The Redhunter

How do our enemies plan on winning the "war of ideas"?

All it takes for the jihadists to make progress is to continue to implant their ideology in the minds of the younger waves of followers. And all it takes for the supporters of the radicals within international society (and particularly inside Western democracies) is to prevent the public, especially youth, from understanding this equation.

What is their main weapon?

Al Qaeda and Hezbollah's real strength isn't their terrorist capacity, but the ability of their ideologues to incite and take control of the minds of their adherents to the hightest level of threat - against the very idea of life.

Soldiers from other civilizations will fight to the death, but only if necessary. The jihadi masters have developed the idea of istishhad; "jihadi suicide" or "suicide bomber", although the weapon need not be a bomb.

Clash of Civilizations?

Professor Samuel Huntington published a famous article in Foreign Affairs in 1993 titled "The Clash of Civilizations", in which he argued that rather than individual nations, economic blocs, or even ideologies as we have understood them, large civilizations would become the main players on the world stage. Phares agrees with this assessment, adding that civilizations "exist not only culturally, but also politically, including via their votes in the United Nations." While Huntington believes that clashes between these civilizations is inevitable, Phares does not.

Interestingly, although many Western (usually liberal) scholars discount or are even horrified at the thought of a clash of civilizations, the jihadists endorse it. They descrivbe their struggle as one between the umma (Muslim community) or dar el Islam (house of peace" or "house of Islam) and the dar el harb ("house of war"; any non-Muslim area) More than simply believing in it, however, the jihadists are willing to die for it, and take anyone standing in their way with them.

What is Jihadism?

Jihad is a well thought out concept that has its roots in the Middle Ages. It is not a reaction to specific Western policies, or "the legacy of colonialism". Nor is it a reaction to historical abuses (real and imagined) heaped on Arab peoples by outsiders. Although I explain jihad according to Phares more fully here and here, suffice it to say for now that jihad is defined as "constant effort on behalf of Allah".

What this comes down to is that "historically, jihad was a state tool for war mobilization under Arab and Ottoman Empires". The purpose of such war was to spread the faith. Only the Caliph or his designate could declare a jihad. Once the caliphate was overthrown in 1924, the legal body who could declare jihad ceased to exist. In the wake of this, some Muslims declared that they had the authority to declare jihad. Thus, jihad was "privatized". One of the first to "privatize" jihad was Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The objectives of the jihad are:

1) Tahrir, or "liberation" of Muslim lands from rule by non-Muslim governments.

2) Tawheed, or "unification" of all Muslims into one country with common borders.

3) Khilafa, or "caliphate". The jihadists wish to reestablish the caliphate as the government for Muslims, which will eventually rule the world.

At a risk of repeating what Phares said in Future Jihad, it is still nevertheless useful to restate the members, or three branches of the jihad: the Wahabbists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Khumeinists.

It is important to note that disguising the true nature of "jihad" is part of the war of ideas being waged against the forces of democracy. It is quite common, for example to hear the falsehood of jihad described as a "peaceful inner struggle" that one has to purify oneself so as to satisfy Allah.

The Ideas of Jihad

Jihadi propaganda, and their Western apologists say that if specific grievances were addressed, the fuel for their fire would disippate. Quite the contrary, says Phares. While their propaganda uses specific grievances to manipulate public opinion, "solving" them would do nothing, because more would simply appear in their place. It's really more a game of "whack a mole" than anything else.

Rather, the jihadists are opposed to ideas of pluralism, tolerance, and democracy as we in the West understand them.

They will use peaceful means, and even work within a democracy if necessary, but it's all just a tactic. Radical groups in Europe, North America, and Australia are pushing for Sharia-type laws to be allowed within their own communities. Far from assimilating (wth the usual immigrant give-and-take) into their host countries, all too many are demanding that the host country assimilate into them.

One of the worst aspects of jihadism or radical Islam (some would say Islam itself) is what Phares calls "gender apartheid". Under the Sharia law the jihadists have in mind, women have absolutely no rights and must live under a strict set of rules with no ifs ands or buts. The jihadists fear "womens rights" greatly, for they know that if they lose this battle then they lose their grip on power, and thus the war.

The end goal is to overthrow democracy and institute "pure" Islam, which means harsh Sharia law.

History as Yesterday

We in the West tend to think of anything that happened more than a few hundred years ago as "ancient history", and as such only marginally relevant to how we think and behave today. Not so with the jihadists. Osama bin Laden refers to events that occured a thousand years ago as if they took place only yesterday. Participitants on Jihadist websites talk as if battles that took place during the Middle Ages occured last Thursday.

