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It’s remarkable how bad we are at strategic thinking:

The US strategy was to bring democracy to Iraq and by doing so, inspire democratic revolutions throughout the Arab world.

Although inspiring, it was wrong first and foremost because it was predicated on ignoring one of the basic dictates of strategy. It failed to recognize that there were other forces in the region.

It failed to anticipate that every US move would be countered by an Iranian move. And in failing to recognize this basic strategic truth — even though it has been staring them in the face — the Americans aggressively pursued a strategy that became more and more irrelevant as time went by. — Caroline Glick

I’m not going to analyze the (wrong) decision to go to war in Iraq or the mistakes made afterward. I want to talk about strategic thinking and leadership in general.

There’s a kind of arrogance that often characterizes Western leaders: they think that they are the only actors. In their minds their opponents only absorb whatever is done to them, and don’t have the ability to respond creatively or to anticipate our moves.

Yes, I know that a great deal of energy supposedly goes into thinking about “if we do x, then they will do y, after which we can do z…” etc. But it doesn’t seem to show in practice. The debacle in Iraq is a perfect example. Or take Israel allowing the return of Yasser Arafat in 1993, and its evacuations of South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did they think the other side would do?

The problem is that policy in a democracy is made by politicians. By definition they are creatures of appearance rather than reality, of the next election rather than the longer term.

The developing struggle between the West and radical Islam is characterized by an unbalance of forces. We have a huge advantage in brute power. The US military can vaporize anything anywhere in the world on command — think about what a single aircraft carrier can do, even if limited to conventional weapons. On the other hand, the enemy has a different kind of advantage: they are patient (they think in historic terms, not only the next election) and their leaders are strategic thinkers.

Democracies select their leaders by their ability to be attractive to the appropriate coalitions. Dictatorships and terrorist groups vet them through a brutal process of intrigue. It’s only accidental — especially today, when candidates are sold to the public like long-distance carriers — when a US president happens to be capable of strategic thought. On the other hand, you don’t get to be the leader of Iran or al Qaeda — or Russia, for that matter — by being strategically challenged.

Maybe we should require candidates to demonstrate an ability at chess along with public speaking?

On 9/11, I thought: that’s it. Whoever did this is going to find out that they pulled the tail of a gigantic tiger. We are going to tear them up like we did the Nazis and Imperial Japanese.  But that isn’t the way it turned out, and the reason seems to be a failure of leadership — primarily, a failure to think strategically, but not only that.

I am not suggesting that we give up our democratic process in order to produce more effective leaders. We certainly don’t want an Ahmadinejad or a Stalin, regardless of their chess-playing skills (Stalin may or may not have been a strong player, though Soviet citizens were told that he was). But we need to stop electing people for stupid reasons, like ‘I would like to have a beer with this guy’, or ‘it’s time for a black president’.

We are entering a critical period for the West. US leadership will have a decisive effect on the outcome. Here is what I’m looking for in the next president (and may he come speedily in our day):

A sense of history: Middle Easterners — Arabs and Israelis both — are better at this than us.

Strength of character: what JFK learned from the Bay of Pigs: tell the ‘experts’ to go to Hell.

Involvement: think Truman or Nixon. Like them or not, they took the job seriously.

And of course, the ability to play chess better than the Persians, Arabs, Russians and Chinese.

Technorati Tags: strategy, radical Islam, leadership, chess

I recently had a conversation with a friend, who happens to be a lawyer. It went something like this:

Me: [argues that the Ground Zero mosque should not be built].

Friend: You are a bigot.

Me: Objection! Counsel can’t answer my arguments, so she resorts to ad hominem abuse!

Friend: I don’t have to listen to your arguments. You have no credibility because you are a bigot.

Yesterday, Eugene Robinson began his syndicated column by calling opposition to the mosque “Lies, distortions, jingoism, xenophobia…”. Then he conjured up the demons of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. End of story — it’s all a bunch of Republican political opportunism.

So this is the level of discourse we’ve reached on this subject!

It may be a waste of time in today’s overheated atmosphere, but I’m going to try to explain exactly how I’m ‘bigoted’. You can decide whether I’m more or less the same as the guys who burn crosses and desecrate graves.

Although I find the principles of Sharia which hold that there is an essential difference in the rights due to men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims, repugnant — I do not therefore hate Muslims.

Although many of the suras in the Quran apparently call for Muslims to be violent and hateful, I do not judge Muslims on the basis of this. The book dates from the Seventh Century, and there is plenty of unpleasant stuff in the Bible, too.

