Wars, civil and/or religious: Part II (religious war)
We in the modern west have grown unused to the concept of religious war. In fact, the very term seems un-PC, like the word “crusade.” Wars of religion have come to be regarded as mere screens for other motivators: socioeconomic inequalities, political power struggles, racial differences.
It’s probably true that few, if any, religious wars have ever been purely religious. But we cannot and should not ignore the force of religious differences as one potent motivator, both in the past and today, for wars. And please, don’t subscribe to the notion that religion is therefore the root of all evil and all war; it most decidedly is not. But ideas have consequences, and religions are ideas with both consequences and legs.
I don’t know about you, but I was the one snoozing at my desk when we took up subjects like the Thirty Years’ War in European History during my junior year of high school. Catholics at war with Protestants? What? The Huguenots? Who? In my community, the Protestants and the Catholics were on good terms (although, come to think of it, there were virtually no Protestants where I grew up–it was all Italian, all the time), and the idea of a religious war between them was preposterous.
This was, of course, shortly before the resumption of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, in which the reality of war between Protestants and Catholics was restored. But this seemed a local skirmish that had less to do with differences of worship and more to do with what group would hold the reins of political power.
The split between Sunni and Shiite was even more remote. But it clearly has also had political as well as ideological/religious elements: the Shiite felt disempowered since 938 (!!) by the disappearance of the Twelfth Iman and the ascension to power of Sunni clerics for the next–well, for the next millennium, until the (Sunni) caliphate fell at the end of the Ottoman Empire. The ascendance of the Ayatollah Khomeini to the reins of Shiite dictatorship in Iran was, among other things, a turning point for the Shiite in terms of regaining power in the heretofore Sunni-dominated Muslim world.
Sunnis, on the other hand, experienced the loss of the Ottoman Caliphate as a nearly mortal blow, and have been struggling for a replacement ever since. Thus, the rise of various fundamentalist Sunni movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which was part of the inspiration for al Qaeda. In a post-9/11 explanatory tape, Bin Laden himself cited the end of the Ottoman Empire as a catastrophe for which 9/11 was meant to be payback.
So, there are two religious conflicts going on in the Muslim world: a longstanding intra-religious one (Sunni/Shiite) that goes back to the tenth century and has heated up with the fall of the Caliphate, and a longstanding inter-religious war that goes back even further, but has recently been heated up with the fall of the Caliphate as well because that fall has been attributed to Western influence. Furthermore, both strains are outraged at what is seen as the decadence of the Western world, an influence felt more and more by Muslims due to the pace of modern life and communications, as well as actual hot wars in places such as Iraq, and the presence of the non-Muslim state of Israel on a tiny sliver of land that had been in Ottoman hands for centuries.
So, the conflict is nothing new; it just seemed quiescent for a while, and that calm was illusory. The relative “stability” afforded by Saddam Hussein’s regime was the opposition his Sunni-led (although Shiite-majority) state provided to Iran’s power. Those who criticized our invasion of Iraq on the realpolitik grounds that it would upset that particular balance may have been correct, although it’s too soon to tell how things will ultimately play out.
(By the way, it’s interesting that many of the same people on the Left who criticized the Iraq invasion on those grounds also criticized–ex-post-facto, as best I can determine–the realpolitik of our support for Saddam against Iran during the Iraq/Iran war of the 80s. Of course, consistency was never one of the Left’s strong suits. But I digress.)
These forces in the Muslim world may be destined to battle it out, as they have for a long time. The difference is that today their battle affects us directly. In some ways it really doesn’t matter to us whether Sunni or Shiite win, because the danger comes (as it often does) from the extremists and jihadis on both sides, and it’s hard to judge whose are worse.
For the Sunnis, those extremists have been concentrated mostly in the form of terrorists, who tend to operate extra-nationally, across many states, and without being at the helm of one (ever since the fall of the Taliban, that is, when they lost the stronghold of state-sponsored Sunni terrorism, Afghanistan). Shiite extremism, on the other hand, has for decades been centered in a state, Iran, which has sponsored terrorists such as the Shiite Hezbollah, and which clearly has present-day nuclear aspirations.
