No truces will be offered to us in the Long War

OP-ED: "The Grand Delusion: The folly of withdrawal," by David Brooks, New York Times, 28 September 2006, p. A23.

OP-ED: "Infidel Documents: Intelligence, jihadists and the Iraq war debate," by Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal, 28 September 2006, p. A16.

One of the hardest points to get across regarding the Long War is this: globalization is on the offensive in the Islamic world, and radical Salafi jihadists are on the counter-offensive. Bush threw fuel on this firefight by sending troops into both Afghanistan and Iraq, but he neither controls this struggle nor defines it.

If Bush, or his successor, pulls us out of either (and eventually some pullout will make sense, it's just hard to imagine those conditions right now, or their appearance on our current course), the Salafis' aggressive and global counter-offensive will continue, because globalization's penetrating advance into the Islamic world will not be stopped. It cannot be called off by the West, because it's now driven as much by the East, and the East isn't interested in returning to the underdevelopment of yesterday: they've gotten their taste of the better life, and they want more--now.

Remember the Economist's recent survey of the emerging markets: the world has never faced the sort of long-term stimulus of this magnitude. Over the next couple of decades, we'll witness the global economy growing and expanding as never before.

You think the Salafis are irrepressible, but their nihilism is no match for the greed for a better life that's been unleashed across half of humanity recently. Just because we can't get the Old Core of Europe and Japan much interested in this fight, don't assume the New Core pillars like India, Russia and China won't defend their new standards of living and economic freedom. Saddled as we are with a foreign policy elite from a distant era, we have yet been unable to tap the serious sources of new power in the global economy. But we won't suffer this sort of strategic stupidity for much longer--the pain will simply grow too great.

But back to the main point: there is no un-offending strategic posture we can take in the Long War. There is no place to pull back to and hide within. There is no retreat possible, because the Salafis won't stop. And they cannot stop because the clock is ticking on the societies on which they still dream of turning the clock back: globalization will inevitably remake the Middle East over the next twenty years. You can say they'll keep it out, and they indeed will try, but their youth will be both seduced and enraged by this historical process. Either way, they'll be revolting--to their parents or against their rulers.

But there is no peaceful path in the Long War so long as so many within Islam feel they'll lose their collective identity by embracing globalization's many promises and perils.

Ajami:

These warriors have a utopia--an Islamic world ruled by their own merciless brand of the faith. With or without Iraq, the work of "cleansing" Islam's world would continue to rage on.

And those efforts will only grow more intense in coming years, because the "polluting" and "corrupting" influences will only grow stronger--especially among the young. And since the young dominate Islamic societies, the notion that somehow this huge cohort can be insulated and kept "pure" is unimaginably naive.

But listen to Brooks:

... more and more people are falling for the Grand Delusion--the notion that if we just leave the extremists alone, they will leave us alone. On the right, some believe that if we just stop this Wilsonian madness of trying to introduce democracy into the Arab world, we can return to an age of stability and balance. On the left, many people can't seem to fathom an enemy the U.S. isn't somehow responsible for. Others think the entire threat has been exaggerated by Karl Rove for the sake of political scaremongering...

Today's extremists are not the product of short-term historical circumstances, but of consciousness and culture: They are not the fault of the United States, but have roots stretching back centuries. They will not suddenly ignore their foe--us--when their hatred of us is the core of their identity.

And what do they hate so much? They hate our model, which defines--as Brooks points out--a nation's or society's greatness in terms of economic development and technological prowess instead of religious-inspired violence and cultural "honor."

We've simply moved beyond those periods from our past, while the Arab world has not, its economic world tragically retarded by the resource curse, which encourages them to still view the world in terms of zero-sum advance (if I win, you must lose, or vice versa). Wealth, like honor and identity, is a fixed sum in their universe: it cannot be expanded or grown or diversified. Any such "advances" are heresy to these fundamentalists, who defend their desire for dropping out of the economic world around them by pretending it makes them pious.

And if it was just these fundamentalists whose desire for disconnectedness could be accommodated, then this Long War would be obviated. But they are radical fundamentalists determined not just to forge their own pious path, but enslave all those co-religionists who fall short of their ideal (or simply reject its definition, as the vast majority do). And if they cannot be enslaved by their ideology, then they will be slaughtered.

As for the unbelievers... murdering them is as pious as it gets for this crowd.

