I. Religion
Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the ugliest of them all?
Not “terrorism.”
Not “violent extremism.”
Not ISIS.
Not al-Qaida.
Not their offshoots, imitators and precursors.
Not “ideology.”
Not “workplace violence.”
Defeat them all — and you have defeated no one.
The enemy keeps permutating and reappearing, now in this country, now in that; now Sunni, now Shiite; now this tactic, now another.
The enemy will destroy Western civilization, unless we name it.
That enemy is an idea.
A virulent idea is spread around the world — including the US — on the Internet and other electronic media. An idea that is reaching untold hundreds of thousands or millions of people. An idea that cannot be defeated if one or another of its adherents is defeated.
An idea is the motive force behind the recent violence in Paris, Beirut, the Sinai Desert and Israel; and points east, south, west and north.
That enemy is the sina qua non; without which there is no violence, without whose destruction there will be no end to the violence.
This idea is a religious one.
Not something euphemized into a more acceptable, politically correct, neutral — and inaccurate — term.
That enemy is radical Islam.
A religion. Not an “ideology,” not “extremism,” not “power” or “oppression” exploited or legitimated by religion. But religion itself.
Whether beheadings, mass murders, suicide bombings, stabbings and other excrescences of the 21st century reflect the true Islam, or a distortion of the true Islam, is irrelevant. Whichever Islam it is that glorifies violence, it is this idea with which civilization is at war.
Freedom of religion is checked at the door when that freedom requires a religious doctrine of murder.
Radical Islam requires a religious doctrine of murder.
II. Distinctions
To be sure, there are important distinctions, such as Sunni vs. Shiite.
When the US left Iraq in 2011 without a status of forces agreement, and with a predominantly Shiite Iraqi leadership determined to take revenge on Iraqi Sunnis, radical Islam assumed a Sunni garb.
We call this ISIS (Islamic State in Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State in the Levant). Because the US pulled out of Iraq without planning for post-US security in Iraq, and because the US fought in Iraq without naming the enemy there, we find ourselves at the present juncture: ISIS.
Make no mistake. If every single adherent of ISIS is killed or converted from its religious doctrine; if every piece of territory now held by ISIS is taken by France, the US, the Kurds or anyone else, it will make no difference. The world will not be safer. Religion-based hatred will simply assume a new style, a new form, a new location — because it will not have been named and not have been defeated.
Ideas are not deadened by the sword. The pen is mightier than the sword.
When the US makes a nuclear deal with Iran without reference to this country’s hate-based religious doctrine, radical Islam assumes a Shiite garb in the form of revolution exported throughout the Middle East — violent attempts to turn Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia into Shiite theocracies. If every single dream for the nuclear deal comes true, if Iran never acquires a nuclear weapons, the world will not be safer. The religious idea that drives Shiite Iran, not having been addressed, will continue to flourish. Iran will continue to try to destroy Israel.
Bitterly, Sunnis fight Shiites and vice-versa, but both have their large, hate-based factions.
Culture is another important distinction. Culture colors the practice of Islam. South Asian Muslims tend to have a far higher percentage of peaceful practitioners than Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East. Islam is a complex and culturally variegated phenomenon.
Which raises the question: Why do many peaceful Muslims find it so difficult to condemn the violent, hate-based practitioners of the religion?
III. Out to lunch
“We are at war with violent extremism, we are at war with people who use their religion for purposes of power and oppression,” says Hillary Clinton the day after the slaughter in Paris.
Wrong. We are at war with a form of Islam, not with “violent extremism” nor with “people who [mis]use their religion.” This is the muddleheadedness, the obfuscation, the denial, the fear of offending — take your pick — that prevents us from winning against the strongest armament of the violence: its idea.
Its belief that G-d requires this violence.
Its belief that G-d rewards this violence.
Its belief that the cold-blooded killing of Westerners is a religious act.
Its religious belief.
Out-to-lunch President Obama tells ABC News a few hours before the fiery siege in Paris, “we have contained” ISIS. Obama wasn’t unlucky in his timing, nor even uninformed. It was worse. He thinks that “containing” ISIS is taking away its territory or killing its leaders. Forget for a moment that the weak American military effort against ISIS is not designed to win even on military terms. If the American military effort did meet the required scale, and of course it must, it would still be doomed to fail without the deployment of the most important weapon: naming the enemy.
The religious idea.
And fighting that.
This idea must be publicly shamed, countered on the Internet, argued against in mosques, rejected by people of good will of all stripes and robbed of its freedom. Freedom of religion is checked at the door when its doctrine requires murder, whether directly by weapons or indirectly by sympathy.
Communism was named, shamed, armed against and defeated. The opposition to communism as an idea is what mobilized all of the other armaments brought to bear against it.
Earlier, slavery was named, shamed, armed against and defeated.
Remember how the abolitionists themselves were named and shamed, themselves considered the extremists? In the end they won because they were open, clear, fierce, articulate and determined. The best of them did not oppose slaveowners; they opposed slavery. Chief among those who drew this distinction was Abraham Lincoln, who, once he came over to the abolitionist position, was so deeply pained at the deaths on both sides of the Civil War.
We do not oppose Muslims; we oppose the Islamic justification of murder.
Radical Islam must be named, shamed, armed against and defeated; opposed openly, clearly, fiercely, articulately — with determination.
This is essential to assuring that neither Paris nor any other city will be attacked as Paris was last Friday. And Beirut the day before. And a Russian airliner over Sinai two weeks before. And Israeli civilians without stop. And . . . And . . . it will never stop so long as the hate-based form of Islam is preached over the Internet, in mosques, in terrorist training camps and elsewhere.
It is that malevolent, dehumanizing idea against which we must mobilize internationally. Only when that is done will the equally indispensable military and economic actions work.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