Saddam was an anomaly, in a way. He was a Sunni in charge of a Shiite state, and he persecuted and murdered a large number of the latter, whom he feared. He was a vicious dictator in the mold of secular leaders such as Stalin (whom he revered and emulated), but he was not above using religion for his own purposes. He constituted a threat to the region during the Gulf War, was in violation of countless UN resolutions, and was thought by the entire world community prior to the US invasion of Iraq to have nuclear and chemical weapons, which would have posed a danger to his neighbors–and to the west, if he’d sold them to terrorists. Saddam was both a tyrant and a loose cannon, and it seemed to many to have been a reasonable roll of the dice at the time to take him out.
Like it or not (and most of us don’t like it), ever since the late 70s, with the ascendancy of the Ayatollahs’ theocracy in Iran (and perhaps even before), we have been intimately and inextricably engaged in the intra- and inter-religious wars going on in the Muslim world. The current Iraq crisis is one chapter in those wars. It won’t be the last, nor is it likely to be the worst. And yes, indeed, those wars are both religous and political, as religious wars have always been.
[If I maintain the energy and inclination, tomorrow may feature Part III, on Europe’s religious Protestant/Catholic wars. Or there may be another part, on the rise of nationalism, and what makes a nation a nation. Or none of the above. We’ll see.]
“These forces in the Muslim world may be destined to battle it out, as they have for a long time.”
Your history is wrong in a number of places, but this really stands out. The Twelver branch of Shi’ite Islam was, for most of its history, politically quietist. That is, because they recognized only the line of twelve Imams as legitimate successors of Muhammed and as the only legitimate interpreters of God’s will, and with their last Imam in occlusion, there has been no legitimate legal authority on earth for centuries.
As a result, for most of Islamic history, Shi’ites have not fought Sunnis. Shi’ites do not recognize the legitimacy of Sunni (or any) rulers, but in the absence of the only possible legitimate ruler (the Imam), there was no motivation to challenge that authority either. Khomenei was the first to introduce the concept of clerical rule into Shi’ite jurisprudence. He argued that in the absence of the Imam, the clerics could, collectively, act as interpreters of God’s will and word. This was entirely new and represents the beginning of Shi’ite radicalism.
As a result of this, Shi’ites often cooperated with Sunnis and got by just fine for most of the time. They came to dominance a few times themselves, as in Fatimid Egypt and a few times in Iran.
So: there’s no reason to think that Shi’ite/Sunni conflict has ancient historical roots, and as it’s largely a new invention, there’s no reason to think that it’s inevitable, either.
“Thus, the rise of various fundamentalist Sunni movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which was part of the inspiration for al Qaeda.”
This is another big thing I disagree with. al Qa’ida largely arises from several different currents in Islamic thought, and the Brotherhood isn’t really part of that.
al Qa’ida, in a way, is Qutb’s concept of religious purity, revolution, and a revolutionary vanguard, plus Zawahiri’s interpretation of Qutb is Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s attempt to overthrow the goverment of Egypt, plus bin Laden’s reading of Azzam’s call to violent jihad as a religious duty above all others.
The Brotherhood, sadly enough, and Salaafiya in general, started out as attempts to modernize the Muslim faith. By the 19th century it was clear that Europe had pulled ahead of Islam, and a number of Muslim reformers decided that the only way to modernize and liberalize Islam was to reject the un-Islamic traditions that had gotten tacked on to Islam (sort of like Luther and the Catholic Church, see Chris Henzel in Parameters). Only by returning to the “fundamentals” of Islam could Islam modernize and liberalize, they thought.
In Egypt, especially, the Brotherhood eventually turned Islamic modernization into what we saw for most of the 20th century: an oppressive, controling version of the faith. In a lot of ways the Brotherhood is still that party, but the key is that now, unlike Hamas and certain other Islamist parties, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has: renounced violence, accepted the legitimacy of the Egyptian state, accepted the legitimacy of the constitution and the constititional process, accepted free elections, and so forth.
al Qa’ida and the Brotherhood, then, couldn’t be more different. The Brotherhood and other moderate Islamist groups, as the only political movements permitted in a lot of these countries and as the only political movements with any popular support, are the key to democratizing the Muslim world. The US, despite its rhetoric, continues to back dictators in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco, etc etc etc. “Why do they hate us?” Well, research indicates that the only factors that correlate with “support for terrorism” in Muslim countries are “hostility to US policy in the Muslim world” and “hostility to one’s own government.” The US is seen as backing lots of really oppressive governments, which we do, and that makes us very unpopular. al Qa’ida has been working very hard to take that unpopular cause – us – and use it to their advantage. The biggest blow that we could give al Qa’ida, after taking down the Taliban, would be to press countries like Egypt to allow for free and fair elections, even if that means the Muslim Brotherhood gets elected.
