Masters of Illusion American Leadership in the Media Age Phần 6 pot

Because MAD is no longer viable in a world of many nuclear powers,the United States should pursue a policy of Strategic Independence... It is worth asking “Why?” We got into our current

Meanwhile, and equally important, the American government is going

to have to decide how to respond to China’s growing arsenal of ballisticmissiles In the 1960s, when Presidents Kennedy and Johnson faced such adecision, the Soviet Union’s ballistic missiles were a unique and unprece-dented threat to the United States Even today, only Russian missiles present

a similar threat China, however, may soon acquire a similar strategic nuclearcapability, and we are going to have to decide what to do about it

Most of us thought the risk of global nuclear war had disappeared with theend of the Cold War Of course, we recognized the risk of nuclear terrorism,but we thought that global nuclear war could never happen because theUnited States is, and seems likely to remain, the world’s only conventionalmilitary superpower Will we confront more Able Archers in the future? Willother American presidents be confronted with nuclear brinksmanship overTaiwan, or the collateral risks of nuclear exchange stemming from hostilitiesamong other nuclear states? Unfortunately, the answer most likely is “yes.”The reality is that the end of the Cold War has not ended the risk of nuclearwar, and that what was at one time a snake with one head is now a hydra-headed monster We had planned at first for a general reduction in the risk

of nuclear war, but this hasn’t happened and we are now attempting to rely

on the old methods of balance of forces and mutual assured destruction.But there is no possible balance among the many nations now buildingnuclear strength, and there is no formula like MAD on which we can rely

to avoid war – though our leaders may wish to try In today’s situation, wecan only strive unceasingly to eliminate nuclear weapons, while trying toprotect ourselves if arms control falls apart

Both courses involve significant and considerable risk We could findourselves eliminating our own nuclear arsenals on the promise that otherswill do the same, when in fact our potential adversaries have deceived us.Deception about arms reduction happened on a large scale before WorldWar II, and could happen again Further, governments could disarm, whileterrorists do not The risks do not make a persuasive argument against armscontrol efforts, but do constitute reasons to conducting them very carefully.This illustrates exactly why we need to dominate every inch of space – sothat our satellites can see both underground and evaluate enemy satellites’technical capabilities The quickest way to shut a country down is to destroyits satellites! China is most likely developing a strategy to do this Destroyingenemy satellites would be a good preemptive tactic, where one is required

We must recognize that nuclear arms remain attractive to many ments in today’s world They are often cheaper than conventional forces toacquire and maintain For states that aspire to be major powers – especially

govern-Russia and China – nuclear weapons are available, affordable, and crediblecounters to American power.18They are not likely to give them up Hence,there are significant limitations on what may be achieved by disarmament

in the nuclear arena

Defense against nuclear attack has its risks as well We may be unable tobuild an effective defense, and may delude ourselves into a false security.This could lead us into aggressive behavior that could bring on war Theserisks again are no argument against efforts to build a missile defense, butconstitute an argument to be very careful about being sure that it will work

We return to this topic when we discuss the important role of nationalmissile defense in ensuring the Strategic Independence of the United States

in Chapter14

THE DYNAMICS OF WORLD DISORDERSuddenly and without warning, in the past decades, growth in Europe, Russiaand Japan began to decelerate, all converging asymptotically toward zero.China alone marched to its own drummer For a time these recuperatingstates continued to close the gap, but by the nineties the tide turned, withAmerica pulling ahead of Europe, Russia and Japan, despite their widelyvaunted liberalizations For proponents of convergence this was merely thepause that refreshed Time however hasn’t validated the surmise

Masters of Illusion need to be resolute on this point because porary patterns of reconfiguring global wealth and power are promotingboth high- and low-intensity conflicts by shifting perceptions of capabili-ties, vulnerabilities, national interest, rights, prerogatives, and redressablegrievances China’s rapid economic, technological and military moderniza-tions challenge established relations in Asia, including vital American inter-ests in Japan, Taiwan and the sea-lanes of the Pacific It is easy to see howBeijing’s leaders might conclude with the passing years that Japan could beintimidated and enticed into surrendering its claims to the Senkoku Islandsand surrounding petroleum rich seabeds Similar tactics could be applied

contem-in other seabed territorial disputes off the coast of Indonesia, and Americacould be cowed into accepting an invasion of Taiwan The reactions of Japan,Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the United States however might not fol-low Beijing’s script, and could heighten tensions China’s rivals in the AsiaPacific region could dig in their heels, enhancing their offensive and defen-sive capabilities, forming economic and military anti-Chinese alliances, andengaging in brinksmanship The struggle for shrinking petroleum supplies

could be particularly combustible, as it was in the years preceding the SecondWorld War II.

