The following is my letter to the editor of The Nation. The articles at issue can be found at www.thenation.com/doc/20060227/younge and www.thenation.com/doc/20060227/editors.
At the outset, let me say that I am an avid reader of The Nation's print and web publication and share most of the opinions offered in both media. That said, I must take issue with both Gary Younge's article and your recent editorial commentary concerning the Jyllands-Postem cartoons. Both pieces appear to not only validate to some degree the Muslim response to the Danish cartoons, but offer apology and excuse for the emotions which have prompted and promoted that response. While it is certainly true that the emotions which are giving voice to tens of thousands of Muslims throughout the world have a historical and, in some instances, legitimate basis, it is also true that this most recent demonstration of Islamic "muscle" is being driven by forces that have far more to do with politics than genuine religious belief. While it is true that the demonstrations in response to the cartoons were limited and peaceful, it is equally true that in those demonstrations, the more radical leaders of the Muslim world, most notably Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saw in those demonstrations a platform for vitriol that has emerged from Teheran since he came to power several months ago. As has so often been the case over the past several decades, Arab leaders have seen those with legitimate concerns (i.e. the Palestinian people) as pawns to be employed and deployed throughout Europe and the Middle East (and the American media) in their never-ending war with the West to gain respect and leverage. That war, in truth, has far more to do with political and economic power than with any religious ideal that might be driving the "man in the streets" of the West Bank, Cairo, Teheran and Damascus and to ignore that reality is simply naive. It is no coincidence that this conflagration was truly ignited when Mr. Ahmadinejad and his cohorts walked out of the Organisation of the Islamic conference (OIC) held in Mecca last December. From that point on, what had been a peaceful albeit legitimately determined protest, became a tour de force, engineered by Mr. Ahmadinejad, in particular, who saw the controversy as a way of responding to and diverting attention away from the European (including Russian) and American concerns over Iran's likely intention to develop a nuclear weapon. That both Mr. Younge's article and your editorial focus upon "the causes" of the controversy without making any mention whatsoever of the complicity of Iran and other more radical elements of the Islamic political landscape is to ignore the political realities of the growing tension between the Muslim world and the West.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Opportunities Lost
Every administration will face any number of domestic and international crises during the course of its tenure which will have the potential of dramatically affecting and possibly changing the course of human events. If the response is inadequate, it can have longstanding and tragic effects on our lives and the lives of our children. In the case of the current administration, its tenure has been marked by a seemingly endless litany of crises, both domestic and global, which have been mis-judged and mishandled. The first such mis-step may very well have been the government’s failure to recognize signs of an impending attack by Al Qaeda which were apparent during the summer of 2001. The latest, at least through the last week of January, was the failure…admitted by the nation’s Secretary of State…to recognize the possibility of Hamas’victory in the recently concluded Palestinian elections. That victory, unanticipated by Ms Rice and Mr. Bush, certainly poses a risk to Israel and any hope for some sense of peace and stability in the Middle East. However, the Hamas victory and its implication for that region, provides but a sidelight to the forces which have been unleashed in Iran as a result of the Bush administration’s failure to understand and anticipate the consequences of their ill-advised invasion of Iraq in March 2003; that in destabilizing Iraq, they and we were not saving, but actually destabilizing the entire region and giving license to creatures like Iran’s Ahmadinejad to gain currency not only within in his borders but throughout the Muslim world.
Like a series of dominoes, the administration’s failure to anticipate the risk we faced in the summer of 2001 has led to a series of decisions and resulting events which has spawned a shift in the fundamental intercourse between this nation and those it considers both its allies and enemies. Like those falling dominoes, the policy decisions made by Messers Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks has triggered a series of crises, one set off by its predecessor, that has ultimately de-stabilized regions at risk and, in turn, the world as a whole.
They created a paper tiger, lied about the threat he posed to the United States and its allies and insisted that the only way to secure a lasting peace in the region was to invade and remove the tiger from his lair. At no time does it appear that the Bush administration understood or even considered that there would be dangerous consequences for displacing the paper tiger. Never expected or understood, for example, that our invasion of Iraq would so destabilize the region that there would be little left to govern by the time the Iraqi people fully embraced democratic principles; never understood or expected that our troops would not be greeted in the streets of Baghdad by Iraqi citizens waving American flags and offering flowers like some movie from a by-gone era; never anticipated or expected that after George stood on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln and declared victory, that the war was, in truth, only then just beginning and that rather than flowers, the Iraqi people would greet our troops with IEDs and RPGs that would take its toll with thousands of our finest horribly maimed and killed; never expected or understood that Iraq’s economy would not be up and running within weeks or months and that its failure would, in turn, lay waste to our own economy; never apparently anticipated that whatever democracy might take root in Iraq would be fundamentalist in nature and have more interest in rekindling its long dormant relationship with Iran than in furthering its relationship with the West; and, of course, never anticipated that by removing Hussein from the scene they were removing the biggest check against the true gathering storm in the region -- the developing turmoil in Iran.
Was Hussein a tyrant and a criminal? No question. Did he pose a threat to the United States and his allies? No, and, more importantly, as a Sunni, he had as much in common with fundamental Islam as Ariel Sharon. He was no friend of Osama Bin Laden and certainly would not have looked favorably upon an Islamic fundamentalist like the newly-elected President of Iran. Indeed, he, as we, would have looked upon Mr. Ahmadinejad as a threat to a then-stable (albeit hostile) Iraq because his vitriolic rhetoric would certainly have stirred the passions of the repressed Iraqi Shiite majority and urged them to insurrection. With Hussein removed, however, Iraq’s first foray into genuine democracy has produced a Shiite-dominated government that is already establishing close ties to the Ahmadinejad regime.