I really enjoy reading your informative posts. Keep it up.
The Left doesn’t want to recognize the religious nature of all that is happening because it is important part of their anti-American/Western Template that the widespread conflict that is occurring is of a civil nature – that the terrorists are merely reacting to perceived Western injustices: Supporting ME dictators, stealing oil, Imperialistic aspirations, support of Israel, blah, blah, blah.
So civil war sounds much better to the Left than religious war. If the religious nature of the conflict is acknowledged then the thought naturally follows that the violence and death is due more to pent-up forces being released because the cork in the bottle(Saddam’s ruthless Ba’athist regime) was removed than to the unjust occupation by imperial Amerika. The problems in Iraq(and by extension elsewhere) become less of a ‘noble insurgency’ and become more about the foam at the mouth fanaticism that Islam seems to foster.
Those who criticized our invasion of Iraq on the realpolitik grounds that it would upset that particular balance may have been correct, although it’s too soon to tell how things will ultimately play out.
But these are the same guys who in the next breath, talk about how the US supplied Saddam with weapons and support…
The only thing these people are correct about is that they can fit many pieces together before they are found out.
(By the way, it’s interesting that many of the same people on the Left who criticized the Iraq invasion on those grounds also criticized–ex-post-facto, as best I can determine–the realpolitik of our support for Saddam against Iran during the Iraq/Iran war of the 80s. Of course, consistency was never one of the Left’s strong suits. But I digress.)
But it is important after all. I’m replying in sequence, so I didn’t read the above part at first.
These forces in the Muslim world may be destined to battle it out, as they have for a long time. The difference is that today their battle affects us directly. In some ways it really doesn’t matter to us whether Sunni or Shiite win, because the danger comes (as it often does) from the extremists and jihadis on both sides, and it’s hard to judge whose are worse.
Instead of picking which side has the least worst guys, why don’t we find the moderates and the good guys on both sides, purge the extremists, and create a society where Sufi moderation, Shia moderation, and Sunni cosmopolitanism may work and live together in peace and harmony?
After all, if we are going to call people’s bluff and put our cards on the table, why don’t we just go all the way instead of picking the least risky endeavour as we did in the Cold War?
I find it useful to know that the current extremists in the Shia regions of Iraq, forged connections with Iran specifically because the US was not there for them when Saddam was purging Shia and Hilla.
People will go with the side that they think will win and will benefit them the most, after all. If the Shia believe Iran will benefit them the most against Al Qaeda and the Baathists, then it makes logical sense that they would get closer to Iran.
Same with the Sunnis. If they believe Baathism is on the way back, they would forge closer connections to the Baathists.
Both Sunni and Shia are manipulating and taking advantage of the fear and chaos in Iraq, in order to impose their own version of power and rule. Remove the fear and the chaos, and much of their power bases disappear. Religious contention isn’t enough. People do not support death squads because they are pissed about the Twelfth Imam. It is more like gang politics. If you don’t kill them, they will kill you. If the US doesn’t enforce a shield over the boiling water, the boiler might just explode. Sistani does not have enough power to kill enough Shia and Sunnis to calm things down after the fact. If the US acts like it won’t do anything,
If the US acts like it won’t do anything, then no amount of religious moderation will stop the future explosion. Because it isn’t disagreements over Sunni and Shia religious principles that cause one faction to kill another. They are simply excuses and justifications for the real reasons.
Just as religion was a simple excuse for the Princes of Germany to wage war for fun and profit, causing untold misery upon the people actually living in the war zone. Catholic preachers in front of Catholic paid mercenaries, preach about that the army is there to save Catholics from the heathen Protestants. But that didn’t stop the “Catholic” army from razing to the ground Catholic villages, now did it.
That’s funny, grackle, that idea that Leftists don’t want to tackle reality, blah blah blah blah blah. Because a) the idea that war is politics by other means comes from that big Commie Clausewitz, and the idea that religion is really irrelevant to civil conflict comes from actual research done by Ayoob, Fearon, Laitin, and the like.