It would be a mistake to see all this as simply nursing ancient grievances, or as nostalgia for the past glories of Islam. Jihadists believe that they are living out the continuation of ancient history, of ancient struggles. Theirs is the continuation of the one-thousand year running war between Islam and Europe (and parts of Asia) that went on from the 7th to the 17th centuries. To them this war didn't really end; they are fighing the same fight as Saladin did against the Crusaders, and there is no break between ancient and modern worlds.

Their most important slogan is that there is a "war on Islam", or as they describe it: "the war on Islam (al harb ala al Islam). In their view of history, it is the Muslims who have been under assault from the days of Muhammed in the 7th century, not the other way around. All of their wars of expansion, therefore, were really just defensive wars waged to defend themselves against aggression. As might be imagined, the Crusades (1095–1291) as well as 19th and 20th century colonialism play a major role in their version of history.

The First War of Ideas: 1945 - 1990

Phares has identified three distinct phases in the War of Ideas. The first took place during the Cold War. It was ignored by most people, as the Cold War swept everything in its path. Jihadism and democracy crossed paths but there was no overt conflict.

The Wahabists chose to ally with the United States against the athiest communists. Secular Ba'athist regimes allied with the Soviet Union. The Khumeinists of Iran sent shock waves through the Sunni world when they announced that they would oppose both camps.

But as Phares notes, "during the Cold War the Arab and Muslim world split along the fault line of pro and anti-Soviet, rather than pro and anti-American." All of them hated the West. We knew about but ignored this reality.

There were two defining events during this first "ware of ideas: the oil embargo launched in 1973 by OPEC, and the Khumeinist revolution in Iran.

The main consequence of the oil embargo event was that the oil producing Arab governments started to realize the power they had over the West. The price of oil skyrocketed, and they use their money to start start the "oil-funded penetration of Western education", something that continues to this day. Middle Eastern studies programs were set up on many college campuses, and were essentially told to teach the version of history that the Wahabists wanted taught; i.e. a sanitized version that misrepresented the true nature of their objectives. Human rights abuses in Muslim countries was to be completely ignored or explained away.

The Khumeinist revolution put the third leg of the jihad into place. Theirs was not a nationalist revolution, but a theological one. The objective of the Khumeinists is to establish a regional Imamate, dominate the Sunni regimes around them, and chase all Westerners from the area.

The Second War of Ideas: 1990 - 2001

Western elites and opinion-makers (on both sides of the political divide) continued to ignore human rights abuses in the Muslim world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The primary reason is that we were told that people in the Middle East were "upset not at their own governments, but were rather with the remnant of colonialism, Israel, and the new Western Imperialism." Dissidents (yes there are many) were completely ignored.

One of the primary objectives of the jihadists and their Baathist allies was to shield their respective governments from cricisism, and to prevent democracy and liberty from taking root anywere in their countries. They did not want to share in the fate of the Soviet Union. The jihadists wanted to continue to hide their real ideology and goals, and in this they were largely successful. Few in the West paid any attention to Islam in general, and "radical Islam" in particular.

As during the first War of ideas, we in the West were told that the primary problem plaguing the region was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Human rights abuses, we were admonished, were a "domestic affair", and oil money continued to fund Middle East studies programs in our universities that essentially lied about Muslim history.

In the meantime, the Wahabists continued their infiltration of Western societies, the objective of which was to "weaken, delegitimize, and then defeat" us.

The Third War of Ideas: 2001 - Present

Osama bin Laden upset the plans of the jihadists with his September 11 attacks. The Wahabists had planned a long campaign of infiltration into Western Society. The Muslim Brotherhood was busy infiltrating Middle Eastern societies in preparation to taking over their governments. The only way their infiltration would work is if we remained blind to their true nature and goals. bin Laden's attacks, however, forced the issue into the open. The jihadists rightly feared that Americans and others would now begin to study them, and when the truth became known, they would be effectively countered.

In short, bin Laden "jumped the gun." The other jihadists were furious at him, and went into full blown damage control mode. They were desperate to prevent us from learning the answer to the question many in the United States were asking: "Why do they hate us?" Their first goal was to prevent the United States and it's allies from destroying all of their totalitarian regimes. They realized that they couldn't protect the Taliban, that was asking too much. However, if they acted quickly they could protect the various countries in which Sharia or near-Sharia was practiced. They continuned to promote the primacy of "solving" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Other tactics of the "Wahabi lobby" have been to deflect any serious cricism of Islam, to insist that "jihad" can only be defined as a "peaceful inner struggle", and that there is no such thing as "Islamism". Taking advantage of Western sensitivities towards minorities is another favorite tactic, as is playing on our "colonial guilt complex". Pressure groups scream "Islamophobia" and transform anti-terrorist measures into "singling out Muslims."