Here’s the problem: Islam’s holy writings lend themselves to an interpretation which includes an ideology and an expansionist political program, a program which calls upon Muslims to expand the lands under Islamic control by violence, subversion or both. While not all Muslims subscribe to this interpretation, it is by no means marginal. There is a struggle today in the Islamic world between this kind of radical Islamism — represented by the Iranian regime on the Shia side and the Muslim Brotherhood among Sunnis — and more conservative forms of Islam.

Barry Rubin and others explain that radical Islamism is no less a legitimate interpretation than less aggressive ones. It does not represent a ‘hijacking’ of some ‘real’ version of Islam, which is warm and fuzzy (this appears to be President Obama’s point of view). It is a competing interpretation, and one which has made major gains in the Muslim world in the past sixty years or so. There is reason to worry that it is rapidly becoming the dominant, normative form of Islam today.

This is the version of Islam which holds that an infidel has three options: conversion, submission or death. This is the version of Islam which inspired the Hamas Covenant. And its ideological component has no counterpart in any other major religion today. It pretty much corners the market on intolerance and bigotry.

Note that radical Islamists believe that it is honorable to deceive infidels in time of war (and they believe that they are at war with the West). So one can be excused for some degree of suspicion directed at someone like the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has refused to condemn Hamas. That’s sort of a litmus test, in my opinion — one which organizations like CAIR, ISNA, etc. regularly fail, by the way.

So there you are. I am opposed  to an ideological and political program that is considered the true interpretation of Islam by many Muslims, including some who claim to be ‘moderate’. I am concerned that this program is promoted by violent terrorism, by subversion and a combination of both. I see it as a real and present threat — to Israel, to Europe and to America.

Anyone who can explain how this makes me a ‘bigot’ is invited to do so.

Technorati Tags: Islam, radical Islamism, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Ground Zero mosque, Barack Obama

Iftar dinner hosted by President Obama at the White House last night, at which he voiced support for Ground Zero mosque.

As everyone knows by now, President Barack Obama has come out squarely in favor of building a mosque and Islamic center two blocks from ground zero:

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country,” Obama told an intently listening crowd gathered at the White House Friday evening to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he said. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable…”

While insisting that the place where the twin towers once stood was indeed “hallowed ground,” Obama said that the proper way to honor it was to apply American values.

The logic of the case includes several strands. There are countervailing ‘commandments’ here. There is the constitutional principle that demands that we allow free exercise of religion, and there is the moral principle that it’s wrong to tear open the wounds of people mourning their dead.

There is the symbolic issue that this structure in this place is seen — by many observers on both sides of the conflict — as representing the victory of Islam over the United States.

There are practical consequences. Those Muslims who do favor violent jihad against the West — and even those who favor more peaceful conquest (but conquest nevertheless) — will be encouraged.

The argument from “religious freedom” is seriously weakened by the fact that opponents to the mosque do not object to the building of mosques in general, do not object to the building of mosques in New York City, and do not even object to the building of mosques in lower Manhattan. They object only to a mosque in this specific location.

Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi compared the project to building a Serbian Orthodox church at Srebrenica:

Even supposing good intentions on the part of those behind the project, one could ask why they did not simply choose a site in Manhattan somewhat further away from Ground Zero. A suitable analogy would be as follows: how would Bosnian Muslims feel about proposing the construction of a Serbian Orthodox church at Srebrenica? Indeed, there are many parallels between the Srebrenica Massacre of 1995 and 9/11. The former was the killing of over 8000 Bosnian Muslims by Serb militias who justified their aggression on the pretext of defending their faith. In reality, however, the goal was to create a Greater Serbia by ethnically cleansing or exterminating Bosniaks and Croats from regions of the former Yugoslavia with mixed populations.

Similarly, the jihadists who perpetrate atrocities such as 9/11 purport to act in self-defense, but actually seek the eventual subjugation of the world under Shari’a. This is apparent from the declarations and writings of the leaders of jihadist groups. A case in point is Osama Bin Laden himself. When addressing Westerners, he normally justifies his actions by naming the usual grievances (e.g. the presence of Western troops in the Arabian Peninsula, U.S. support for Israel etc.), but when appealing to Muslims, he frequently invokes the idea of jihad, whether offensive or defensive, as a religious obligation.

