June 03, 2005

Our Strange War
Looking ahead, our options.

The three-year-plus war that began on September 11 is the strangest conflict in our history. It is not just that the first day saw the worst attack on American soil since our creation, or that we are publicly pledged to fighting a method — “terror” — rather than the concrete enemy of Islamic fascism that employs it.

  

Our dilemma is that we have not sought to defeat and humiliate the enemy as much as wean a people from the thrall of Islamic autocracy. That is our challenge, and explains our exasperating strategy of half-measures and apologies — and the inability to articulate exactly whom we are fighting and why.

Imagine that a weak Hitler in the mid-1930s never planned conventional war with the democracies. Instead, he stealthily would fund and train thousands of SS fanatics on neutral ground to permeate European society, convinced of its decadence and the need to return to a mythical time when a purer Aryan Volk reigned supreme. Such terrorists would bomb, assassinate, promulgate fascistic hatred in the media, and whine about Versailles, hoping insidiously to gain concessions from wearied liberal societies that would make ever more excuses as they looked inward and blamed themselves for the presence of such inexplicable evil. All the while, Nazi Germany would deny any connections to these “indigenous movements” and “deplore” such “terrorism,” even as the German people got a certain buzz from seeing the victors of World War I squirm in their discomfort. A triangulating Mussolini or Franco would use their good graces to “bridge the gap,” and seek a “peaceful resolution,” while we sought to “liberate” rather than defeat the German nation.

So to recap: The real enemy is an Islamic fascist ideology that is promulgated by a few thousand. They wear no uniforms and are deeply embedded within and protected by Muslim society.

Beyond the terrorists, a larger percentage of Middle Easterners, if it cost them little, gain psychological satisfaction when fellow defiant Muslims (terrorists or not) “stand up” to Westerners, who enjoy power, status, and wealth undreamed of in the Middle East.

Even if they would hate living under Taliban-like theocrats, millions at least see the jihadists as about the only way of “getting back” at the Western world that has left them so far behind. This passive-aggressive sense of inferiority explains why millions of Muslims flock to Europe to enjoy its freedom and prosperity, even as they recreate there an Islamist identity to reconcile their longing and desire for what they profess to hate.

Still, most in the Middle East wish simply to embrace the human desire for prosperity, freedom, and security within the umbrella of traditional Muslim society — and will support American efforts if (a) these initiatives seem to be successful, and (b) are not seen as American.

Consequently, the United States has not been able to bring its full arsenal of military assets to the fray. It is nearly impossible to extract the killers from the midst of civilian society. Too much force causes collateral damage and incites religious and nationalist anti-American fervor. Too little power emboldens the fascists and suggests America (e.g., Nixon’s “pitiful, helpless giant”) cannot or will not win the war.

Like a parent with a naughty child, a maddening forbearance is the order of the day: They burn American flags, behead, murder, and promise death and ruin to Americans; we ignore it and instead find new ways of displaying our sensitivity to Islam.

Although the enemy is weak militarily and its nihilist ideology appeals to few, it still has powerful ways to meet our own overwhelming military power and economic strength.

First is the doctrine of the deniability of culpability. In the legalistic world of the United Nations and international courts, Islamists depend on their patrons’ not being held responsible beyond a reasonable doubt for the shelter and cash they provide to those who kill Westerners. Elites in Syria or Iran deny that they offer aid to terrorists. Or if caught, they retreat to a fallback position of something like, “Do you really want to go to war over our help for a few ragtag insurrectionists?”

A second advantage is oil. A third to half the world’s reserves is under Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf States, Iraq, and Iran. None until recently were democratic; most at one time or another have given bribe money to terrorists, sponsored anti-Americanism, or survived by blaming us for their own failures.

These otherwise backward societies — that neither developed nor can maintain their natural wealth — rake in billions, as oil that costs $2-5 to pump is sold for $50. Some of that money in nefarious ways arms terrorists. Should an exasperated United States finally strike back at their patrons, we risk ruining the world economy — or at least so it will be perceived by paranoid and petroleum-dependent Japan, Europe, and China. Without an energy policy of independence, this war will be hard to win, since Saudi Arabia will never feel any pressure to purge its royal family of terrorist sympathizers or to cease its subsidies for Wahhabist hatred.

A third edge for the terrorists lies in the West itself. After 40 years of multiculturalism and moral equivalence — the wages of wealth and freedom unmatched in the history of civilization — many in the United States believe that they have evolved beyond the use of force. Education, money, dialogue, conflict resolution theory — all this and more can achieve far more than crude Abrams tanks and F-16s.

A bin Laden or Saddam is rare in the West. In our arrogance, we think such folk are more or less like ourselves and live in a similar world of reason and tolerance. The long antennae of the canny terrorists pick up on that self-doubt. Most of the rhetoric in bin Laden’s infomercials came right out of the Western media.