China’s ascendance and Japan’s relative decline don’t necessitate ican embroilment in an Asian Pacific cold or hot war, but they do raiserisks that won’t be countervailed by balloting and globalized markets Theturbulence caused by the reconfiguration of global wealth and power givensystemic realities are likely to outweigh latent forces of enlightened demo-cratic free enterprise

Amer-America also could be reluctantly drawn into territorial tussles betweenChina and Russia Regardless of the positive tone of recent Sino-Sovietrelations, as China discovers its new found powers it could lay claim to vasttracks of Siberia and the Russian Far East which were under its sway duringthe Yuan dynasty These lands have enormous natural resource reserves,and are only sparsely populated The Kremlin has powerful nuclear forcestargeted on the Sino-Russian border, but their effectiveness is being degraded

by illegal Chinese settlement some claim abetted by complicit Russian borderguards selling forged citizenship papers It has been alleged that there alreadyare millions of Chinese “Russian” immigrants in Siberia and Primoriya,and that the situation will worsen as Russia’s population diminishes from

143 million today to 80 million in 2050, as Soviet era residents return toMoscow and Saint Petersburg, and more of the 120 million Chinese along theSino-Russian border infiltrate Moreover, this demographic asymmetry isexacerbated by gapping disparities in GDPs and living standards AlthoughJapan, China’s other regional rival will remain a great economic powerduring the next half century, Russia won’t Starting from a humble level

in 1989, per capita Chinese GDP will soon eclipse Russia’s, and its GDPcould surpass it by a factor of twenty by 2050, allowing Beijing to modernizeits armed forces beyond Russia’s means, and to build a credible nucleardeterrent that will reduce the credibility of Moscow’s border defense TheKremlin is aware of the problem, and is in denial, continuing to perceiveitself as the superior power in command, hoping that China will be self-restrained

Russia’s unfavorable position in the reconfiguration of global wealth andpower also may prove destabilizing along its western and southern borders.The Kremlin’s addiction to economic-favoritism and martial police stateauthoritarianism is a constant source of friction with America and the EU.Both not only periodically chide Russia for its tsarist-like vices, but com-pete for influence in the former Soviet Republics known as the near abroad,including Central Asia, the Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan The

EU has talked about discussing Ukrainian membership, and America the

possibility of the near abroad joining NATO Moscow has responded by natively declaring its version of the Monroe doctrine for the near abroad,and acknowledging these states’ autonomy, while harboring ambitions fortheir formal reincorporation into the Russian Federation, superceding theCommonwealth of Independent States (CIS) political, economic and mili-tary alliance The stakes from the Kremlin’s viewpoint are high Central Asiahas enormous reserves of petroleum and natural gas, while the Ukraineprovides important access to the Black Sea Both are also geostrategic assets.Defection from Moscow’s orbit could bring China, Turkey, and NATO to itssouthern and western flanks, as has already occurred in the Baltics, and inthe Ukrainian case thwart ambitions for projecting forces into the MiddleEast, if and when the oil sheikdoms collapse, precipitating a great powerfree for all Russia’s economic and military weakness compels Moscow tobide its time until the full spectrum military modernization program com-mencing in 2006 comes up to speed in 2010 Putin chose to turn the othercheek at Vladimir Yushchenko’s EU leaning antics November-December

alter-2004, but hasn’t accepted Ukrainian defection As Russia reemerges as

a military superpower 2010–2050, the Kremlin is apt to be more cious, creating the possibility of a war no one wants, but like World War Icould happen

tena-What Our Leaders Should Do

The threats we face are not commensurate with each other One sort ofthreat is to the lives of thousands or tens of thousands of our citizens;another is to the lives of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of

