It is still secret which other countries whose votes are crucial to Ban Ki-Moon's success are receiving additional funds from the South Korean government.

The United States has not yet endorsed a candidate for the Secretary General position. US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Kristen Silverberg has said that, “There is not a consensus Asian candidate right now and I don’t see signs of one emerging, honestly, right now…But if there’s an Asian candidate who’s the strongest candidate and meets our criteria, then we are obviously prepared to support that person.”

The United States needs to make a power-play fast, otherwise a Secretary General opposed to UN reform, and hostile to the policy of spreading democracy and human rights, might be elected. So far, only two candidates seem to meet the exacting guidelines that should guide U.S. policy: Nirj Deva and Ashraf Ghani.

Nirj was elected to the European Parliament, where he distinguished himself as a leading Atlanticist. Originally from Sri Lanka, but lately of the UK and Belgium, he has what it takes to unite United Nations member states behind a positive program of reform.

Ashraf Ghani is also very good. He was nominated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to be UN Secretary General. He served as Afghanistan's finance minister during the crucial reconstruction period, and Emerging Markets magazine voted him Asia's best finance minister in 2003. He has what it takes to strengthen economic development in the poorest UN countries.

Either way, neither are seeking to corrupt the UN system through soft-bribery and both will be massive improvements over the status quo. The U.S. delegation to the UN needs to recognize this as it lobbies member states to vote for the next UN Secretary General.

Idomeneo's demise (AV)

Berlin's Deutsche Oper has decided not to stage an adaptation of Idomeneo for fear of offending Muslims.

"In the production, directed by Hans Neuenfels, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon and the Prophet Mohammad, which sit on chairs."

It is troubling that the fear of a Muslim backlash forced the opera house to back down. Slightly less outrageous, but still worthy of scorn, is the nature of Hans Neuenfels's adaptation.

The original Idomeneo is about the intersection of war and love between the Trojans and Cretans. Since then, in a fate shared with Shakespeare's Henry V, the Idomeneo has been distorted by all manner of political agitators to make jejune anti-war statements.

We do not yet have details of how the cancelled Neuenfel version was to be staged, but it would likely have been a stark a departure from the original production, where, let me assure you, there were no cameos by Buddha, Christ, or Muhammad. Like perusing Vasari's Lives of the Artists for an entry on Christo, this sort of thing is historically ignorant and a waste of everyone's time.

Several years ago, I watched, to my utter horror, Peter Sellars' adaptation of Idomeneo. In it, the Idomeneo depicts President Bush, Arbace Prime Minister Blair, and Idomeneo's son Idamante has scandalously fallen in love with Illia, a Muslim prisoner of war. Distortive of the actual play, and as troubling as staging Romeo & Juliet in modern dress, these scandalous adaptations have no place in an opera house.

Even though the staging of Idomeneo was cancelled for the wrong reasons, let us at least be somewhat glad that it was cancelled.

Zakaria on Iran (AV)

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria offers a subtle, cogent case for why the United States should not fear a nuclear Iran. He makes two arguments: first, as the example of China shows, messianic states that acquire nuclear weapons do not always fulfill their genocidal rhetoric, and second, that Arab countries will continue to balance against a rising Iranian power.

Both of these are carefully made arguments. Unfortunately, neither are particularly reassuring, or persuasive.

I have never been too enamored with historical analogies, and Zakaria fails to make the case as to why Iran will become pacified like China, but his subtle point is a good one -- that countries that adopt the most alarmist interpretations of their enemies' conduct tend to implement bad foreign policy.

Zakaria's second argument is more underwhelming. He writes that, "Arab regimes will get more assertive in responding to the rise of Iranian power." What does he mean by "more assertive"? Egypt is musing about developing a nuclear capability of its own – is that what he means by "assertive"? Also, among Sunni states, Egypt is probably the least worried about the rise of a Shia power. How will other Middle East states react?

Also, since the United States wields more influence over most Arab states than it does over Iran, should it encourage the nuclearization of the region in response to an Iranian threat? And how would more militarily assertive Arab states affect the Arab-Israeli imbroglio? And might this ossify political reform in the Middle East, with Arab states and Iran using their possession of nuclear technology to deter U.S. support for democratic reforms?

