The so-called ‘War on Terror’ is a ludicrous concept. Terror is a tactic and you cannot wage war on a tactic. You can wage war on an ideology or a policy but you cannot wage war on a tactic. The enemy is not terror, it is the Jihadist campaign to conquer the entire world; it is a ‘War on Islamism’; or as PM David Cameron put it on August 29th 2014 “poisonous Islamist extremism”.
We will be serializing this detailed, insightful article by our friend and colleague Dr. Tsvi Bisk, PHD.
Fear of being accused of Islamophobia has inhibited policy makers and strategists from calling a spade a spade. But just as one could be against Nazism without being against German culture so one can be against Islamism without being against the Muslim religion. In the same vein, just as many scholars have noted that Nazism would not have been possible without some profound psychosis inherent to German culture, so it should be acceptable to speculate whether Islamism would have been possible without some profound psychosis inherent to Muslim culture. This is a legitimate question for non-Muslims to ask and absolutely vital for moderate Muslim intellectuals to ask and answer. Asking it does not make one a racist or an Islamphobe; just as asking a similar question about German culture would not make one a racist or a Germanophobe.
Islamism is an “ism” – a totalitarian ideology with an internally coherent worldview, much like Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. This ideology manifests itself in various Islamist movements which include the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Ayatollahs, Saudi Wahhabis, ISIS, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and so on. Unless and until we acknowledge that the present struggle is against Islamism, that it is a war of constitutionalism and civilization against totalitarianism and barbarism (much like the war against Nazism), we will never be able to develop a coherent and nuanced grand-strategy that will eventually result in victory.
Moderate Islamism is an oxymoron. There may be moderate Muslims but definitely no moderate Islamists. There is not a hair of ideological difference between the various Islamist groups. There are theological differences, policy distinctions, and diverse strategies and tactics (some, indeed, more moderate than others) but ideologically, all aim to subjugate other religions and worldviews and create an Islamist Caliphate.
North African Islamists are openly calling for an “Andalusian Spring” – to reclaim “occupied” Spain for Islam (and affirming a ‘right of return’ to Spain, similar to the Palestinian claim of a ‘right of return’ to Israel). Turkish Islamists (led by the current President) are calling for the reconstitution of the Ottoman Caliphate (which would also include the present state of Israel). Hamas strategists have been debating whether to support the “Andalusian Spring” now, or only after the destruction of Israel.
If western policy makers really think some Islamists are more moderate than others – that Hamas is more moderate than the Islamic Jihad or that the Muslim Brotherhood is more moderate than al Qaeda – then the ‘War on Islamism’ is in serious trouble. If, on the other hand, they mean exploiting the policy and strategy differences between various Islamists (some indeed more moderate than others) then the ‘War on Islamism’ can develop the same kind of grand strategic coherence that the war on Communism developed during the Cold War. Thankfully, this reality seems to be sinking in. On September 11th 2014 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) condemned Hamas as being as ‘evil’ as ISIS. “Both are evil, corrupt and vicious groups. Yet for some reason Hamas’s brutality doesn’t elicit the same horror from the international community. The hypocrisy is stunning”, he said.
The most obvious Islamic distinction is the theological one between Shia and Sunni. Sunni al Qaeda has condemned the Shiites as being worse than the Jews (can’t get much worse than that), while Sunni Pakistan persecutes its Shia minority unmercifully. Shiite Hezbollah is slaughtering Sunni opponents of Assad in Syria, and these Sunni opponents, having morphed into ISIS, are slaughtering Shiites in Iraq.
Actually, since WWII Muslims have killed many more Muslims than Israel, Europe and the United States combined. About 8.5 million Muslims have been killed by their fellow Muslims during this period. Following is a partial list:
- One million Muslims killed by Muslims in Afghanistan.
- 500,000 Muslims killed by Muslims in Somalia.
- Two million East Pakistani (Bangladesh) Muslims killed by West Pakistani Muslims in the 1971 Civil War.
- Three million Muslims killed by Muslims in Iran/Iraq war.
- 150,000 Muslims killed in Yemen by Egyptian and Saudi forces from 1963 to 1970.
- Other ‘minor’ body counts of Muslim’s killing Muslims include: Jordan (up to 25,000 Palestinians killed in Black September by Jordanian Muslims), Tajikistan (50,000 Muslims killed by fellow Muslims in civil war from 1992 to 1996), Syria (Assad senior killed 20,000 fellow Muslims in Hama in 1982 and Assad junior has killed over 200,000 fellow Muslims and caused millions of refugees in the current civil war), Iran killed thousands of opponents and religious minorities after the revolution including 10,000 Kurdish Muslims, Turkey has killed over 20,000 Kurdish Muslims, in Zanzibar in the 1960s African Muslims killed up to 17,000 Muslim Arabs.
This is not counting the 2.5 million non-Muslims slaughtered by Muslims during this period (the total killed by Muslims is over 11 million). By comparison Israel, in all its wars, operations and counter terrorism actions since 1948, has killed less than 60,000 Muslims (with over 20,000 Jews killed by Muslims)…
If you just can’t wait for the rest, go here
Tsvi Bisk is an American-Israeli futurist. He is the director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking (www.futurist-thinking.co.il/) and contributing editor for strategic thinking for The Futurist magazine. He is also the author of The Optimistic Jew: A Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century.
Tsvi is available as a lecturer, a scholar in residence, and consultant