As Phares puts it, "the claim that the world hates America is nothing but a retaliation against U.S. efforts (regardless of success or failure) to foster democracy in the region." further,

...the so-called hatred of America - or, as they paint it, of this specific administration - is, in fact, a manufactured political and ideological mobilization against the agenda that the Bush-Blair alliance has pushed in response to rising fascism in the region.... peoples in the region, or more precisely, certain segments of societies, were "conditioned to hate" whomever the regime bosses, the militant cadres, and al Jazeera's ideologues targeted for hating.

More

And in order to stop Ameria and its allies from tuirning the tables on regional totalitarianism, the combined resources of jihadists and authoritarians were put into the mother of all propaganda wars. The "hatred manufacturing" can be controlled, cultivated, and unleashed when needed.

Unfortunately for the jihadists, there has been an American awakening. Scholars and ordinary citizens alike have taken it upon themselves to learn about Islam and the Middle East. I spent most of my formative years studying the communist threat. I read a lot of books during the 1990s, but none about Islam. It took me awhile after 9-11 to get going, but even a quick persual of my book reviews tells you that I am at least trying to inform myself as to the nature of the threat. Indeed Phares cites the Internet as one of the primary means by which we are trying to learn about it.

What To Do About It? Conclusions and Recommendations

Here's what Phares says we should not or need not do to win

It's not about public relations. We in the West have this idea that if only we could elimiate the Abu Ghraibs, close the prison at Guantanamo bay, not torture prisoners, solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and (depending on how extreme one gets) apologize for the sins of colonialism, Muslims will "come around". This mistakes the nature of the conflict, Phares says. The jihadists and their followers do not have a set of specific greviances that they need solved. They want to weaken the West's will to self-defense so they can take us over.

Following are some recommendations taken from the book's last chapter

1. "Democracies must educate their own publics on the history, evolution, and future development of Jihadism and its allies"

2. "Open the debate about Jihadism, and vote for laws that would ban ideologies that discriminate within societies, divide humanity into enemy and peace zones, and legitimize violence outside international law"

3. Muslims too must step up to the plate. "In the Muslim world and its diasporas, what is needed is for more democratic and reformist currents to rise up and express themselves...."

4. And by the same token, we in the West must support Muslim dissidents and democracy groups. We must welcome and chamion their cause, just as we did the dissidents in the Soviet Union and apartheit-era South Africa.

5. "Within the United States and other democracies and among partners in the War on Terorrism worldwide - including those in the Muslim world - reform the educational system to advance public awareness and counter the radicalization of certain societal segments."

6. "Use the public media for education and information." This includes funding and expanding counterterrorist U.S. government funded networks like al-Hurra and Radio Sawa.

7. In short, "expose the jihadi network and lobbies and explain their strategies to the public" the point being that a "U.S.-led campaign needs to be backed by a determined, unified,a nd convinced public."

These conclusions come from a lifetime of reading literature coming out of the Middle East, watching their news shows and Internet videos, and debating Muslims on networks like al Jazeera (born and raised in Lebanon, Phares is fluent in Arabic).

Phares and similar thinkers certainly have their share of critics, most I think from the left, but many from the right. The left will accuse him of "stereotyping Muslims" and all that PC nonsense, but the Bush/Baker establishment right or who claim that they are simply part of the "realist" school do not like what he says either. Lastly, the oil lobby and all that it funds will not want to hear anything bad about their patrons.

Phares asks us to believe that there is a world movement to undermine and take over the West. Although the movement he describes is loosely organized, it is determined and fanatical. During the 1990s or before I would have said he was exaggerating. After all, we had defeated the Nazis and Soviets. How could this bunch destroy us?

I remember years ago listening to G Gordon Liddy on the radio. Liddy would go off about how "the Saudis are our enemy!" At the time I thought that while he made good points, surely he exaggerated. "We need the Saudis" for this or that strategic reason, I thought, and anyway there was no way anyone in the West would fall for their propaganda.

How wrong I was. Although of course I was familiar with the major Middle East terrorist groups, I had little clear idea of their ideology, or didn't know much more than that they hated Israel. 9-11 woke a lot of us up and prompted us to learn what was going on, to seek answers to that "why do they hate us?" question. Phares was writing about jihadism for years before that terrible day. We should have listened to him then, but we were preaccupied and didn't listen. We need to listen to him now.