Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (No Series)

by Scheuer, Michael

  Dr. Madawi’s contention that bin Laden has initiated the return of Islam to each individual Muslim must be seen as extremely worrying both for the United States and for its Western allies, and for all Muslim regimes that have counted on their population’s respect for and obedience to the judgments and guidance of their ulema. If Dr. Madawi is correct, and I believe she is, the West may well be witnessing the Islamic reformation it has long predicted and yearned for, and which it has been sure would yield a pacifist, liberalized, and emasculated Islamic faith. In a century, the noted commentator on Islam Reza Aslan wrote in early 2006, “we may look back at bin Laden not only as a murderous criminal but also as one of the principal figures of an era that scholars are increasingly referring to as an Islamic reformation.” Clear in Mr. Aslan’s prediction is his belief that the eagerly awaited reformation will be in the direction of moderation preferred by the West and hoped for by Westernized Muslims, the sort of full eradication of religion from the public square that is now enforced by law in Europe and championed by the Democratic Party and the multiculturalists in the United States.29

  Let us say that Mr. Aslan and others are correct and there is a reformation under way, but let us also pose the question: “What if they are wrong about the direction that the reformation is going to take?” What if the direction suggested by Dr. Madawi, the direction agitated for by bin Laden and other Islamists, toward the individualization and personalization of Islam is where the reformation is headed? What if, to paraphrase the American historian Carl Becker, we are headed toward an environment in which “every Muslim is his own imam”? This reality would negate the rosy expectations of Mr. Aslan et al., which are largely shared by America’s governing elite and its ethnic, exiled, and expatriate advisers, all of whom seem to have forgotten that the hundred-years-of-war-producing Protestant Reformation of Messrs. Luther and Calvin was precisely an effort to restore the direct relationship between man and God and to eliminate the intermediary role played by the corrupt priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. Bin Laden, by slowly negating the ability of regime scholars to put a brake on popular enthusiasm for jihad, has ensured the continuing growth of the worldwide Sunni insurgency he is inciting.

  A final factor belongs in an analysis of the sort of Islamic reformation that is occurring, and that is the notion of liberation from tyranny, a subject that above all ought to be understandable to Americans with an awareness of their own history. I must admit that this is an issue to which I failed to give enough attention in either of my other books, especially in the second. Having documented bin Laden’s aim of inciting Muslims to overthrow Muslim regimes that do not rule by Islamic law, I left the emphasis on the replacement of the rule of apostates by the rule of the Koran. This surely remains the Islamists’ central goal in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, and elsewhere.

  Also in bin Laden’s rhetoric of urging the defeat of these governments, however, is a central theme that damns the regimes for their denial of basic natural rights, their corruption, their persecutions and tortures, their nepotism, and the cruelty they widely and liberally apply through security and police services. In some ways these claims, as I have previously said, are not entirely unlike those which Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence in the long litanylike indictment of Britain’s George III contained in the “He has done this” and “He has done that” section of the Declaration.30 Consider, for a moment, bin Laden writing in the late summer of 1996:

  Today we begin to talk, work, and discuss ways of rectifying what has befallen the Islamic world in general and the land of the two holy mosques [Saudi Arabia] in particular. We want to study the ways which could be used to rectify matters and restore rights to their owners as people have been subjected to grave danger and harm to their religion and their lives…

  The same thing has befallen the people in industry and agriculture, the cities and the villages, and the people in the desert and the rural areas. Everyone is complaining about almost everything. The situation in the land of the two holy mosques is like a giant volcano about to erupt and destroy heresy and corruption, whatever their sources. The explosions of Riyadh [November 1995] and Khobar [June 1996] were only a small indication of that torrential flood resulting from the bitter suffering, repression, coercion, great injustice, disgraceful debauchery, and poverty [imposed by the al-Saud family].