Ultimately, those who seek to make more palatable the idea of a nuclear Iran need to reckon with the massive imbalances this will cause both to the Middle East, the United States' ability to be the dominant actor in the region, and the future of Middle East political reform.

Both of these are carefully made arguments. Unfortunately, neither are particularly reassuring, or persuasive.

I have never been too enamored with historical analogies, and Zakaria fails to make the case as to why Iran will become pacified like China, but his subtle point is a good one -- that countries that adopt the most alarmist interpretations of their enemies' conduct tend to implement bad foreign policy.

Zakaria's second argument is more underwhelming. He writes that, "Arab regimes will get more assertive in responding to the rise of Iranian power." What does he mean by "more assertive"? Egypt is musing about developing a nuclear capability of its own – is that what he means by "assertive"? Also, among Sunni states, Egypt is probably the least worried about the rise of a Shia power. How will other Middle East states react?

Also, since the United States wields more influence over most Arab states than it does over Iran, should it encourage the nuclearization of the region in response to an Iranian threat? And how would more militarily assertive Arab states affect the Arab-Israeli imbroglio? And might this ossify political reform in the Middle East, with Arab states and Iran using their possession of nuclear technology to deter U.S. support for democratic reforms?

Ultimately, those who seek to make more palatable the idea of a nuclear Iran need to reckon with the massive imbalances this will cause both to the Middle East, the United States' ability to be the dominant actor in the region, and the future of Middle East political reform.

Walid Phares Media Roundup (WP)

Walid Phares in San Francisco Chronicle on whether no Iraq war would mean easier war on terror? In Canadian Global National report examines the french report that Osama Bin Laden died last month in Pakistan and what this means for al-Qaeda. In other media he also discusses the role of Hezbollah in the Middle East, Bin Laden and U.S. strategies.

Silly syllogism (AV)

A leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) opines that the Iraq war has made the threat of terrorism worse.

Nonsense.

This syllogism -- fighting terrorism increases terrorism -- is a derivative of the silly argument, made soon after 9/11, that the West's behavior is the principal cause of terrorism.

The folly of this position is exposed when one asks, 'How much would we have to modify our behavior to reduce terrorism?'

Obviously we would have to abandon Israel, cede Kashmir to the Islamists, let the jihadists overrun southern Thailand and the Philippines, give the militant Islamists control of Indonesia (including East Timor), abandon Somaliland, etc etc etc.

The terrorists' demands are so large that, under the logic of the syllogism posited above, resisting militant Islamists anywhere only increases their number.

The reality, however, is different than what the NIE says it is. Terrorism is its own cause and consequence, it begets itself, admits no rational motive and accepts no rational solution.

Compromise becomes concession and generosity weakness.

The Libby affair (RC)

Great column by Jonah Goldberg in National Review, who said,

“Now is the time to ask: What do John Mark Karr and Joseph Wilson have in common? (Karr is the publicity-hound pedophile who said he killed Jon Benet Ramsey, Wilson is the publicity–hound ex-ambassador who lied when he suggested the Vice President’s office had sent him fact-finding to Niger looking for yellow-cake uranium purchases by Iraqi agents.) 

“They are both attention-seeking liars who deliberately helped launch criminal investigations that should never have gone as far as they did.

“Ever since it was reported that Karr wasn’t the right guy… the media —cable news networks in particular —have been taking a beating by the professional fingerwaggers.”

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz declared that the Karr episode “instantly goes down with the greatest media embarrassments in modern history.”

“The problem is that the New York Times devoted 13 reporters to John Mark Karr.”

“They don’t have 13 reporters in Iraq. That’s the embarrassment,” said media writer Neal Gabler on Fox News.

“But when it comes to the Joseph Wilson story, the wagging fingers shudder to a full stop.

“Wilson’s allegations were all outright lies or, at best, deceitful insinuations.

“At least when Karr lied, he put the blame on himself.

In Wilson’s telling, he could do no wrong even as he was a one-man sprinkler system of false accusations —

His accusations “launched an absurd investigation, cost the vice president’s chief of staff his job, put a journalist in jail and threatened to do likewise to many more, and hurt America’s image around the globe.