Again, do you think there is anywhere to hide? Or do we just decide our fields of battle and pursue them?

Me? I vote for the latter, but in a manner designed to accelerate globalization's penetration of the Middle East. I'm all for speeding the inevitable killing, but not for making Iraq-like efforts where we so botch the peace that all we're left with is war, and the unacceptable course of accepting defeat.

We cannot win the Long War with war, but only with the stability that allows globalization's connectivity to advance, creating economic change before political change becomes possible.

This is called by many (including Brooks in another recent op-ed) the "Chinese model."

Get used to hearing it, and get used to the idea that we'll be allied with the Chinese in making that model spread across the Gap.

We're winning wars and losing postwars, while the Chinese are winning the "everything else" while cynically letting wars burn on (like in Sudan). Between us, we'd actually have a package worth delivering to failed states inside the Gap.

Inconceivable to some, inevitable to me.

Now is not the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.

People need to start making their own foreign policies.

There is much groundwork to be completed between now and January 2009. But even then, there is no assurance that smarter heads will prevail, so I'm planning to have my own foreign policy pretty much from here on out.

I suggest you all do the same in whatever manner makes most sense.

Comments

[Sean]

'People need to start making their own foreign policies.'

major theme of vol 3 detected

[Jim Glendenning]

Bravo! Well stated and argued.

I'm copying this post and website to all my e-mail buddies. This needs to be read far and wide.

[chew2]

Well at least you didn't say "they" all hate us because we love "freedom".

The slogan that the "evil ones" will all hate us regardless of what we do is a simplistic claim to make us feel righteous because our intentions and values are pure, so we don't have to examine our actions or their consequences. Here it is being used to justify invading Iraq by Republican apologists. Iraq was a secure police state and not a venue for Jihad. By invading we have turned Iraq into an incubator and training ground for Jihadi terrorists. Just like the Soviets did by invading Afghanistan. By invasion and occupation we have multiplied the number of Jihadis willing and able to take up arms, and given them a war to perfect their fighting techniques.

I suppose our goal in Iraq was to scare unfriendly regimes and to create a pro-western democratic state as an example. What this really had to do with fighting a war against stateless Jihadis I don't know. But we have been unwilling to sacrifice and put in the 300,000 or more troops it would requre to accomplish this mission. So the apologists are left with bleating that they all hate us anyway, so don't bother us about what we are trying to achieve in Iraq.

Tom is correct that the Jihadi response is a complicated phenomenon that in part is a reaction to modernity. But it first started out as a political movement (Muslim Brotherhood) competing with Arab nationalism and later marxism. Because it was suppressed, often by authoritarian and corrupt Arab regimes, parts of it morphed into a violent medievel movement. Indeed we and especially the Pakistanis promoted the most radical of these Jihadis in our proxy war in Afghanistan. So we have been left to deal with the aftermath. But without the polarization of war and killing, the Jihadi movement would be far weaker.

I also think the Jihadi threat has been way overblown. They are stateless, have a bankrupt ideology and are very few in numbers. There is no prosepect of their being able to destroy our way of life, as with the Soviet threat. There is no prospect of their taking over a state and if they did they would immediately be vulnerable and have moderate their behavior. They are at most 8% of the insurgency in Iraq, and if we left tommorow would be killed if they tried to take over.

There are many examples of terrorist organizations morphing into poliitical movements which can be dealt with: the PLO, Hezbollah, the IRA, and the Kurds in Iraq all come to mind.

BTW Tom seems to think that modernity and political Islam cannot coexist. I think Hezbollah is a good example to the contrary. And even the Jihadis, despite their medievel ideology, are quite willing to use modern technology.

"We cannot win the Long War with war, but only with the stability that allows globalization's connectivity to advance, creating economic change before political change becomes possible."

I'm not sure what you mean by the "long war" (my appologies), but I really agree with this statement, with the emphasis on "stability". So how does one achieve this stability? The Asian model was based on authoritarian one party states, and export led economies. So in the case of the "big bang", you can have democracy or you can have capitalism, but you can't have both. That is why Bush's middle east "democracy" policy is both hypocritical (he doesn't really mean it) and the wrong way to go if you are trying to promote economic development.

[Sean Meade]

chew2: this comment is too long. per the comment policy, please post longer comments elsewhere (eg, your own weblog) and feel free to link back to them from comments here.

[chew2]

Sean,

Sorry for the length.

regards