  They [the people] feel that God is tormenting them because they kept quiet about the regime’s injustice and illegitimate actions, especially its failure to have recourse to the Shariah, its confiscation of the people’s legitimate rights, the opening of the land of the two holy mosques to the American occupiers, and the arbitrary jailing of the true ulema, heirs of the Prophet.31

  If I am correct that bin Laden is appealing to Muslims to seek what George W. Bush has correctly called the earnest desire of all people to live freer lives,32 then the reality is that the al-Qaeda chief is tapping not only into hatred of U.S. foreign policy and its impact and an almost genetic eagerness to defend Islam against infidel attack, but also into the desire of Muslims to attain what Jefferson called the “inalienable rights” that the Founders believed to be hard-wired into human beings simply because they are human beings. That is, bin Laden is urging Muslims to liberate themselves from tyranny in order to attain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in terms that are compatible with their Islamic faith and not dictated by effete but brutal and corrupt tyrannies like the al-Sauds. And while it is true that the record of Islamists after gaining power is a sorry and frequently bloody one that does not reflect the ideals of the American Enlightenment,33 that does not alter the mobilizing and motivating power of the idea of striving to create an environment where Muslims can exercise their natural rights—however they believe Allah has defined those rights—in place of the screw, the rack, and the electric cattle prod; unimaginable royal corruption that impoverishes them; imprisonment without charge; and a religion distorted to protect tyranny. If a component in bin Laden’s rhetoric of incitement urges Muslims to liberate themselves from those attributes of coercion common to all police states, Muslim or Western, then his appeal will be considerably wider and more durable than we—or at least I—had previously estimated. He will strike a resonant chord not only with those who share his piety, but also with those who are nationalists and those who are enraged by the seemingly permanent and arbitrary denial of the natural rights that our Founders believed came from God and on which they predicated the American Revolution and then entrenched in the U.S. Constitution.

  Dealing with a World Aflame

  The world, six years after 9/11, is increasingly awash with Muslims angry and hateful about the impact of U.S. and Western policies and actions on the Islamic world, and the U.S. government and its allies seem oblivious to the enemies they are making. Preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington and the NATO states only sporadically focus on the growth of Islamic militancy in other areas of the world, and when they do, they tend to look at each as an isolated problem; for example, “the Somalia problem” or the “Thai insurgency problem.” Underappreciated is the reality that there is a rising tide of anger against Western actions across the Islamic world, and that thanks to those actions—and to bin Laden’s leadership, al-Qaeda’s military attacks, Arabic satellite television, and the omnipresent Internet—the Muslim world is increasingly beginning to think of itself as not a collection of individual nation-states but as a unity—the ummah or community of believers demanded by Allah, launched by the Prophet Muhammad, defended by Saladin, and championed by bin Laden and other Islamist leaders. This rising sense of community is nowhere near to producing the homogenous Islamofascist caliphate so dear to the hearts of scare-mongering neoconservatives, Israeli politicians, and the media shills of each, but a worldwide Muslim anger is taking shape in different ways in different parts of the world. Some of this anger is dangerous, even potentially fatal to the United States, but much of it is not; some of it can be neutralized or defeated by A
merica, but most of it cannot. That which cannot be blunted by America, however, either will fall or can be shifted to fall on others and need not be a national-security concern for us. One case, Europe, will be of deep and abiding concern to Americans, but it may be the one area of the world where we can do the least to help against Islamist forces.

  For the foreseeable future, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan will be the three major producers of Islamist fighters to be confronted by the United States, its allies, and the incumbent governments of the Muslim world. Afghanistan was in that category before 9/11, but Pakistan and Iraq are there only because of U.S. actions after 9/11. The relevant actions here were not the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but rather that we failed to win and get out of either place and instead stayed on until we were defeated. Afghanistan will return to Taliban-like rule, and Iraq will be ruled by Islamist Shias or Sunnis, and both will remain unstable. Pakistan’s ability to avoid Islamist rule weakens with each passing month and now largely depends on how much longer the U.S.-led coalition occupies Afghanistan, which in turn depends only on how long it takes U.S. forces to find and kill bin Laden and his lieutenants. Minus the U.S. and its allies, Musharraf would be able to fully support the Taliban and its allies, destroy Karzai’s government, and reestablish Pashtun rule in Afghanistan. This process would yield a Pakistan-friendly, insular Islamist government in Kabul, the chance of gradually quieting the fierce anti-Islamabad discontent in the Pashtun tribal areas, and the recreation of a balance of power between Pakistan and India. Thus the possibility of avoiding an Islamistrun, nuclear-armed Pakistan remains, but it is a wasting chance and one that almost entirely depends on Musharraf being able to hold the Pakistani polity together under the Bhutto-caused imposition of emergency rule and the United States doing what it should have done before the year 2002 was out—kill bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and as many of their followers as possible and then leave immediately.34