Seriously, take a look at their work, and then come back and tell me what you think. Seriously – it’s interesting stuff, though Ayoob is a little dry. But until then…what’s the point? It’s conjecture, it’s opinion, it’s ideology, it’s blather based on nothing – the blogosphere in a nutshell!
Also, how does one reach “noble insurgency” from the concept of “weak central institutions invite non-state actors to vie with the state for power”?
“Instead of picking which side has the least worst guys, why don’t we find the moderates and the good guys on both sides, purge the extremists, and create a society where Sufi moderation, Shia moderation, and Sunni cosmopolitanism may work and live together in peace and harmony?”
Ah, yes, the Yammer way: oversimplify the situation, then propose a solution that could never exist in reality and which imagines us as an omnipotent actor. Yammer, if we could find “moderates” and “purge extremists” and “create societies” with ease and at will, why are we fighting anyone?
Of course, consistency was never one of the Left’s strong suits.
No kidding! Remember when the feminists were up in arms about the Taliban, and how the Clinton administration should do something about them? And the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas… Dammit, we had to do something about those barbarians!
But then, when a Republican administration did just that… No good, comrades.
As for the Sunni/Shiite division — LGF had an interesting post about how very few people in Congress or the government have any understanding of that conflict…
Thanks for all the insights, Ms. Neo.
Spanky, you have more inconsistencies and shaky theories than those you critique. I suppose you know that.
Just to scare you somewhat (not sure if you do fear events): DirectTV recently featured interviews with 2 Christian leaders, converted from Islam. Both averred that Muslims they knew could never accept that Saddam lost the Gulf War. Facts are irrelevant to faith.
Their faith, Islam, tells them they can’t be defeated. Thus they say that instead of Saddam ‘losing,’ the Gulf War never happened. Which is consistent with their central thinking:
whether by submission, or the sword, the world is given to Allah.
Not very logical. But religious faith rarely is. I see not even the little I know (not much) about Islam in your posts. So I suggest you leave the mountains of rationality and start reading up on Islam.
Islam’s not modern, it’s not secular, and it ain’t mostly rational. Get out into the real world and learn what they believe. And then come back and tell us how things are and where we go.
Good advice.
… and the idea that religion is really irrelevant to civil conflict comes from actual research done by Ayoob, Fearon, Laitin, and the like.
I thank the commentor for the recommendations – I’ve made a note to check them out when I find the time. But I readily admit that that “religion is really irrelevant to civil conflict.” The flaw in the commentor’s observation of course is the false assumption that the violence in Iraq is a “civil conflict.”
Differing religious sects are attacking each other in Iraq in the name of religion for revenge and the furtherance of their sects. Shiite death squads and militia only kill Sunnis and vice versa. This is not disputed.
The violence has been consistently labeled as “sectarian violence” by the MSM since it started – apparently before the phrase could be expunged, say, like the BBC did with the word, “terrorist.” How delightfully shortsighted of the BBC.
Wow. You are finally getting around to talking about the inhabitants of a country we invaded almost four years ago . Do you get it yet?
Spanky
It looks like you have read “Far Enemy” by Fawaz Gerges. If you haven’t read it please do. It is an excellent book that was recommended to me by Juan Cole.
The struggle of Muslim Brotherhood with Egypt secular state, just as under-the-carpet struggle of Wakhabby clergy with Saudi Kings, is like century-long European struggle of Catholic Church with secular monarchs for political dominance. If clergy win, there would be no shreds of individual freedom in these societies; if secular monarchs win, there still be some hope for real modernization. That is why US should support these dictators against popular religious insurgency. And it is much better when dictatorship leads to democracy, as it was in Chili, then when democracy leads to totalitarian state, as was in Weimar Germany, Iran and Gaza strip.
In Middle Ages Catholicism in Europe also was pretty much totalitarian. It took Reformation and Enlightment to change the picture. Muslim world is now in its medieval age; hopefully, some personalistic religious movement in Islam can emerge and change the picture. This is only hope, of course; but who can know? Such things are always unpredictable.
Well said, yet again…no offers yet from the State Dept.??
Question: Why do I bother?
Answer: I don’t know.
Cheers!
al Qa’ida and the Brotherhood, then, couldn’t be more different. The Brotherhood and other moderate Islamist groups, as the only political movements permitted in a lot of these countries and as the only political movements with any popular support, are the key to democratizing the Muslim world.