“As it turned out, Wilson’s accusation that President Bush lied in his State of the Union speech about Iraq seeking “yellowcake uranium” was debunked by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“As was Wilson’s repeated denial that his wife didn’t help him get the Niger assignment.

“His suggestions that Dick Cheney sent him to Africa and that Cheney deliberately ignored Wilson’s shoddy report were (false).

“His self-lionizing speculation that the White House launched a vengeful campaign against his wife never had any basis in fact.

“Indeed, there’s good reason to believe Wilson himself leaked the information that Plame was an undercover agent.

“But that didn’t stop the press from going hog wild. The New York Times led the clamor for an independent prosecutor.

“Maureen Dowd insisted, “The issue is the administration’s credibility, not Joe Wilson’s.

“I don’t know if the Wilson fraud will instantly go down with the greatest media embarrassments in modern history. However, the press doesn’t seem to mind beating itself up when it overindulges the public’s passions.

“When its own self-indulgence is the issue, there’s never any need to feel embarrassed. Indeed, there’s no need to say anything at all.”

Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, should drop his charges against Lewis Libby immediately –and apologize.

And do you remember Joe Wilson crowing to the media that he wanted to see Karl Rove arrested and “frog-marched” to prison in handcuffs?

Well, David Broder of the Washington Post, no friend of conservatives, said last week –Karl Rove deserves an apology and “all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.”

Amen.

The Gadhafi Model?

Mohamed Eljahmi writes:

The United States' engaging Gadhafi discredits the war on terror. If Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh can be executed for his crime, why has [Libyan dictator Moammar]Gadhafi escaped justice for his role in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988? The billions of dollars Gadhafi promised in compensation is a pittance compared with the payments U.S. oil companies now make to the Libyan dictator for the right to pump oil in Libya.

What message does this send to Middle Eastern dictators? That terrorism is a reasonable tactic because oil money can always buy reconciliation?

Gadhafi's flirtation with violence continues. He mocks our democratic system, stirs hatred, and oppresses his people. In a speech Aug. 31, he urged his followers to commit violence and carnage: "You have to be ready to annihilate your enemies, because your enemy has no mercy for you." Saif, his son and probable successor, has talked about terrorism as a tactic of statecraft.

More here.

Folly (RC)

I got an email the other day from a friend in Los Angeles. 

He titled it: “Stupid is as stupid does”

It is a forwarded note from a US Air Force officer, a major, currently involved in US troop movement from Kuwait to Iraq.

He says: “We have our own bit of silliness here in Kuwait.  The military charters commercial airplanes to fly our troops in and out of the theater.  It's the most efficient way of moving large numbers. 

“Being US-flagged commercial carriers flying into US airports, they are obligated to follow TSA restrictions.

“Much as in the States, liquids have become an issue. 

“As they clear security the soldiers have to dump their toothpaste, hair gel, mouthwash, bottles of water.  TSA says they pose an unacceptable risk to the aircraft.

“It's an issue.  As we are dealing with large numbers of troops--it takes time to security screen them all and then they have to sit outside awaiting boarding. It is 120 degrees and they have had to throw away their water. 

“Anyway, after we've removed all these dangerous items, they are finally allowed to board the plane…

“hand-carrying their pistols, rifles, and light machine guns.

Not London, Londonistan (RC)

They don’t call it “Londonistan” for nothing.  The fact is that the England of the past is gone. The UK is no longer the land of Winston Churchill at war’s weary end in 1945. (Remember that the first act of gratitude of the English people toward the prime minister who saved their collective bacon was to turn him out of office.)

The UK is just another bloated welfare state and it cleaves desperately to its tourist-appeal affectations: quaint palace guards in bearskin toppers, two-tiered buses and charming red phone booths, while sham-nobility and titles are conferred on mincing rock stars and soccer players –sir this and lord that; a country whose criminal judges still sport powdered wigs while crime threatens to plow the citizens under. Oh, but the lovely hedgerows still meander the countryside.