In addition, there are reasons to worry about the intentions behind the project. Al-Tamimi continues,

Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that Imam Abdul Rauf, the chief proponent of the mosque project, would do nothing effective to counter the broad elements in classical fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) that justify the doctrines of jihad as explained by Osama Bin Laden and Faisal Shahzad above. Indeed, in a 2000 treatise on Shari’a, and a 2004 book entitled ‘What’s Right With Islam’, he has praise for figures such as the Sufi jurist Al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyyah and Al-Wahhab, all of whom formulated rationales for the notion of jihad as warfare to expand the realm of ‘Dar Al-Islam’.

He furthermore hails the implementation of Shari’a in society, including in America itself. Thus, he is no better than the evasive Tariq Ramadan, who is wrongly lionized as a genuine moderate. After all, praising uncritically thinkers who justified noxious doctrines of warfare and subjugation of non-Muslims in writings intended for Muslims is no way to counter Islamism in any form, as it is their works that have been made so readily available by Saudi petrodollars.

The principle of religious freedom, like any constitutional — or for that matter, moral — principle is not absolute. It is always necessary to consider  countervailing principles, possible consequences and facts, that in any given case might mitigate the application of the principle.

The President, however, has chosen to present his decision in the most demagogic manner possible, as upholding the right of American Muslims to practice their religion, when clearly not one Muslim would have his rights limited if the mosque were built a mile away. This from the man who denies Jews the right to build homes in East Jerusalem!

He has elided the question of honoring the victims of 9/11, and did not even discuss the very legitimate issue of Imam Abdul Rauf’s ideology and connections, as well as the funding of the project.

He didn’t have to take this road. He could have continued to say that it was a local issue, to be decided in New York City. But apparently he did some polling and calculated that those who object to the mosque are primarily already in the opposition, and that his ‘courageous’ stand against ‘bigotry’ would help him with his base.

It will also get him the affection of Muslims around the world, perhaps even more so than his obnoxious Cairo speech did. They will understand the subtext of this issue far better than most Americans seem to, at least today. The AP item included this:

Entering the highly charged election-year debate, Obama surely knew that his words would not only make headlines in the U.S. but be heard by Muslims worldwide. The president has made it a point to reach out to the global Muslim community, and the over 100 guests at Friday’s dinner in the State Dining Room included ambassadors and officials from numerous nations where Islam is observed, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.

It remains to be seen if the issue will grow political legs in the US, legs which will turn around and kick his butt out of office. I devoutly hope so.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Ground Zero Mosque

Here are four simple questions that demand answers in the ongoing discussion about Palestinian Arab rights, wants and needs:

There’s lots of criticism  of Israel for being an ethnically-based nation state. But the proposed ‘Palestine’ is defined as an Arab state, and if you ask Hamas, a Muslim Arab state. Why isn’t this also a problem for the critics of Israel?

Over and over again, it’s made clear that every last Jewish settlement must be evacuated from land that will become part of ‘Palestine’. Palestinian Arabs also vehemently reject any population exchange proposal, insisting that they will never give up their right to live anywhere between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. In fact, such proposals are not taken seriously by most Israelis, who believe that they would violate the rights of Israeli Arabs. So isn’t the Palestinian demand for a Jew-free state a racist or antisemitic one?

Arab supporters claim that Israel ethnically cleansed its territory of Arabs in 1948.  In reality, almost of the Arabs that left did so voluntarily, as a result of the war which can reasonably be blamed on the Nazi Mufti, al-Husseini, and the territorial ambitions of Egypt and especially Jordan (see Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed). Some Arabs, particularly those in the villages along the Tel-Aviv – Jerusalem road, were forcibly removed from their homes. But every last Jew that lived in the area conquered by Jordan, including East Jerusalem, was expelled at gunpoint. Here’s a contemporary photo:

Jewish families being evacuated from the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948. Photo by John Phillips, LIFE.

Palestinians and their supporters continually complain about ‘settlers’ in ‘Arab East Jerusalem’. But given the above, we have to ask: what makes East Jerusalem ‘Arab’?

Palestinian Arabs claim that they are a ‘people’ with a long history who were dispossessed from their land by the Zionists and now are fighting to get their rights back. But there was never a Palestinian state and wasn’t even a geographical entity corresponding to ‘Palestine’ until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. True Palestinian nationalism — as opposed to more general Arab nationalism — didn’t develop at all until the first part of the 20th century by the earliest estimates (Segev), and didn’t become a force among the Arabs living in the region until 1967. So isn’t it a reaction to the Jewish state?

These and similar questions make Palestinian advocates furious, since by (their) definition Zionists are evil colonialist, racist oppressors and the Arabs are morally superior oppressed third-world victims. We are not allowed to make comparisons like this. But if one believes in human rights, self-determination, etc., then they should be answered.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Arabs