Should we be at war with radical Islam? A discussion with Andrew McCarthy
In August I posted a friendly challenge to Andrew McCarthy on his Islam policy. He expressed interest in replying but other things intervened until we took up the discussion again in November. Below is the entire exchange. It does not come to any definite resolution, but perhaps helps clarify the problems we face. The chief issue between Mr. McCarthy and me is: should we declare war on (radical) Islam? He says yes, I say no, for reasons explained below. On most points we are in agreement.
The exchange consists of the first part of my August 21 blog entry, followed by Mr. McCarthy’s reply in November, then my further reply, then a clarification of a minor point, then a summary by me.
LA wrote at VFR, August 21, 2006:
If we can’t democratize Islam, and we can’t destroy it, then what?
Andrew McCarthy’s great statement refuting the Bush/neocon Democracy Project raises a deeper question that McCarthy will need to resolve. McCarthy is making two distinct and correct assertions: that Islam is indeed the problem; and that Islam is not just a reaction against American freedom (as the president imagines) but is a coherent belief system with a billion followers, most of whom are passionately devoted to it. This being the case, what is McCarthy’s strategy for the war on Islamic jihadism, a.k.a. the war on Islam? McCarthy says we have to defeat our enemies. Surely McCarthy is not suggesting that we can “defeat”—i.e., subdue and bring under our direct power—the whole of the Islamic world and force them to give up their religion, in the same way that we defeated and destroyed Nazi Germany and uprooted Nazism?
I would suggest that McCarthy is touching on a contradiction in his own thought process that will eventually move him toward the logic I have been enunciating for the last few years:
Islam is the problem.
However, we do not have the ability to destroy Islam.
Nor do we have the ability to democratize Islam.
Nor do we have the ability to assimilate Islam.
Therefore, the only solution is to separate ourselves from Islam.
This is my rollback, isolate, and contain strategy. I assume the reader has read my two-part article, “The Search for Moderate Islam,” but, if not, here is the final section of Part II where I lay out the key elements of what I call a “civilizationist” (as distinct from “ecumenist”) strategy to defend ourselves from Islam.
From concluding web page of
The Search for Moderate Islam, Part II
If it doesn’t exist, then what?
Mr. McCarthy to LA, November 27, 2006:
Larry,
This op-ed that Herb London and I recently wrote jointly for the Washington Times, called “In Defense of Liberty,” responds to a number of the points we’ve been discussing.
Given the amount of grief I got—particularly from friends who are more hopeful than I am about a strategy of empowering “moderates”—I think the statement hit a nerve, though it got much less attention than I thought it might. (Naturally, I was accused by a Middle Eastern newspaper of writing the most vicious attack on Islam ever committed to paper, blah, blah, blah). In any event, the op-ed is an attempt to identify the most I think it may be politically possible (albeit very difficult) to achieve at this point. If you’ve already reacted to the statement and its accompanying proposals, I’m afraid I missed it, so I’ll be interested in your thoughts.
All that said, I’m happy to reopen our discussion on this crucial topic.
Preliminarily, I have some differences with you about some important basic assumptions. For example, I don’t subscribe to your offered definition of “defeat[ing]” the enemy (i.e., “subdue and bring under our direct power“) (emphasis added). For me, defeat means to “subdue” in the sense of “decisively impairing the enemy’s ability to project power that threatens us.” Though more modest, God knows that has proved plenty elusive enough.
I also don’t accept the following syllogism: if (a) one believes (as I do) that we must go to war with jihadists who threaten us (and their material supporters), and (b) one accepts (as I do) that the root of the jihadist threat is Islam itself, then (c) one is in effect saying we must be at war with all of the world’s billion-plus Muslims. There were, for example, several hot wars in the course of the Cold War; yet, we were never in a state of war with all the world’s Communists (indeed, we were never officially at war with the Soviet Union, despite the fact that we and they mutually acknowledged each other as “the enemy”).
Strategically, I think overseas we have to defeat jihadist operatives and their state supporters wherever they pose a threat to us, and domestically we have to take measures necessary to defeat any fifth column activity.