  Common sense and quick action may limit the damage done by U.S. policies and actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it is hard to see the end of the damage flowing out of Iraq. Whether Shias or Sunnis emerge on top, Iraq will remain unstable, unreconstructed economically, and a cauldron in which neighboring countries will intervene clandestinely to protect and pursue their national and sectarian interests. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing for the United States—Muslims killing Muslims instead of Americans is a goal to be aggressively sought—but we will have to put up with some losses. Saudi Arabia and the other Arabian Peninsula states probably will remain stable by promoting, funding, and facilitating civil war in Iraq and posing as the protectors of Sunnis there and everywhere. These actions will add another strong element contributing to the containment of Iran, as they will force Tehran to bleed itself in blood and treasure to support Iraqi Shias even as the clock ticks out the final decade of its reliable oil reserves and its return to Third World impoverishment.35

  For Jordan and Syria, however, the jig is up. Jordanians do not strongly support King Abdullah II’s Hashemite monarchy, which has earned a substantial dollop of additional hatred by supporting the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and recently cracking down yet again on domestic Islamist political parties. The long-suppressed Jordanian Islamist community is large and restive—witness its support and admiration for the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—and an unstable Iraq will serve as the base from which al-Qaeda and other groups will infiltrate and stage attacks in Jordan. It is difficult to see Jordan surviving in its present form or with its present level of stability after the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq ends, without a drastic change in the regime’s authoritarianism in which Washington acquiesces.36 In Syria, Bashir al-Assad has never had the iron grip on the country that his father did, and so the Islamist fervor created in Syria by the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Washington’s humiliation of the young al-Assad by forcing Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon has emboldened domestic Islamists. Because of the strength of Syria’s military and security services, the Islamists will not have an easy time carrying the day, but they will be accommodated. Thus, Syria can no longer be counted on as a bulwark against Islamist militancy. As noted earlier, the U.S. invasion of Iraq destroyed the bulwarks provided by Saddam and al-Assad.37 What does all of this mean for Lebanon and Israel? Who knows, but very often two and two does sum to four.38 Lebanon is already dealing with renewed civil strife, and what appears to be the growing al-Qaeda presence in the country’s north suggests that bin Laden’s organization is already projecting its forces and influences westward from Iraq. And needless to say, Israel’s long-term strategic outlook—thanks mainly to its “friends” among America’s neoconservatives—has seldom looked dimmer or grimmer.

  Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan are all potential disasters, but only in Pakistan is there a chance for the United States to protect its interests and then only if it can wind up its Afghan calamity both with rapidity and with the corpses of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. The other four states are likely to become involved in an intracivilization conflict in the Muslim world. That conflict need not involve the United States in warfare, so long as oil supplies are not disrupted and Washington is wise enough to avoid allowing the Israelis to ensnare us into fighting their fight. That, alas, is a very long shot.

  The United States will have many other countries of concern as the tide of Islamic anger rises, but few will either require or allow direct military intervention. I will look briefly at what I believe are the six most worrisome sites for America: the North Caucasus, because of the adjacent Caspian Sea oil reserves and the base it provides Islamists for proselytizing and nuclear procurement in Russia; Bangladesh, because it has the potential to be the East Asian hub for jihadism and a threat to India’s stability; Nigeria, where Christian-vs.-Muslim violence is rife and the U.S. economy’s interests are hostage to an increasingly unstable situation in the country’s oil fields; Thailand, because of U.S. military commitments to the Thai regime; and Somalia, where the United States has no genuine national-security interests but where Washington’s involvement might help trigger the spread of jihad across much of sub-Saharan Africa. The sixth site is Europe, which is many ways the most important to the United States and, at the same time, the place where we can—and should—do the least to help.