The symbol to the world of a tough, modest, resolute, un-complaining, gentlemanly, upper-lip stiffened people is gone, kaput, and there are now only small pockets of those qualities still in existence. I find them occasionally among friends when I visit, and when they are good they are great. But, the Labor party and its Fleet Street friends are right now working to stamp out those pockets of un-PC thinking, to grind them into the carpet of history, killed as dead as colonialism.

Hearing at the Committee on Homeland Security U.S. House of Representatives (WP)

In my testimony given before the Subcommittee on Intelligence Information sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment,” The Homeland Security implications of radicalization”, I state that Jihadism aims at destroying democracies and installing a totalitarian regime named Caliphate. And to do so, Jihadism creates the conviction in the minds of its adherents that war against the Government, people and constitution of the United States is the path towards achieving the universal goal. The beginning of the threat starts with the "click" that transforms a citizen into a Jihadist. From there one, the constant objective of the Jihadi recruit is to strike against the national security of the United States. More here

Schools as trainings grounds (RC)

Here is a twist to Britain’s terrorism scare over the radical Muslim plot to blow-up aircraft flying to the US from London.

Turns out that British police sent their officers for so-called “diversity training” to an Islamic school that was recently searched as a possible site for Jihad recruiting.

The “Jameah Islameah” school south of London was used for the training of police officers in “cultural sensitivity” more than 15 times last year.

The police, perhaps reverting to original insensitivity, sealed off the school and its grounds in rural East Sussex searching for terrorist recruiters, of which they are presently holding 14 suspects.

Abu Hamza Masri, the fire-brand London cleric now in prison for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred in the UK, once used the school grounds on the weekends for gatherings of like-minder followers, something the police presumably knew at the time they were being “sensitized.”

The school’s camping facilities seem to have also been used by five British Islamists currently being held in Yemen, charged with planning terrorist attacks.

The London Daily Mirror noted that while London police were dutifully studying their new Korans and being lectured to about ‘tolerance’ members of “an alleged suicide bomber cell were being trained for martyrdom almost under their noses.”

The Rocky Path to 9/11 (CM)

Cyrus Nowrasteh, screenwriter of “The Path to 9/11” writes:

[We] kept uppermost in our minds the need for due diligence in the delivery of this history. Fact-checkers and lawyers scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene. There were hundreds of pages of annotations. We were informed by multiple advisers and interviews with people involved in the events--and books, including in a most important way the 9/11 Commission Report.

It would have been good to be able to report due diligence on the part of those who judged the film, the ones who held forth on it before watching a moment of it. Instead, in the rush to judgment, and the effort to portray the series as the work of a right-wing zealot, much was made of my "friendship" with Rush Limbaugh (a connection limited to two social encounters), but nothing of any acquaintance with well-known names on the other side of the political spectrum. No reference to Abby Mann, for instance, with whom I worked on "10,000 Black Men Named George" (whose hero is an African-American communist) or Oliver Stone, producer of "The Day Reagan Was Shot," a film I wrote and directed. Clearly, those enraged that a film would criticize the Clinton administration's antiterrorism policies--though critical of its successor as well--were willing to embrace only one scenario: The writer was a conservative hatchetman.

In July a reporter asked if I had ever been ethnically profiled. I happily replied, "No." I can no longer say that. The L.A. Times, for one, characterized me by race, religion, ethnicity, country-of-origin and political leanings--wrongly on four of five counts. To them I was an Iranian-American politically conservative Muslim. It is perhaps irrelevant in our brave new world of journalism that I was born in Boulder, Colo. I am not a Muslim or practitioner of any religion, nor am I a political conservative. What am I? I am, most devoutly, an American. I asked the reporter if this kind of labeling was a new policy for the paper. He had no response. …

The hysteria engendered by the series found more than one target. In addition to the death threats and hate mail directed at me, and my grotesque portrayal as a maddened right-winger, there developed an impassioned search for incriminating evidence on everyone else connected to the film. And in director David Cunningham, the searchers found paydirt! His father had founded a Christian youth outreach mission. The whiff of the younger Mr. Cunningham's possible connection to this enterprise was enough to set the hounds of suspicion baying. A religious mission! A New York Times reporter wrote, without irony or explanation, that an issue that raised questions about the director was his involvement in his father's outreach work. In the era of McCarthyism, the merest hint of a connection to communism sufficed to inspire dark accusations, the certainty that the accused was part of a malign conspiracy. Today, apparently, you can get something of that effect by charging a connection with a Christian mission.

