The limited logic of reform in the Islamic world

■"Concern Rises in Pakistan Of a War Without End: Fear that American policies are fueling militancy," by David Rohde, New York Times, 1 November 2004, p. A10.

The Pakistan military on the global war on terrorism:

"O.K., tactically we are getting hold of people here and here and here, but then what's the end?" asked General Sultan, the chief spokesman for Pakistan's military. "Until the time you shut down the factory, you will keep picking up the products. You don't shut down the factory until you resolve the disputes."

This is brilliant code for . . . it's all America's fault. This is (a) complete bullshit and (b) a sign of the limited logic we can expect to get from most of the our Islamic "allies" in this global war on terror.

"Terror would go away," we are told, "if only you'd give up Israel!" It's our support for Israel that accounts for the failed and/or rigidly authoritarian regimes that dominate the Muslim regions of the Middle East and Western Asia. It accounts for why these societies just don't "get" globalization and therefore do so badly at it. It accounts for the lack of broadband economic connectivity between Islamic societies and the global economy. It generates the social tensions arising from exposure to the richer, freer, more decadent West via globalization's creeping embrace of the region. It generates the reality that the only thing the Islamic governments have proven themselves adept at is both repression and hiring Western companies to exploit their oil reservesóand nothing else.

Yes, if we only stopped supporting "aggressive" Israel, then there would be no transnational terrorism, because there would be no social unrest in the region, no broad dissatisfaction with living under repressive regimes, no unhappiness over a lack of economic opportunity, useful education, or effective freedom of speech . . . or even women's rightsófor that matter. No, all of these problems pale in comparison to the great evil done by Israel and abetted by the United States. If the U.S. would only abandon Israel and show more "respect" to Islamic regimes, then Bin Laden and company would disappear from the landscape, never to be heard from again.

Now, I am not doing these arguments justice, because we are told by Islamic regimes that if there was a "broad-based American-led military, political and social effort to eliminate Muslim political grievances and poverty," then regimes like Pakistan could effectively combat Islamic fundamentalists. How so? Such radicals would be stripped of their appeal then.

Right. Osama would lay down his arms in his campaign to dislodge the House of Saud once Israel was reined in, and the Pakistani government would somehow magically regain legitimacy across large swaths of its country-side that it currently does not control, because . . .hey! All the insurgents and warlords and terrorists would submit to their rule once the Palestinian question was solved!

People like to talk about America's oil addiction somehow blinding us to the reality of the Middle East we've had a hand in creating, but tell me whether that "addiction" and "blindness" is anywhere near the sort of self-delusion we constantly hear coming out of these retrograde elites ruling over the region.

Let me tell you, I have no trouble whatsoever understanding Bin Laden's raging contempt for these regimes, even as I find his proposed solution even more loathsome than the current reality.