  The North Caucasus: Russia’s military has fought two wars in Chechnya since 1994, losing more than 6,600 soldiers. Moscow lost the first, but in the second it has slowed the pace of fighting there; although the Chechen rebel leader, Dokku Dumarov, recently declared the North Caucasus an “Islamic emirate” and declared war on Britain, Israel, and the United States. At this writing, the Russians maintain close to 100,000 military, security, and police personnel in Chechnya.39 As the Russians made some progress in Chechnya, however, the Islamists’ ideology and fighters have spread and are taking root in several other of the former Soviet republics in the North Caucasus, including Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, and Ingushetia.40 Particularly worrying for Moscow is the increasing Islamist presence in Dagestan; it is historically an “ancient Muslim region,” is the largest and most populous North Caucasus republic, and controls a large part of the Caspian Sea coast, giving Moscow access to the world’s largest untapped oil reserves in the Caspian Basin. In Ingushetia, too, Moscow is faced with a Muslim population that has long supplied Islamist fighters to the Chechen insurgents and in recent years has developed what C. J. Chivers of The New York Times has called “a potent anti-Moscow insurgency of its own.” Indeed, Moscow sent two thousand Interior Ministry troops there in July 2007, but the fighting continues and is “threatening to ignite a full-fledged guerilla war there.”41

  The overall security situation in the Caucasus is deteriorating.42 This reality and the region’s historically porous borders allow the entry of Arab mujahedin into the region; Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, for example, has long been a hub for Arab fighters, and Moscow puts heavy culpability on Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula states for funding Islamist insurge
nt organizations, allowing their nationals to fight alongside the Chechens and others in the region, and sending Islamist NGOs to the North Caucasus to inculcate Wahhabism among the inhabitants. The smuggling-friendly borders also facilitate the ability of Islamist missionaries to enmesh themselves among Russia’s current Muslim population of between twenty and twenty-five million, which could grow to a minimum of 20 percent of Russia’s population by 2020,43 and for al-Qaeda and other Islamists to attempt to purchase or steal nuclear components or devices from the Former Soviet Union’s (FSU) still-unsecured nuclear-weapons arsenal. In the summer of 2006, for example, Georgian authorities arrested a Russian national who was in the country to sell what the Georgians described as 100 grams of bomb-grade uranium (U-235) “to a Muslim man from ‘a serious organization’” for one million dollars. That arrest followed a similar apprehension in 2003. In both cases, the quantities of uranium seized were too small to make a bomb but had been enriched to nearly the 90 percent level, which is ideal for bomb-making.44

  For the United States, growing domestic insecurity and Islamist militancy in the North Caucasus poses several significant problems. First, the continuing failure of Washington and Moscow to fully secure the FSU’s nuclear arsenal encourages al-Qaeda and other Islamist organizations to keep trying to purchase or steal components for a weapon or a complete device. With porous borders, smuggling abounding, and rife corruption, the North Caucasus is an ideal base from which to reach into Russia for acquisition purposes. This instability also has the potential of disrupting the development of energy resources in the Caspian Basin, at a time when U.S. energy requirements continue to grow. Finally, the flow of Islamist missionaries into Russia—one expert estimates that in 2007 there were more than one thousand—promises to quicken the radicalization of the country’s already large Muslim population and accelerate the pace at which Russians are converting to Islam. Together these factors will increase the political power of Russian Muslims at a time when the country’s population is rapidly declining—148 million in 1982 to an expected 130 million in 2015. Russia’s Muslim population, moreover, far outpaces the population-maintaining fertility rate of 2.1 live births per woman, while the overall Russian population’s fertility rate is 1.14.45 As in European countries, the United States will one day have to deal with a Russia whose diplomatic positions and national interests are defined in increasing measure by the demands of its Muslim peoples.