That statement is ripped directly from the pages of the Muslim Brotherhood press kit. Are they paying you for your marketing efforts or are you doing it for free?
The Muslim Brotherhood is an extremist group that has generated many violent jihadi groups, including Hamas and al-Jihad and al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya in Egypt. They are extremists whose reason for existence is to promote the establishment of Islamic (sharia) law. As a system of laws, the Sharia (hudud) laws that the MB promotes are apartheid, brutal and misogynist when compared to nearly every other legal system on the planet. Nations like Turkey which successfully combine Islam and democracy do this by forbidding the establishment of Sharia laws.
“Islamic” nations that are ruled by sharia laws are social and/or economic disasters (the economy depends, of course, on the presence of oil)
The Muslim Brotherhood is not moderate in any way. Simply put, they are our enemies. During the Muslim Brotherhood movement issued a public appeal for support of the forces fighting the United States in Iraq.
On August 17 the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement Muhammad Mahdi ‘Akef published an open letter in which he expressed his support for the resistance in Iraq: “There is no alternative other than that the [Muslim] peoples continue their political and national support of the resistance, materially and morally, in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan…
“Islam considers the resistance to be Jihad for the sake of Allah and this is a commandment, a personal obligation [fardhayn] incumbent on all of the residents of the occupied countries. [This commandment] takes precedence over all other [religious] duties. Even a woman is obligated to go to war, [even] without her husband’s permission, and youth are permitted to go out and fight.”
On the other hand, if democracy is established in the Middle East, Muslim majority populations in the Middle East do tend to vote in favor of Brotherhood-type organizations and brutal sharia laws. Which is one of many reasons why we should seek alliances and trading partners outside of the Middle East. The area is like Europe was in the beginning of the last century – the majority of the people are seeking oppression and war. If that’s what they want, they’re going to get it eventually. We need to protect our allies in Israel as best we can, then we need to stop throwing good money after bad in the Middle East.
The Palestinians in Gaza provide a good example of how to deal with this – if people want their Sharia laws, withdraw all financial support from
oops – the last bit was cut off..
The Palestinians in Gaza provide a good example of how to deal with this – if people want their Sharia laws, withdraw all financial support from the area, patrol the borders and let them live with their choices. The only other solution is to try a variety of sure to fail options for keeping the non-existent peace in the Middle East alive. If the majority of people don’t want peace or equality, you can’t force them to take it.
The Muslim Brotherhood has not only not renounced violence, but openly support it, though only when speaking in Arabic.
Promising one thing to one group and the exact opposite to another is the oldest trick in the book, Spanky, and you’ve fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. But hey, eliminating freedom of speech is just a small price to pay for eliminating Islamophibic speech, right?
A note on trolls:
I see that trolls never challenge what Sergey has to say. Is this because they know they cannot match his logic and his knowledge in a place more directly beseiged by Muslim terrorism?
This largely parallels the invisibility of the large group of refugees from the USSR where I live to the local liberals. The liberals yammer on about the wonderful surviving socialist paradises, and “come the revolution”, and how Vlad (not John) was the “important” Lennin. But they never have owned up to why that former Soviet commutity even exists in a free country, and why they left the “wonderful” USSR.
Sergey is obviously not American, and the very existence of non-Americans who support American ideas triggers the same psychotic disconnect that gets triggered by the existence of black conservatives and gay Republicans. If they can’t respond to such triggers with berserk vengeance, the usual reaction is to run away screaming incoherently, as Spanky has done.
I see that trolls never challenge what Sergey has to say.
Well I’m happy to see that I am not considered a troll! 🙂
What is up though with this tendency around here to link anyone who disagrees with the prevailing sentiments to be somehow automatically aligned with the foaming-at-the-mouth “workers of the world unite” crowd?
Stalin himself had a name for those unaligned with communism who nonetheless aided him in his goals: “useful fools.”
We’re not questioning your patriotism…
To unnown blogger: No one with full knowlege of the price that several hundred million people paid for Socialist utopia can tolerate Marxist slogans and terminology in all its variants. We are hypersensitive to this stuff, and for good reason. So if you do not want to make a laughing-stock of yourself, never advocate Socialist cause in presence of anybody with first-hand experience in it.
What th…?
