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April 28, -- No one has
ever adequately explained why the jihadist
"insurgency" fights on in Iraq. Really. It's not
enough to say these Islamic fanatics want to drive
"infidel" American forces out of Iraq, or that they
want to bring down the Iraqi government. It is by
remaining in Iraq that the United States has built
up a democratically elected but Islamic government -
and an Islamic government is the goal of every good
jihadist. In other words, our Islamic enemies should
be at peace with the Iraqi government because its
constitution makes Islamic law supreme. "No law that
contradicts the established provisions of Islam may
be established," says Article 2. That single line
contains the blueprint for a Shariah state, and if
there's one thing a jihadist likes, it's a Shariah
state.
Recently, Sayyed Ayad, a liberal member of the Iraqi
parliament who favors the separation of church
(mosque) and state, spoke in Washington. When I
asked him what could be done under Iraq's
constitution to foster democracy, not Shariah, his
answer was chilling. Pointing out that Iraqi voters
chose this Shariah-supreme document, he said: "They
have to try it for 10 or 20 years, and then change
it." Maybe.
Which leads me to another point no one has
adequately explained: why exactly Americantroops
fight on in Iraq. Sure, the objective is to destroy
the hellions of the insurgency - a killing machine
more aptly and derisively described by the late
journalist Steven Vincent as "paramilitary death
squads." And I still believe the goal of killing
jihadists "there," not "here," is entirely
commendable. But even after their destruction, does
an American victory lie in making Iraq safe for
Shariah?
The same question applies to Afghanistan, where
another democratically mandated Shariah state has
been established thanks to the U.S. of A - as the
world finally noticed when an Afghan Christian
"apostate" named Abdul Rahman had to flee to Italy
rather than face Islamic "justice" in the courts or
on the street.
Maybe this all proves that Islam and democracy don't
mix. Then again, maybe they mix just fine; it's the
mixture itself - Shariah for the people - that
clashes with liberty as defined in the Western
world. This is the lesson we seem determined not to
learn. But in making such ignorance inviolate, we
end up making the world safe for Shariah.
Certainly, we didn't put up all those ballot boxes
across the Middle East to mandate a rollback of
freedom. But in failing to assess the ideology
central to Islam that makes Western notions of
liberty fatally heretical, this is increasingly what
is happening. Which gives a head-hurting circularity
to our policy. Maybe such dizzying confusion should
make us welcome the advent of the Iraq Study Group,
a presidential advisory council created, as the New
York Times put it, "to generate new ideas on Iraq."
But new ideas on "Iraq" are the last thing we need,
particularly as generated by a bipartisan snooze of
a group that includes James Baker, Vernon Jordan,
Charles Robb, Sandra Day O'Connor, Alan K. Simpson
and Lee Hamilton - I can hardly tap out the other
names because they're so solidly and venerably
uninspiring (with the notable exception of Rudy
Giuliani).
Framing their study around "Iraq" reveals how
blinkered government thinking is. Iraq is only a
small piece of our troubles in this period of
resurgent Islamic jihad, from Osama bin Laden's cave
to downtown Tehran, from worldwide Danish cartoon
protests to Tel Aviv falafel stands, from Paris
banlieus to Zacarias Moussaui's courtroom hot seat.
Squeezing big brains for "new ideas" about winning
Iraq is sort of like planning the Normandy invasion
to win France. We need something bigger. We need new
ideas about Islam.
My list of idea men and women would include Hirsi
Ali, Bat Ye'or, Bruce Bawer, Andrew G. Bostom, Walid
Phares, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Wafa Sultan,
Ibn Warraq and other experts and observers unbowed
by the strictures of political correctness that
strangle debate on Islam - its teachings, its
demands, its history.
Iraq would figure into such a curriculum, but from a
broader perspective that would allow us to size up
the global battlefield in terms of the two great
threats to the Western way of life: the spread of
shariah through active jihad (war, terrorism), and
the spread of shariah through Islamization
(demographics, multicultural correctness). Of the
two, the second - quiet jihad - is the more serious
threat, as the continuing Islamization of Europe
shows.
We need an Islam Study Group.
Wash Times.com
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