"The Path to 9/11" was intended to remind us of the common enemy we face. Like the 9/11 Report itself, it is meant to enable us to better defend ourselves from a future attack. Past is prologue, and 9/11 is merely another step in an escalating Islamic fundamentalist reign of terror. By dramatizing the step-by-step increase in attacks on America--all of which, in fact, occurred--we are better able to see the pattern and anticipate the future. That was the point of the series, its only intention. Call it the canary in the coal mine.

More here.

Understanding the enemy (RC)

We recently paid tribute to the dead and wounded of 9/11, 2001.  Most of us think of that date as the start of the global war on terrorism.  But it is a war that actually began decades earlier when Islamic fascism, as patient as a sloth, began its attacks against the West, for which they were ignored, or dismissed or repaid with hollow threats and occasional puny, ineffective action.

That summer of 2001, a former CIA and State Department terrorism analyst was quoted by the New York Times as saying that the idea that terrorism “is becoming more widespread and lethal” and that the idea that “extremist Islamic groups” cause most acts of terror is just plain false. 

The analyst, now retired from our government, has since been hired as an “expert” commentator by one of the TV networks to talk about that which he had previously had such a poor understanding. 

I saw him on the tube the other night pontificating about how we are faring in the fight to protect ourselves. I don’t recall yet hearing him apologize for his aggressive stupidity of a few years back. He didn’t have a clue then so why should I consider that he has a clue now, I chortle to myself cynically. 

Voices like his then dominated the media.

Five years later those voices are still out there squeaking, some of them politically partisan, some of them dumb and clichéd or banal.

But Americans themselves have become more sophisticated and discerning. The majority now recognize that we are locked in a serious and prolonged battle for the life of our country, opposed by religious extremists who perceive us as a paper mache tiger and who are clever, determined and very willing to take their time in defeating us.

Enemy Identification (WP)

The final report of the 9/11 Commission missed two major historic failures:
•  The U.S and its allies didn't identify the ideology of jihadism as the producer of terrorists and terrorism;
•  The jihadi strategic penetration of the U.S. was in fact a threat to national security. A 9/11 was possible because the enemy counted on the poor perception by the government, little mobilization by the public, and more importantly, the possibility that "the jihadi factory" within America will be able to produce future terrorism. Read more 

U.S. Embassy: Assad allows attack, offers "protection" and aims at confusion (WP)

In the World Defense Review I argue that the strategic objective of the Assad regime today is to deter Washington from further pressures against Syria, in the form of the Hariri investigation, the U.S. pressure through the Security Council to deploy forces along the borders with Lebanon and the American ongoing support to the anti-Syrian Government in Beirut.

Kristol and Lowry on Iraq (AV)

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and National Review editor Rich Lowry offer a short, sharp recommendation to the Bush administration: Reinforce Baghdad.

There is now no good argument for not sending more troops...The administration emphasizes that there needs to be a political, not simply a military, solution to Iraq. This is of course true. But the violence intersects with politics. Violence is radicalizing. It serves to empower extremists who are aligned with our enemies. So long as we don't succeed in controlling the violence, it will make any political settlement far more difficult.

They go on to make the provocative suggestion that the strategy of handing Baghdad neighborhoods over to Iraqi soldiers.

If American troops hand neighborhoods over to Iraqis, they are likely to soon deteriorate again -- in the same dynamic we have repeatedly seen of trouble spots being brought under control by American troops only to slide back again when the Americans leave...But in the current environment of sectarian bloodletting, all signs are that American troops are more trusted and more welcome than Iraqis. Many Sunnis -- confronted by Shiite militias -- now accept our troop presence, and moderate Shiite leaders want us to stay. In fact, the chief fear of Iraqis in Baghdad neighborhoods patrolled by Americans is apparently that we will leave, not that we will remain.