As for the Iranian tyrant, as Newsweek reports in its current issue, Ahmadinejad is someone who harkens his people back not only to the revolution which overthrew the Shah, but to their long fight with Hussein’s army. He and they are a people who feel themselves entitled to mount the steps of national and global leadership having paid their dues on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war. Though the recent publication of cartoons characterizing the Prophet as a terrorist (among other images) which have ignited Muslim violence throughout the world was itself not foreseeable, the groundswell of violence certainly has been brewing for years and should have been very much expected by the West. If it were not the Danish cartoons which set off the latest conflagration, it would have been something else, spawned by the rhetoric of the increasingly popular Ahmadinejad who speaks not to the West with his anti-Jewish and anti-west diatribes but to the millions of young fundamentalist Muslims who appear increasingly hell-bent upon demonstrating their strength in numbers and their religious intolerance through rioting, terrorism and war.
While these fires of hatred were being fanned in Iran, George, Dick and Don fiddled, their backs to the fire, ignorant to the events unfolding behind them.
There are without question lessons that need to have been learned from the last several years; lessons about the need for consensus, lessons about understanding who and what poses the greater threat to our safety and security, and an understanding that there are consequences, both expected and unforeseen, that must be accounted for before embarking upon any policy with such far-reaching effect.
What is not clear is whether the lack of foresight and lack of understanding has unleashed forces which we will no longer be able to control.
Like a series of dominoes, the administration’s failure to anticipate the risk we faced in the summer of 2001 has led to a series of decisions and resulting events which has spawned a shift in the fundamental intercourse between this nation and those it considers both its allies and enemies. Like those falling dominoes, the policy decisions made by Messers Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks has triggered a series of crises, one set off by its predecessor, that has ultimately de-stabilized regions at risk and, in turn, the world as a whole.
They created a paper tiger, lied about the threat he posed to the United States and its allies and insisted that the only way to secure a lasting peace in the region was to invade and remove the tiger from his lair. At no time does it appear that the Bush administration understood or even considered that there would be dangerous consequences for displacing the paper tiger. Never expected or understood, for example, that our invasion of Iraq would so destabilize the region that there would be little left to govern by the time the Iraqi people fully embraced democratic principles; never understood or expected that our troops would not be greeted in the streets of Baghdad by Iraqi citizens waving American flags and offering flowers like some movie from a by-gone era; never anticipated or expected that after George stood on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln and declared victory, that the war was, in truth, only then just beginning and that rather than flowers, the Iraqi people would greet our troops with IEDs and RPGs that would take its toll with thousands of our finest horribly maimed and killed; never expected or understood that Iraq’s economy would not be up and running within weeks or months and that its failure would, in turn, lay waste to our own economy; never apparently anticipated that whatever democracy might take root in Iraq would be fundamentalist in nature and have more interest in rekindling its long dormant relationship with Iran than in furthering its relationship with the West; and, of course, never anticipated that by removing Hussein from the scene they were removing the biggest check against the true gathering storm in the region -- the developing turmoil in Iran.
Was Hussein a tyrant and a criminal? No question. Did he pose a threat to the United States and his allies? No, and, more importantly, as a Sunni, he had as much in common with fundamental Islam as Ariel Sharon. He was no friend of Osama Bin Laden and certainly would not have looked favorably upon an Islamic fundamentalist like the newly-elected President of Iran. Indeed, he, as we, would have looked upon Mr. Ahmadinejad as a threat to a then-stable (albeit hostile) Iraq because his vitriolic rhetoric would certainly have stirred the passions of the repressed Iraqi Shiite majority and urged them to insurrection. With Hussein removed, however, Iraq’s first foray into genuine democracy has produced a Shiite-dominated government that is already establishing close ties to the Ahmadinejad regime.
As for the Iranian tyrant, as Newsweek reports in its current issue, Ahmadinejad is someone who harkens his people back not only to the revolution which overthrew the Shah, but to their long fight with Hussein’s army. He and they are a people who feel themselves entitled to mount the steps of national and global leadership having paid their dues on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war. Though the recent publication of cartoons characterizing the Prophet as a terrorist (among other images) which have ignited Muslim violence throughout the world was itself not foreseeable, the groundswell of violence certainly has been brewing for years and should have been very much expected by the West. If it were not the Danish cartoons which set off the latest conflagration, it would have been something else, spawned by the rhetoric of the increasingly popular Ahmadinejad who speaks not to the West with his anti-Jewish and anti-west diatribes but to the millions of young fundamentalist Muslims who appear increasingly hell-bent upon demonstrating their strength in numbers and their religious intolerance through rioting, terrorism and war.
While these fires of hatred were being fanned in Iran, George, Dick and Don fiddled, their backs to the fire, ignorant to the events unfolding behind them.
There are without question lessons that need to have been learned from the last several years; lessons about the need for consensus, lessons about understanding who and what poses the greater threat to our safety and security, and an understanding that there are consequences, both expected and unforeseen, that must be accounted for before embarking upon any policy with such far-reaching effect.
What is not clear is whether the lack of foresight and lack of understanding has unleashed forces which we will no longer be able to control.
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