us They are both terrible, but they are not of equal size This is a horriblecalculus The moralist in us wishes to say that the death of one person is

as important as the death of many But this is an illusion itself It confusesour sense of proportion and our decisions It leads to thinking in which

we are prepared to sacrifice millions of people to save a few In the currentsituation, it causes us to focus our attention on the risk of terrorist attackswhile ignoring the risk of nuclear exchanges Terrorist attacks would killthousands; nuclear exchanges would kill tens or hundreds of millions Theworst conceivable terrorist attack would be a small fraction of the horror

of a nuclear exchange Islamic fundamentalism threatens us with terroristattacks; Russia with nuclear exchange, and China is racing to be able to dothe same To allow ourselves to neglect the danger of great power nuclearwar in preference for a focus on terrorism is one of the most serious errorsinto which we could fall

Effective leadership of America in these times requires that this crucialsense of priorities and proportion not be lost A war with another greatpower is the most significant danger we face and it must not be placed on aback burner because of a much less significant threat now.

In no way does this attempt to clarify our priorities mean that we shouldignore the smaller threats now to focus on the larger It means instead that

we must not lose sight of greater dangers as we focus on eliminating smallerones We must undertake a strong response to terrorism and do all we can

to stamp it out But we must not take our eye off the bigger threats thatlie just beyond the horizon, despite the fact that we have become unwiselycomplacent about them

Yet, ask our leadership today what is the most important threat whichAmericans face, and they will almost uniformly reply, terrorist attack Thissudden confusion of proportion, and thus priorities, and the lack of goodjudgment that results, is a great danger to us

The developments among the great powers are an unprecedented lenge to American presidential leadership The current administration isable to draft a coherent shift of our national defense strategy; and it

chal-is able to take decchal-isive action, as in Iraq These are major strengths.But it seems unable to explain to the American people convincingly thenecessity for its new doctrine and its course of action; it has alloweddomestic affairs to get completely out of control, diverting national atten-tion and energy away foreign affairs just when it is most needed;19 it’sunable to generate sufficient confidence in its ability to lead the nation

in these times; and it’s allowing itself to be drawn into damaging andunnecessary controversies with our erstwhile allies In effect, the end

of the Cold War is now permitting the allies of that conflict to rate and regroup; and we in America, the leader of the coalition thatwas successful in the cold war, are unable to glimpse the world beyondthe old coalitions To our disadvantage, European leadership has seizedupon America as a useful rival around which European solidarity can bebuilt

sepa-American defense analysis is surprisingly unsophisticated about thethreats we face, possibly because a focus on military capabilities of poten-tial adversaries is too narrow a focus – economic capabilities now and

in the future and geopolitical objectives are crucial to longer-term threatassessments “Who might future threats be? [Defense Department] ana-

lysts predicted they would include warlords, tribal chiefs, drug traffickers,international criminal cartels, terrorists, and cyber-bandits .”20General

Kennedy headed the analysts studying future threats for the Defense ment during the early 1990s.

Depart-Yet this is not the best way to view the future It stresses not the challenge,but its form, especially as it diverges from the sort of military preparationswe’ve made Implicit in this formulation, which has great currency outside

as well as inside the military, is the presumption for a military response(that is, defense means military defense), and whereas if challenged this way

on the matter, even military planners will acknowledge that presuming amilitary response is too narrow, yet this is how Americans tend to look atthe future

American leaders must learn to look over the horizon, to see the dangerspossibly facing us, and suggest how they can be addressed now

John Mearsheimer is a perceptive American writer who presents himself as

a realist about international affairs, and though he is critical of what he sees ashis countrymen’s aversion to realism (preferring he says their optimism andmoralism), he still reassures Americans that “Behind closed doors, however,the elites who make national security policy speak mostly the language ofpower, not that of principle, and the United States acts in the internationalsystem according to the dictates of realist logic.”21Unfortunately, he’s toooptimistic The thinking of Americans – politicians and bureaucrats alike –who make national security policy is blurred by wishful thinking Duringthe Cold War, they were badly confused about Soviet economic and militarycapabilities; they were confused about the full extent of the terrorist threatbefore 9/11, and in both instances actually faked intelligence data to supporttheir presuppositions, examples of which are provided later America needsunfiltered realism, not wishful thinking Our people are mature enoughfor truth in how we look at the world and honesty from our governmentabout it Furthermore, presidents today risk a mixed success at best by actingmilitarily without the full support of Americans We face serious challenges

in the world not based exclusively on economic deprivation, but rooted indifferent cultures, religions, and the ongoing human rivalry for power anddominance