Shi’ites do not recognize the legitimacy of Sunni (or any) rulers, but in the absence of the only possible legitimate ruler (the Imam), there was no motivation to challenge that authority either
And look what happens to you when you do challenge political Islam a la Khomeini:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/turmoil-in-tehran-secular-clerics.html#comments
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-irandemocracy/ayatollah_3965.jsp
Maryatexitzero: You’re absolutely right about the Islamic Brotherhood. As a matter of fact, Khomeinism is and offshoot of Islamic brotherhood ideology and Khomeini was their most successful protege.
If you’re tired of reading the Leftist media Al-WaPO and Al-NPR, and Al-Juan Cole, you will find these articles refreshing:
Know Your Enemy: Iran’s Ruling Mullahs
Stand and Fight, or Cut and Run: You Decide
Fresh new batch of venom spewed by Tehran’s lunatic-in-chief:
Israel will disappear – Ahmadinejad
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday predicted that Israel would not survive and that its allies would face the “boiling wrath” of the people if they continued to support the Jewish state.
“This regime (Israel) will be gone, definitely,” Ahmadinejad told demonstrators at a national rally to call for Jerusalem to be handed to the Palestinians.
“You (the Western powers) should know that any government that stands by the Zionist regime from now on will not see any result but the hatred of the people,” he added. “The wrath of the region’s people is boiling.”
Ahmadinejad, who has previously called for Israel to be “wiped from the map and described the Holocaust as a “myth,” said his warning was an “ultimatum”.
No religious wars in Europe and America for centuries? What’s the Troubles in Northern Ireland then? A mild tiff?
The war in the Middle East is between tinpot dictators supported by old Cold War policies/ oil money and/or dependency on oil (Mubarrak in Egypt, al-Saud in Arabia, Khomeini, Ahmedinejad etc), and those who have turned to radical islam as an alternative. The crux is, you want democracy in the Middle East, you’re going to have Hamas from Mauritania to Pakistan. If you don’t, you’ll have Irans everywhere, attacking other states over quibbles in religion. Nasty.
Red, there is also a “peaceful” organization called the Muslim Brotherhood, which I think she was actually talking about (as was I, and Spanky until he freaked out).
They are an Egyptian-based offshoot of Al-Qaeda that is very careful to preach only non-violent pro-Muslim reform in English, French, and German, while preaching (and practicing) the usual “kill the kuffar” rhetoric in Arabic. The loony left has pinned every hope for a diplomatic solution to the War on Terror on them, and their US offshoot, the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It’s like how Bill Clinton pinned all his hopes for his legacy on Yasser Arafat’s honest desire for peace, only to find out at Camp David that he actually had none.
Iranian Power structure 101 by an anti-imperialist,
Mehdi Kia
This is to pre-empt the leftist argument that “Ahamdinejad doesn’t have the real power and should be dismissed as a crazy and harmless loon”.
The loony left has pinned every hope for a diplomatic solution to the War on Terror on them, and their US offshoot, the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It’s like how Bill Clinton pinned all his hopes for his legacy on Yasser Arafat’s honest desire for peace, only to find out at Camp David that he actually had none.
Here is part of what I wrote on another blog regarding this issue. Sometimes I feel like a broken recored…LOL:
“We have to face the fact that the Islamic republic’s ideology and doctrine is and has been moving toward fulfilling its original goals for over 27 years now to be a Supremacist power bent on acquiring domination over the world as it’s required by Khomeinism who made no secret of his conviction that his supremacist ideology should subjugate not just America, but the entire world: “Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world… The second goal of this theofascist doctrine is fully on display via thousands of huge signs and murals throuought Iran which states “conquering Qudos (Jerusalem)” or returning Jerusalem to the Islamic ummah…its “rightful place”. Ahmadinejad recent tirades against Israel is nothing new in Iran. Iranians have heard it on a daily basis in the Islamic Republic since its very inception.
Iran is betting on revolutionary changes within the power structure of the Middle East to help it achieve its strategic goal. To this end, it makes use of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also of Lebanon, Syria, its influence in the Gulf region, and, above all, Iraq. This combination of hegemonic aspirations, questioning of the regional status quo, and a nuclear program is extremely dangerous.”