The former point means dealing decisively with the likes of the regime in Iran and the new al Qaeda bases of operation in Somalia and Waziristan. Obviously, I don’t think democratization is a promising strategy with these problems (especially with our military doing the heavy lifting toward what may be no good end … and at the expense of other things our military might be better used for). We ought to be dealing with these regimes/entities from the morally and intellectually clear and express premise that they are enemies we are looking to subvert (preferably not militarily, but if necessary militarily), rather than redeemable regimes/entities that we are trying to cultivate. I don’ think it makes any sense to say on Monday that these people can’t and shouldn’t be negotiated with, and then on Tuesday negotiate with them; I don’t think it makes any sense to say “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists,” and then look the other way (or worse) when rogue regimes make it abundantly clear that they are with the terrorists.
On the domestic fifth column point, it’s interesting to note the variety of steps we took during the Cold War—especially the early part—to make plain our hostility to Communism, even though we understood that (a) you cannot compel people not to adhere to particular belief systems and (b) a strong nation needn’t rid itself of all those who believe its government should be overthrown (although I don’t see why we should abide aliens who seek to subvert our system). The Smith Act and the McCarran Act are good examples—we didn’t make belief in Communism illegal, but our law made no apologies about frowning on it). Today, to the contrary, we have somehow turned Islamic activists into the symbolic embodiment of American liberties—to the point that enemy combatants who were routinely detained without trial in every war our country has ever fought have become a “due process” cause celebre in this war. That’s a suicidal distortion. It’s one thing to say we don’t need to deport from the country everyone who does not accept our system; it’s quite another thing to say we owe the beliefs of such people the same respect and tolerance as any other viewpoints. Freedom of speech is freedom to express oneself, not to have that expression approved or accepted.
In sum, while I don’t think there’s lots of daylight between us, I am not as convinced as you are that separation and isolation is necessary. But I think it’s crucially important that we (a) recognize Islam as a full-service social system rather than just a set of religious beliefs; (b) understand that, among its hundreds of millions of adherents, Islam inevitably breeds a certain percentage of terrorists and a much larger percentage of believers who share the terrorists’ agenda even if they do not approve of the terrorists’ methods; (c) acknowledge the profound differences in basic assumptions between Islam and Madisonian democracy (starting with assumptions as basic as whether people have a right to make laws to govern themselves irrespective of of any religious creed); and (d) make clear that First Amendment solicitude for such a belief system reflects neither approval of it nor immunity from scrutiny and appropriate responsive (or preemptive) action.
Best,
Andy
LA to AM:
Andy,
Thank you for this very interesting and thoughtful reply.
First, I agree with your qualification of my definition of “defeat.” Defeating the enemy does not have to involve “bringing under our direct power.” Defeat means destroying the will and ability of a party to make war on us. However, as explained below, the concept of war in this situation, whether war on Islam or war on radical Islam, is still problematic.
You write:
I also don’t accept the following syllogism: if (a) one believes (as I do) that we must go to war with jihadists who threaten us (and their material supporters), and (b) one accepts (as I do) that the root of the jihadist threat is Islam itself, then (c) one is in effect saying we must be at war with all of the world’s billion-plus Muslims.
I don’t believe I have ever called for a “war” against Islam, or against radical Islam, or against the world’s one billion Muslims. I have called for a set of measures that will render us permanently safe from Islam. I call this policy Rollback, Isolate, and Contain. Rollback means the total cessation of Muslim immigration and the steady departure of Muslims from the West and other non-Muslim countries (however this departure is achieved, whether it is forcible, “encouraged,” voluntary, or we pay them to go). Isolate means that the non-Islamic world acts in concert to isolate the Islamic world within itself and avoid involvement with it to the extent possible. We could take Containment to mean more active policing measures to make sure the Islamic world is not a danger. This would include a forward military strategy to destroy any dangerous regimes or other jihadist elements that threaten us, though without any intention of occupying or managing or nation-building in those countries.
The steps proposed by you and Herb London in your excellent article, which I’ve just now read for the first time, go a long way toward this. To a large extent, any remaining disagreement between us is a matter of degree and not of basic concept. However, there are still significant differences.