Our leaders should provide us with a cold logic of defense, grounded

in a geopolitical orientation but without the cynicism of Old World powerpolitics The perspective of our leaders should be American and their intentshould be to defend America and to pursue American interests, but in anenlightened fashion, with due regard to the interests of others in the world

We examine how to meet these requirements in the different threats thatface us in the chapters that follow

An American defense policy that follows from the considerations setforward in this chapter would involve:

r Recognition that “elbowing” among the great powers makes deep andcontinuing engagement a poor peg on which to hang our foreign policy.This is especially true with regard to the European Union

r The demotion of peaceful engagement from a major element of ourdefense strategy to a less important role requires us to upgrade militarypreparedness

r This means first and foremost that we should pursue Strategic dence with respect to all threats

Indepen-r We should restructure our national missile defense initiative to meet scale threats from major powers, and upgrade our defense against tacticalmissiles

large-r Resources being spent on Iraqi democratization should be transferred tothese other purposes

r Counterterrorism should be funded for the rest of this decade, but fundingshould be reduced thereafter

r The American public must be informed about the continuing need for arobust defense

r We should inform the world that our policies can be adjusted, if othersbecome more cooperative This involves directly a challenge to ourpresident to master the illusions of our public culture which insistthat the world is already becoming more like us and safer of its ownvolition

CHAPTER 11: KEY POINTSAmerican opinion leaders have been lulled into complacency by an unwar-ranted faith in international harmony, and fail to see that the world is becom-ing unstable

Contrary to a vision of peace and prosperity, the world is once againdrifting back toward sharp economic and political rivalries and the danger

of thermonuclear war

Five major trends are driving the world toward the brink:

1 Nuclear proliferation;

2 Economic success and economic failure for different nations;

3 Distress of those nations falling behind economically;

4 Power seeking by all nations, especially those with the fastest growingeconomies; and

5 Increasing nonnuclear conflict

The West has won an ideological struggle, but not the economic and political contests, which continue Ideology was merely a weapon in theother struggles, so all that has really happened is that our adversaries havebeen partially, and temporarily, disarmed in one aspect of the conflict

geo-Our leaders often dismiss such concerns Their advisors demand to knowthe causal sequence which links the reconfiguration of global wealth andpower – which they recognize – with nuclear risk before treating the dangersseriously There is such a sequence, and this book describes it

1 Russia is rearming and by hook or crook the United States will betransformed into an adversary The Russian threat will peak in 2010

to 2020

2 China is currently enlarging its nuclear missile capability with theintent of targeting the entire United States It is building economicstrength, developing superior space capabilities and modernizing itsentire military establishment The Chinese threat will peak in 2020 to2030

3 The current U.S military dominance is certain to be challenged in thenext decade Russia will regain superpower status in weaponry by 2010and China by 2020

4 Each adversary will have a different strategy The Russians on massforce; the Chinese on economic growth supplemented by growingmissile capability and space dominance

5 For forty years, we have relied on Mutual Assured Destruction to vent nuclear war Yet during this time, the world has several timesstumbled to the brink of nuclear war Furthermore, the logic of MADrequires us to either strengthen our adversaries to parity with us or

pre-to wait uncertainly in a risky situation until they on their own reachparity Either course seems fraught with danger

6 Because MAD is no longer viable in a world of many nuclear powers,the United States should pursue a policy of Strategic Independence

