[Originally published in The Herald Of Randolph.]
In late March, a little noticed, almost unreported event took place in the Middle East. The government of Qatar forced out the moderate leadership of one of Islam’s most popular, moderate websites and is reshaping it into a religiously more conservative media outlet. They have started by running news releases instead of the moderate and diverse content that the site, IslamOnline, was known for.
The outcome of our ongoing struggle with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism lies with the moderates of Islam. They are the swing vote in the fundamentalist conflict with western advocates of liberal democracy. Unfortunately, as a result of our own policies, the Muslim world is now becoming more hostile to us.
The Koran stipulates that “The only reward for those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land….”
Moderate Muslims today are faced with a real dilemma. The Koran explicitly forbids the murder of Muslims. Thus, killing a believing Muslim in a terrorist attack would constitute “corruption on earth and war against Allah”. Al Qaida members could be penalized under the Koran for making war on Allah.
One of the main reasons Al Qaida’s reputation has declined in the eyes of moderate Muslims is that they have killed Muslims both purposefully and indiscriminately, in violation of the Koran. The perfect example of this decline is the Sunni Awakening movement, which began in Iraq’s western Anbar Province in 2006. One of the main motivating influences behind that movement was Sunni revulsion against the Muslim-murdering activities of Al Qaida in Iraq.
We Americans should hope that this fact would turn moderate Muslims throughout Islam against Al Qaida. Unfortunately, that has not been the case, simply because it is clear to those moderates that American forces have also been killing Muslims since they invaded Iraq in 2003, a practice equally condemned by the Koran.
Add in the permanent grievances of most moderate Muslims against us—the military invasion and occupation of a Muslim country, American support of corrupt and brutal Muslim regimes, and their perception that we are biased against them in favor of Israel, and the Muslims are in a quandary. Whom should they condemn? If we could mitigate or remove those grievances against us, the moderates would be free to turn completely against the Al Qaidas of the world. And they almost certainly would.
The real problem right now is that almost everything we are doing in the Middle East increases moderate Muslim anger and resentment against us.
We are occupying Iraq and trying to do the same in Afghanistan. Our primary tool for these activities is our military establishment, which, however mightily our military leaders try, and they are trying mightily, is a very blunt instrument in those two countries. There is nothing rapier-like about a 19-yearold marine who is being shot at! Artillery and drone aircraft are indiscriminate weapons. They kill non-combatants, which has a particularly provocative effect on Muslims.
We are trying to “export democracy” to countries where there are already functioning systems of governance, very different from ours, that are reflections of the belief structure provided by Islam. We continue to insist that “free elections” as in Iraq and Afghanistan are somehow evidence of the inexorable march of democracy across the world. That is self-delusional.
At the same time, in direct and observable contrast to our lofty pronouncements about the spread of democracy, we support regimes across Islam that are repressive, brutal and exploitative of their people. How can we look anything other than hypocritical to Muslims, particularly those moderate Muslims who, under more benign American policy, could be in our corner?
Finally, America has pursued a foreign policy that has supported Israel to Israel’s own detriment. We have provided an impermeable umbrella to Israel with cash, armaments and UN vetoes that have permitted Israel to develop its own policies without any consideration of the realities that exist in her neighborhood.
The result has been an Israeli population, reinforced by emigrants from the former Soviet Union, that has grown increasingly distant from the democratic, Jewish state envisaged by Israel’s Zionist founders and closer and closer to a demographic reality that, without a two-state solution, will eliminate either Jewishness or democracy.
Our policy in the region is not working for us or anyone else. It never has because we see the world as we would like it to be, not as it really is. As long as that continues, we will never get it right.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He is a former longtime resident of Brookfield.