You can read the whole thing under “Red Violin”‘s comment, me.
http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/all_things_beautiful/2006/09/thuginchief_ahm.html#comments
I see that trolls never challenge what Sergey has to say. Is this because they know they cannot match his logic and his knowledge in a place more directly beseiged by Muslim terrorism?
I think it is cause his name looks Russian. Compatriots, you know.
To refer to a point Sergey made before, I believe the most good sect in Islam is the Sufi sect. If we give them enough firepower and military status, they may be able to spread that Sufism or at least defend it against the radicals and the extremists. Any belief system with a strong military power structure, has a lot easier of a time spreading that belief system.
What is up though with this tendency around here to link anyone who disagrees with the prevailing sentiments to be somehow automatically aligned with the foaming-at-the-mouth “workers of the world unite” crowd?
unknown blogger | Homepage | 10.20.06 – 12:39 pm | #
I think it has something to do with the Republican need for goose stepping and jackboots.
The crux is, you want democracy in the Middle East, you’re going to have Hamas from Mauritania to Pakistan. If you don’t, you’ll have Irans everywhere, attacking other states over quibbles in religion. Nasty.
The Real Batman | Homepage | 10.20.06 – 2:00 pm | #
Not if we get rid of the Hamas guys and bribe everyone else to our side. Sabotage Iran and kick them back over the HIndu Kush as well.
More implict threat by Ahamdinejad:
Iran warns of revenge over Israel
“The loony left has pinned every hope for a diplomatic solution to the War on Terror on them, and their US offshoot, the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).”
Wrong. The left is not pinning hope on a “solution” of this nature. The left simply realizes that the War on Terror should be a matter for our police and not our military.
The fanatical right has exagerated the threat for political purposes. Now the facist neocons are in a real bind: They hyped the threat and then did nothing to diminish the islamobogeyman threat. That should have been an extremely simple game to play but their failure is not surprising … Corruption and incompetence often go hand in hand.
Tatterdemalian: Here is what I found on the history of the Muslim Brotherhood
The left is decidedly impervious to facts and reason; continually politicizing the of suffering of the enslaved people around the world.
U.S. Policy toward Iran [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service]
Speaker: R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State
“The left is decidedly impervious to facts and reason; continually politicizing the of suffering of the enslaved people around the world.”
Do you really think in your wildest neocon dreams that anybody on this planet is ever going to see the Right as a defender of human rights? Seriously, are you a comedian?
Pete trolls in :”Do you really think in your wildest neocon dreams that anybody on this planet is ever going to see the Right as a defender of human rights?”
Americans have 200 plus years of it, Pete. You enjoy it; indeed abuse it. Anyway, when the RIGHT triumphs, we’re going to lock you in a schoolroom and teach you American history and the Founding Fathers for about 18 months. Then, off to Moscow, to enjoy reliving their museums which celebrate the ‘human rights’ of Soviet life. The ‘rights’ you are proclaiming, by the way.
Then I’d enlist you, and put you on your own in Iraq. Meet and greet those brother freedom fighters, you know.
Pete: Obviously, you already have a well-established point of view, and it’s pretty much that of the neo-caliphites. Reasoned argument and evidence means nothing to you if it doesn’t corroborate your self-serving view of things.
Then you resort to ad hominem attacks without knowing anything about me or my perspective on politics. I must admit I somehow envy you. Simple mindedness must be such a reassuring way of perceiving reality. You live in this one-dimensional and comforting universe of winning the House and the Senate back wihout ever considering how much grief, death and pain, the Democrat’s foreign policies have caused in the Middle East since Carter’s adminstrations insane idea of pitting and training the militant Islamists against the communists…The tragic part is that when someone like Bush wants to clean up your mess, you won’t let him and you decry incompetence in the most myopic way… without ever taking any responsibity or feeling a need to be held accountable for causing the mess in the first place.
As an Iranian ex-pat I can gurantee you that the mullahs learned from what happened to the Shah and how he was sold out by carter et al and now are playing the field in all sorts of places including infiltrating some high places in Western governments. The mullahs don’t play as “friends” to the West because they learned from what happened to the late Shah that only friends can be betrayed not enemies. I believe the West will be taught a good lesson by the mullahs and we won’t know it until it is too late if the Democrats get their way.
The tragic part is that when someone like Bush wants to clean up your mess, you won’t let him and you decry incompetence in the most myopic way… without ever taking any responsibity or feeling a need to be held accountable for causing the mess in the first place.