The Middle East

THE CRESCENT OF FIREWhen the World Trade Center was attacked, the threats potentially posed

by Russia and China were subordinated to the more immediate terroristmenace, even though the contours of the danger were obscure Terrorismisn’t an end in itself It is a means to ends like victory or retribution, and cantake many forms from sabotage to mass annihilation.1Moreover, whereasterrorism, like crime and war, involves unlawful coercion, it occupies amiddle ground in international jurisprudence between them.2 States arepermitted to suppress terrorism more vigorously than crime, but cannotact with the impunity permissible under a formal declaration of war.3 Inthis sense, war on terrorism is an acknowledgment that terror should becombated with counterterrorist methods, and a warning that America willescalate beyond this boundary to full-scale state to state war if necessary.The dimensions of the terrorist threat are correspondingly elastic At oneend of the spectrum, demented individuals could bring about the “end ofdays” with weapons of mass destruction for no rational purpose,4but this

is a remote possibility At the other extreme, these same individuals likeHamas could seize the reins of state, transforming themselves from outlawslike Yasser Arafat into statesmen subject to standard rules of internationalengagement And, of course, terrorism could persist somewhere in the mid-dle, circumscribed but deadly All perils deserve attention It is in America’sinterest to deter and contain But the expected benefits don’t warrant unlim-ited expense No amount of effort can preclude doomsday, and like the ColdWar it is unwise to spend prodigally on defense, as the Soviets ruefullydiscovered Terror that cannot get beyond sabotage doesn’t threaten Amer-ica’s survival, and terrorists who seize national power become vulnerable toconventional counterstrikes

264

We’re in conflict with a militant branch of Islam that uses terrorism as a

major tactic;5so our government has defined us as at war with terrorism But

we have also been at war with governments who aide the terrorists, and we

have used military force to overthrow governments that had not themselves

attacked us, but who were in league with terrorists who either had attacked

us (Afghanistan) or were sympathizers and allies of those who had attacked

us (Iraq) In late 2005, President Bush apparently changed our enemy from

the tactic of terrorism to people who seek to create a radical Islamic empire

from Spain to Indonesia

Dangerous and heartbreaking as is this conflict, it must be kept in

per-spective Terrorists do not threaten the existence of our country – not the

way a major conflict with a nuclear-armed rival threatens our country So

we must be sure that what we do in the war on terrorism does not

endan-ger other important concerns of our country Yet already we have stretched

ourselves in Iraq, trying to fashion a new future for the country in the mold

of western capitalist democracy

Our public culture results in dramatic reversals of political stance Thus,

many of those who most strongly opposed our entry into Iraq now oppose

our exit They argue that since we are there, we’ve assumed a responsibility

for it Hence, if we leave Iraq, even if our initial objectives have been met,

then we’d lose the moral high ground, which they consider crucial In this

view, it’s not enough for us to defend America We must do more

It is worth asking “Why?” We got into our current involvement in the

Middle East because of the attack on the World Trade Center It’s quite

a stretch to move from the attempt to defend our country by eliminating

hostile regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan – in order to deny refuge to terrorists

and prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into our adversaries

hands – to bringing Western style democracy to the Middle East Asserting

that only if there is democracy will we be safe from terrorist attack doesn’t

lessen the stretch Initially, we sought a regime change and a guarantee

there were no weapons of mass destruction We changed the regime and we

discovered no weapons of mass destruction Why should we now remain in

Iraq? Shouldn’t we go, having fulfilled our stated obligations? Shouldn’t we

let the Iraqis run their own country? If it becomes a terrorist center, we will

have to respond to that – we’ve intervened in Iraq twice and we can do it

again, if necessary As for the broader context of the Iraqi war, we can retain

bases in the area from which to protect ourselves from militants, Syrians

and Iranians

“For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the

expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved

neither,” Secretary of State Rice declared at the American University in Cairo.

“Now we are taking a different course We are supporting the democraticaspirations of all people.”6

Stability was never a proper goal of policy It reeks of preservation of thestatus quo for its own sake Stability is fine when it comes naturally, but ournational security must be protected whether or not there is stability We couldhave achieved our own security had we but kept reasonable diligence aboutour defense from airline hijackings (hardly a new terrorist tactic even in2001) But we did not; so now we are involved to a greater degree than before

in the turmoil of the Middle East We sought to avoid military involvement inIraq, but Saddam Hussein continually violated the armistice that had endedthe first Gulf War, the food for oil program, and obstructed inspections forweapons of mass destruction Indeed, we offered him a peaceful solution up

to the bitter end, but he refused, presumably because he expected his friends

in the Security Council of the United Nations to prevent American militaryaction against him

