Managing Islam's civil war
Jonathan Kay, National Post
Published: Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Less than six years after 9/11, the great Clash of Civilizations has fizzled out. It's been replaced by a civil war within a single civilization. Consider these news events from recent weeks, and the pattern becomes clear: - In Pakistan, government troops laid bloody siege to the Red Mosque in the centre of Islamabad, precipitating a string of retaliatory suicide bombings in other parts of the country. On Wednesday, Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, urged revenge against Pakistan's government. ("This crime can only be washed by repentance or blood.")A secret Pakistani interior ministry document recently disclosed by The New York Times warns that Islamist insurgents in the country's northwest tribal areas -- the same ones fuelling the civil war in Afghanistan--may soon threaten Pakistan's central government.
- In Gaza, Islamists loyal to Hamas decisively routed Fatah, the once-unrivalled Palestinian movement founded by Yasser Arafat. Fatah-affiliated President Mahmoud Abbas described Hamas as "terrorists" (a word familiar to us, but taboo within Palestinian society -- until now).
- In Lebanon, government troops waged war on remnants of the extremist Islamist group Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. The country's governing coalition is also confronting an ongoing political challenge from Iranian-sponsored Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah.
- In Iraq, sectarian killings between Shiite and Sunni death squads continue apace. Last week, more than 100 people were killed when a jihadi-driven truck filled with tons of explosives blew up in the town of Amirli, in a region claimed by both Arab and Kurdish Muslims. Meanwhile, American troops are waging war against al-Qaeda-linked death squads, fighting in collaboration with Sunni sheikhs who, until recently, were considered terrorists themselves.
- In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-line theocrat who is seeking to summon Shiite Islam's "12th Imam" from his ethereal slumber, is facing mounting criticism from disenchanted citizens amidst a brutal state campaign to enforce Sharia law --including the death by stoning of adulterers.
- In Somalia, a grenade attack against soldiers loyal to the Ethiopian-backed interim government prompted troops to open fire on civilians. The army has since closed down Mogadishu's main market and is rooting out the Islamist insurgents that infest it.
- In Algeria, which this month hosted the Africa Games, a suicide bomber blew up a refrigerator truck full of explosives outside a military post, killing 10. Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility.
Everywhere, the basic plot is the same: traditional Muslim sheiks and autocrats battling with murderous jihadis for control of Muslim lands. In each case, it is Muslims themselves -- not Western soldiers or politicians -- who will decide the outcome.
Of course, Muslims are still trying to blow up infidels in London and Glasgow, not to mention Tel Aviv, Kashmir and a hundred other places. But with every passing month, Muslim violence becomes more self-directed. By the time Iran gets its Shiite Bomb, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia may be as much at risk as Israel.
In an obvious sense, this is good news for the West. But the trend also means that we are losing our ability to shape events. After 9/11, George W. Bush and his international supporters were swept up in a grand Wilsonian project to revamp the political culture of the Muslim world. But six years later, we're largely back on the sidelines, feebly exhorting our chosen autocrats -- Pervez Musharraf, Mahmoud Abbas, Fouad Siniora, Nouri al-Maliki, King Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah -- to "do more to fight terrorism." Without realizing it, we have gone from realists to democratic utopians back to realists again.
The trend will be hard to reverse. In democracies, voters support wars when they see clear, morally compelling arguments for waging them. That wasn't a problem when the stakes were credibly cast as between good and evil. But the war now is murkier. Most of the Muslim leaders we now are supporting are not democratic folk heroes, but compromised autocrats. Even Afghan President Hamid Karzai, by all accounts a decent fellow, is beholden to drug dealers and local warlords to maintain power.
These men are a lot saner than the Islamists they're fighting, of course. But in the long run, Western voters won't risk the lives of their sons and daughters to prop up a lesser evil fighting one side of an alien, often barbaric civil war.
jkay@nationalpost.com
© National Post 2007
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