 

Michael Gove on the war on terrorism (AV)

Over on NRO, David Frum interviews Michael Gove, a British MP. Gove, prior to running for a seat in Parliament for the Tories, was a writer for the Times of London, where he distinguished himself as one of Britain's clearest thinkers on the threat the West faces by militant Islamism.

The interview shows that, even in Parliament, Gove is keeping the flame.

British public opinion is readier to contemplate robust measures at home than at any time in a long time. British attitudes toward foreign policy, however, are less encouraging.

And,

We have allowed certain unelected community leaders to acquire power by permitting them to act as intermediaries between British Muslim people and the British government elected by all its citizens, including Muslims. Ironically, you could say that our progressive elite has conspired to maintain the same power relationship between Muslims and the state that used to exist in the old British empire: The sheikh delivers the support of his people to the British state; the state in turn confirms the privileges of the sheikh.

Too Early for a Commemoration (CM)

Christopher Hitchens writes:

The time for commemoration lies very far in the future. War memorials are erected when the war is won. ... I debate with the "antiwar" types almost every day, either in print or on the air or on the podium, and I can tell you that they have been "war-weary" ever since the sun first set on the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and on the noble debris of United Airlines 93.  ...

Anyone who lost their "innocence" on September 11 was too naïve by far, or too stupid to begin with. On that day, we learned what we ought to have known already, which is that clerical fanaticism means to fight a war which can only have one victor. Afghans, Kurds, Kashmiris, Timorese and many others could have told us this from experience, and for nothing (and did warn us, especially in the person of Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance). Does anyone suppose that an ideology that slaughters and enslaves them will ever be amenable to "us"? The first duty, therefore, is one of solidarity with bin-Ladenism's other victims and targets, from India to Kurdistan.

The second point makes me queasy, but cannot be ducked. "We"--and our allies--simply have to become more ruthless and more experienced. An unspoken advantage of the current awful strife in Iraq and Afghanistan is that it is training tens of thousands of our young officers and soldiers to fight on the worst imaginable terrain, and gradually to learn how to confront, infiltrate, "turn," isolate and kill the worst imaginable enemy. These are faculties that we shall be needing in the future. It is a shame that we have to expend our talent in this way, but it was far worse five years and one day ago, when the enemy knew that there was a war in progress, and was giggling at how easy the attacks would be, and "we" did not even know that hostilities had commenced. Come to think of it, perhaps we were a bit "innocent" after all.

The POUM and us (AV)

The gravitas of the last month, where politicians and journalists struggled to find le mot juste to describe our enemy, and a historical analogy to clarify the threat they pose, has descended to levels of absurdity.

Bernard Henri-Levi writing in the New York Times, Mario Loyola writing on National Review online, and Stephen Schwartz writing in the Weekly Standard, have taken to comparing our war to the Spanish Civil War.

All three likened today's "Islamofascists" to Franco's fascists, and struck a pose as the brave Republicans who stood up to it. This is wrong on so many levels.

Both sides in the Spanish civil war committed untold numbers of atrocities. Worse yet, the Republicans and their allies in the non-Stalinist Left, although idealist, were unwitting stooges of Stalin, as Orwell (himself a POUM and anarchist) explained in his tragically under-read Homage to Catalonia.

The search for historical analogies should come to an end if commentators are unwilling to scratch beyond the patina of historical events. Is it so bad to admit the sui generis nature of our war with Islamist militants?

Update: Ross Douthat is similarly annoyed here.

Hearing at the Committee on International Relations U.S. House of Representatives (WP)

In the conclusion of my testimony given before the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation I state that the United States and its allies are delivering an up hill battle against an enemy that has prepared for and declared a universal war against free societies and democracy, decades before America decided to respond. However to reach the turning point in the War on Terror, the War of Ideas has to be won: The American public has to be granted real knowledge of the enemy and civil societies overseas have to be granted real support. This is how Jihadi Terrorism can be defeated historically. Read the testimony

Debate on NPRI on Democracy and Terrorism (WP)

I was part of a radio forum on International Public Radio discussing the War on Terrorism. I have argued that the Jihadists have a plan, strategies and sometimes display realism as well. There were exchanges with author Michael Sheuer, former CIA director of the Bin Laden Unit.