We were not able to impose stability on the Middle East no matter howhard we try, since that is in the hands of those who live there; and we willprobably be unable to impose democracy Both stability and democracy forothers are simply the wishes of our public culture Both are illusions in thecontext of the Middle East today They are not proper goals for an objectiveAmerican foreign policy

Democracy has become America’s party line, supported by Republicanand Democrat alike It finds strong support in the public culture, but is verydangerous because it reflects wishful thinking and not objectivity aboutthe world We are trying to export American mores to other countries.For example, we have required that thirty percent of the seats in the newIraqi parliament must go to women This contributes to making our fauxdemocracy the laughing stock of the Middle East and hardens negativeattitudes to us Rather than master the illusions of the public culture, weseem to have political leaders who are fully self-deluded

It isn’t terror itself that should command full attention, but the ity that terror in specific contexts could spark conflict in vortices of globalinstability The war on terrorism as defined at this point by the Adminis-tration includes Basques, Irish, Peruvians, and Om Shin Rikyo in Japan,7but they are peripheral to American security The primary target is theIslamic “Crescent of Fire,” a geographical region connecting fifty countrieswith at least a 40 percent Muslim presence, containing 1.3 billion people.8The flames are fanned by the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the great game ofpetro-politics,9 but the enmity runs deeper, rooted in history,10 culture,

possibil-tribalism, and religion, frequently exacerbated by state oppression and

fail-ure Despite oil wealth and substantial foreign assistance, the incendiary

potential of the crescent of fire has intensified during the last decade, and

seems destined to worsen due to sectarian struggle, fanaticism, the

increas-ing lethality of conventional ordnance and proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction.11

Ummah

The Islamic fundamentalist dream of a pan-Muslim theocracy spanning the

Crescent of Fire (which is based in significant part on an utopian reading

of the first caliphate) is called “Ummah.”12 Advocates contend that it is

the Muslim world’s manifest destiny to reconstitute a transnational Islamic

theopolitical order, tolerant of minorities, but free of western contamination

Like Bolshevik communism it rhetorically aspires to be just, prosperous and

magnificent, but allows itself to employ “emergency” methods, including

waging jihad (holy war) to “liquidate” infidels as “vragy naroda” (enemies

of the true faith).13The details of this messianic musing, like Marx’s idyll

of communist bliss, are sophomoric and can be safely disregarded.14 The

possibility of cobbling a transnational theocratic empire akin to a fifties-type

communist bloc sustained by guns and oil however is a more disturbing

prospect Although, it probably would suffer from the antidemocratic, and

antifree enterprise shortcomings of its secular predecessor, the Crescent of

Fire could imperil peace The likelihood that the Ummah movement will

metamorphosize into a superpower bloc may seem slight, but is thinkable

Communism too was rife with intense internal rivalries, and riddled with

inefficiencies Nonetheless, the Soviet Union, and China, following their

own idiosyncratic interpretations of Marxist scripture were able to mount a

credible threat when first Russia and then China acquired nuclear weapons

With Pakistan already nuclearized, and Iran on the cusp,15it doesn’t require

fevered imagination to appreciate the destabilizing possibilities of Ummah

Muslim Terrorism and Autocracy

Imperial Ummah however isn’t an immediate threat A fragmented

Cres-cent of Fire battered by the crosswinds of Muslin terrorism, rival

autocra-cies, and sectarianism is now more incendiary than a united Islamic

fun-damentalist caliphate.16Muslim culture across the globe during the past

sixty years hasn’t transitioned to western democratic free enterprise.17 It

sometimes displays a veneer of balloting, and traditional markets abound,

Table 12.1 GDP in the Judea/Palestine Region 1950–2002 (million 1990

international Geary-Khamis dollars)