If you want to call for a declaration that we are at war with jihadist or radical Islam, with the understanding that this means the intent to destroy radical Islam’s ability to harm us, and with the further understanding that much of the Islamic world is radical or is under the power of radicals, then perhaps that could be in conformity with my policy. However, I still have doubts about it, because a “war” means that the war at a certain point can be won, meaning that radical Islam has lost the ability to harm us. But since radical Islam will always exist (and you and I agree that we have no ability or will to destroy it), it can always at least potentially harm us, and we must always have active measures in place to keep radical Islam down and protect ourselves. Therefore the war could never end. A war that can never be finally won is not a war, but something else. Also, since radical Islam is (as we know) largely identical with Islam per se, to declare an (unwinnable) War on Radical Islam is to declare an (unwinnable) War on Islam. For the reasons given in my August article, it is not good for us to be at war with Islam. That’s why I think that my Permanent Isolation and Containment of the Islamic world (based on the understanding that Islam will ALWAYS be a danger to us) makes more sense conceptually and faces the Islam problem more realistically than your War against Radical Islam.
You call for radically reducing Muslim immigration and deporting non-citizens who refuse to swear allegiance to US law over Islamic law. That would be a major step toward Rollback, though is not the same as Rollback. The combination of virtually stopping Muslim immigration while placing non-citizen Muslims here under sharp scrutiny might also have the effect of making many Muslims leave voluntarily. But your policy only touches foreign nationals. The U.S. and Europe will still have millions of Muslim citizens. Ultimately we must make many Muslim citizens leave too. To a much greater extent this is true of Europe. Europe is simply doomed if it leaves its Muslim citizens in place. A “war against radical Islam” that leaves in Europe a growing population of 15 to 20 million Muslim citizens, a huge percentage of them at least sympathizers with radicalism, is not serious. I realize that that statement seems extreme, but the logic of it cannot be denied.
Energy sufficiency, proposed by you, would be a major step toward Isolation. If we no longer needed their oil, we could drastically scale back our involvement with and dependence on them.
And I believe we are on the same page with the need for a military strategy to destroy any dangerous regimes or other elements in the Islamic region, without our turning that military action into occupation, democratization or nation-building.
That’s about it for now. Thanks again for your thoughtful reply, and for writing your good article in the Times. I look forward to further discussion with you and Herb on these points.
Larry Auster
AM to LA: 11/27/06
Larry,
I have not had time to go through your response in a considered way yet. But quickly skimming, one thing caught my eye, and I just want to be clear. It was not my intention to describe YOUR position as calling for a war against Islam—indeed, I would stipulate that your writings on this subject evince a theme that it would be foolhardy to do such a thing (and I wholeheartedly agree). What I meant to respond to in addressing the syllogism was what I took to be your critique of the logic of MY position; I did not mean to go on the offensive regarding your position.
Best,
Andy
LA wrote
Oh, I understood that. You pointed out that I, by way of criticizing the idea of a war, had defined war too broadly. I accepted your narrower definition, but then went on to show that war is still problematical.
Also, in my paragraph where I said that I have never called for a war, I simply meant to delineate again the differences between your position and mine.
Summary by LA:
McCarthy’s idea has significant elements of my Rollback, Isolate, and Contain, enough to improve radically our situation, but it still leaves us vulerable and lacks a concept that prepares us for the permanent posture we must maintain vis à vis Islam. If people are told it’s a war, they will weary of a war that never ends. If they are told up front that Islam is our eternal adversary, and that by our isolating it, containing it, and keeping it powerless, we can prevent it from ever gaining power or influence over us, people will understand the problem and they will have the will to support this permanent posture of civilizational defense against Islam, just as the people of Christendom had such a will for a thousand years.
Now, will some Ronald Reagan come along and tell me that containment is insufficient, that victory is both necessary and possible? I can’t see that happening. This is because Islam is Islam, and always will be Islam unless all Muslims abandon the faith, an event we have no control over. The other option is to lock up Muslims in their countries and kill them all, something we would never do.
So we must isolate and contain the Muslims forever. This will require that all non-Muslim nations teach to every generation the doctrines and history of Islam, so that their people will understand why this policy of isolation is necessary.
This may seem terribly burdensome, but actually, once the situation is in place, it will be vastly easier to maintain it than to do the things we would have to do if Muslims were active and in our countries and in our faces. Look again to history. For the first several centuries of Islam, the Muslims were on the attack, Europe was on the defense. Then Europe began to strike back, in the first Crusade. But wars were continuous, until the defeat of the Ottomans at Vienna. Then began 300 years of Muslim quiescence. Our object should be to recapitulate the essential situation that obtained between the late 17th and late 20th centuries, when Islam was for the most part locked up and powerless within its historic lands.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 15, 2006 09:14 PM | Send