Please Red, be fair. It wasn’t Carter we’ve all seen shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, and alliances with tyrants and islamists to counterbalance communism certainly predates Carter. It has just been US policy, not purely Democratic policy.
The very link you posted above about the Muslim Brotherhood talks about CIA support for them in the 1950’s. Which democrat are you going to blame that on?
Furthermore, how has anyone “not let” Bush clean up anyone’s “mess”? Six years of majorities in the House and Senate, and a pliable (and now sympathetic) Supreme Court, he has had full reign, carte blanche, to prosecute the War on Terror as he sees fit. Yet somehow you seem to feel if we were just all on board with his agenda, everything would be over by now.
unknown: I grant the ME is too complex, too fractured by too many overlapping conflicts and contradictions for any one party or president to take the blame, however…The chickens are coming home to roost…and having experienced Islamic terroism first hand and witnessing how it has been nurtured for over twenty seven years systematically and in such an organized way with absolutely nothing to stop it, I can’t view it as just a law enforcment problem or something that will be solved by diplomacy. This is an ideological War more than anything else and the launch sequence was activated 27 years ago by Khomeini. I highly recommend reading Khomeini’s book, “The Islamic Governemnt”…
I have to go and feed my husband now.
Bush launched a preemptive war that preempted nothing. Get that through your impervious skull. His actions are the gravest of any American president and I can assure you that he will be impeached and convicted of war crimes.
Get used to saying the words President Pelosi.
“I believe the West will be taught a good lesson by the mullahs and we won’t know it until it is too late if the Democrats get their way.”
You believe? Did you also “believe” the WMD hype. Did you also “believe” we would be “greeted as liberators” in Iraq. Spare me the believing.
Any child knows that one should not attempt to fix a problem unless it is far more likely that you can fix it rather than making it worse. Physicians sum this up with the credo “first do no harm”. But our incompetent government knows nothing of this credo an instead plunges headlong into the middle east because they to “believe” they can fix it despite the evidence that they will most assuredly make the problem worse.
So how is it that you can support such incompetence?
pete: Consider yourself ignored from this moment forward.
Red
I would expect nothing but avoidance of reality from you.
Pete reminds me of a destitute and clearly deranged guy I used to walk by on my way to work everyday the year I lived in Venice. He had this eternal smile on his face, and was always mumbling a monotonous chant, a sort of dementia mantra, while he exposed a rotten limb covered with pus and flies. Everyday I would stop and give him my lunch bag and some money, and everyday he would shake his head in disapproval and exclaim: “No, no…io sonno contento, sonno contento”…and then proceed to gobble down my lunch. In time we became sort of friends, and whenever Matteo would see me walking towards him he would smile and repeat “No, no maese…Io sonno contento” and then eat whatever I had for him with desperate fruition.
You remind me of Matteo, and for more than one reason. You are a hopeless reactionary, but you spend all your time on this right wing blog proclaiming your ineffable and eternal state of ideological well being. How could that be? If you are so satisfied with your superior world-views, why waste your time with us? why come here everyday to gobble down whatever we dish out to you? I don’t need an answer from a clearly ill-informed and naive creature who’s incapble of independent thinking…
Some people are vampires Red, they derive their sustenance from hate, not love and compassion.
They need to find new sources of hate, in order to feel alive.
Ymarsakar: Indeed.
“you also “believe” we would be “greeted as liberators” in Iraq”
Red, pete has been shown at least once if not multiple times the links about the initial reaction of the Iraqis to the liberation (celebration). He is familiar with the mixed reaction of the Shia because they were left to be punished by Saddam after Desert Storm. He knows that a certain percentage would be angry (those in power, the Sunni, 30%, for example, which he inflates to be all the people). He knows the Kurds greeted the Coalition forces with celebration. He knows that people who initially welcomed the overthrow of Saddam would eventually become tired of and angry at troops who remain in their country.
In other words, he is a hate-filled reactionary who anachornistically distorts events just a few years old, hoping he can get you to swallow his rewrite of history.
Ymar has it right with “some people…”
Every thing you say is true!
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/24/121757/70
Good post. I agree and think this should be on the homepage. Everyone tries to appease too many different viewpoints it’s good to get a little bias sometimes. Thanks for the truth. It’s why I share these posts on my Facebook page. Lilliam Thomlinson