You can link to the show announcement and listen to the panel.

Bolton's international illegitimacy? (AV)

Mark Leon Goldberg, from the United Nations Foundation, writes in the American Prospect that UN Ambassador John Bolton faces an uphill struggle in his bid to win Senate confirmation.

Goldberg recycles the tired meme that, "Should Bolton fail to secure the requisite votes to overcome closure [sic, cloture], he could still accept a second recess appointment. But ... his credibility as U.S. ambassador would be genuinely crippled."

This is silliness. The argument was nonsense when it was made during Bolton's initial confirmation hearings, and it is no more correct now. Whether Bolton receives Senate confirmation is irrelevant to his "legitimacy" at the UN.

Think about it: Most UN member states don't believe in such quaint things as elected legislatures, and so aren't about to treat Bolton as least among equals because he was filibustered in the Senate. Furthermore, even those countries which are liberal democracies (such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia) don't subject international diplomats to parliamentary veto.

Quoted on Hezbollah in the Washington Times Op-Ed (WP)

Hezbollah, has been able to coerce Beirut into exempting many of the Shi'ite group's supporters from paying taxes, and over the past 15 years has succeeded in diverting "millions" of dollars of international assistance to its supporters (a conservative figure). While Hezbollah and its allies benefit from this arrangement, the big losers are Lebanese Christians and Muslims who want to remain independent of the terrorist group. Continue reading

Don't underestimate Iran (AV)

Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria pooh-poohs the Iranian threat in a recent article. The gist of Zakaria's argument is that Iran is a flyspeck compared to Nazi Germany and that we do ourselves no favors by exaggerating the Iranian threat. Zakaria's rejection of the 1938 analogy is misplaced.

Sure, Iran is an economically backwards country that spends a fraction of what the United States does on national defense, and its ability to project force beyond its region is severely limited. The same argument was made a few weeks ago by the indispensable Steve Sailer. It is however just as wrong.

Advances in technology since World War II mean that every banana republic despot can severely alter our way of life if he or she is so inclined. One errant (or not errant) nuke can make much of the United States uninhabitable and bring our economy to its knees. We know that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear technology, we know they have the missiles capable of launching a nuclear warhead, we know they have imperialist ambitions (just look at their conduct in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon), and we know that they want to destroy at least one of their neighbors. Oh, and we know their current president has the eschatology of a madman and that he's crazy enough to pull the trigger.

Zakaria endorses containment of Iran, whatever that means. In the context of a state having the characteristics I described above, containment represents the absence of a strategy. The key difference between now and 1938 isn't that our enemy today is much weaker, but that his weakness is not a barrier to his desire to destroy us.

Why terrorists hate us (WP)

SINCE September 11 in New York, March 11 in Madrid and July 7 in London, questions have been forming among a stunned public – why do these people hate us, who are they and what do they want?

As someone who studied the jihadist movement for a quarter of a century on three continents, I find the questions indicate a greater drama — how can societies targeted for a systematic and global warfare by terrorist forces operating in the open for at least two decades be asking questions about their identification?

Instead, the Americans, British and Spanish should ask how the jihadists were able to strike successfully, how long they have been able to infiltrate democratic societies and who is helping them do it. The real question is this — why are most British citizens, let alone Europeans and Westerners, lost about who the enemy is? How come they are not able to see clearly, and who is blurring their vision and how?

Continue reading in The Sun

Hezbollah Hurting? (CM)

Charles Krauthammer writes:

Hezbollah is in no position, either militarily or politically, for another round. Nasrallah's admission that  the war was a mistake is an implicit pledge not to repeat it, lest he be completely finished as a Lebanese  political figure. …

With Nasrallah weakened, the other major factions are closing in around him. … The March 14 democratic movement  has regained the upper hand and, with outside help, could marginalize Hezbollah. …

A strong European presence in the south, serious U.S. training and equipment for the Lebanese army, and  relentless pressure at the United Nations can tip the balance. We should be especially aggressive at the United  Nations in pursuing the investigation of Syria for the murder of Rafiq Hariri and in implementing resolutions mandating the disarmament of Hezbollah.

More here.