Israel Muslim

West Bankand Gaza Lebanon Jordan Syria Egypt

tradi-to permit entrepreneurship Corruption is endemic; income and wealthare inegalitarian; and society unjust despite injunctions in the Koranagainst such a situation Therefore it isn’t surprising that technologicalinnovation, global integration, and economic growth have been deficient

in the Islamic world, despite the potential benefits of vast petro wealthand the possibilities of economic catch up Per capita income has laggedthe global average since 1950, and is especially poor in comparison withChina and India.18Performance in some countries has been horrendous.Chad’s per capita GDP is the same as the West’s in 1 A.D.,19 whereasliving standards in 2002 were lower than in 1973 in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.20 Similar declines for the subperiods1980–2002 and 1985–2002 were recorded in Lebanon, and Israel’s Pales-tinian territories (West Bank and Gaza).21However, the economic perfor-mance of an important sector of the Muslim world, that which excludesAfrican states other than those bordering the Mediterranean, has been goodenough to permit the Ummah to continue to exert influence in worldaffairs Its GDP in 2001 was more than 60 percent of China’s, and morethan a third larger than India’s22 (Table 12.3) Despite notable ups anddowns for individual states, GDP growth has been a respectable 4.7 per-cent per annum 1950–2002, if one believes the numbers But, per capitaGDP is unimpressive (Table12.4) It was 20 percent below China’s in 2001,and is much worse with the inclusion of Africa’s Muslim communities

Table 12.2 GDP per Capita in Judea/Palestine Region 1950–2002

West Bankand Gaza Lebanon Jordan Syria Egypt

Note: Figures for Israel’s Muslim neighbors are unweighted averages Also, the Muslim

composite for 2002 extrapolates the Egyptian growth rate in 2001 to 2002.

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD, Paris, 2003,

Note: The 15 West Asia nations are Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait Lebanon, Oman, Qatar,

Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UAE, Yemen, West Bank and Gaza Also the Indonesian, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco figures for 2002 are estimated from the 2001 growth rate.

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD, Paris, 2003, Table 5b,

pp 174–5, 177; Table 6b, pp 210–13.

Nonetheless, per capita GDP growth was an adequate 2 percent per annum

1950–2002 This is well below potential, and inferior to the performance

of some developing regions, but should be enough to keep it from losing

ground to the EU and Japan.23

Table 12.4 GDP per Capita in the Crescent of Fire 1950–2002 (1990 international

Geary-Khamis dollars)

Year

WestAsia Indonesia Bangladesh Pakistan Algeria Egypt Morocco Total

Note: West Asia covers Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi

Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UAE, Yemen, West Bank, and Gaza The 2002 estimates for Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco have been extrapolated from 2001.

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD, Paris, 2003, Table 5c,

pp 184–5, 187; Table 6c pp 218–21.

These failures compounded by political repression, intrigue, and lent anti-western sentiment make the Crescent of Fire explosive Muslimnations like Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Soma-lia, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Pakistan wage wars of conquest and plunder againsteach other directly, or indirectly via proxies, under the banner of high prin-ciple Domestic opponents plot coup d’etats in Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,and Indonesia, resorting to insurrection, pitched battles, guerrilla war andterrorism And often groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah conduct ter-rorist attacks against Israel and Russia (regarding Chechnya) not just toharm enemies, but to muster support for internecine struggles at home All

viru-is fair in love, terror, putsches, and war Treachery viru-is ubiquitous

THE CAUSES OF TERRORISM

We point here to an attempt to rebuild Iraq in America’s image as an example

of overreach that we are unlikely to be able to accomplish But it also is notlikely to eliminate terrorism, even were we successful in changing Iraq Thereason for this lies in the deep causality of terrorism

The basic point is that people can violently oppose America, and do it byterrorism, with other motivations than poverty In fact, America has neverbeen brought to war by an adversary driven by poverty and deprivation

By nationalism, by ambition, by contempt for us, yes – but by desperation

caused by deprivation, no Not Germany, not Japan, not the Southerners

who fought against the Union in our Civil War, not Spain, not Vietnam,

not North Korea, not China (in the Korean War) There is no reason to

think that our adversaries in the war on terror are any different, and many

reasons to think they are like our other adversaries – well-to-do but our

adversaries

Well-to-do people can oppose America and as they and their sympathizers

become richer, they can do it more effectively It’s a great illusion to think

that opposition to us grows only in the soil of deprivation and oppression –

such a conviction is a form of arrogance that lies at the heart of wishful

thinking The arrogance lies in the notion that if people anywhere were well

off, they’d admire and support what we are and what we do This simply

isn’t the case now, never has been, and won’t be in the future

Why would some people make themselves our adversaries even if they

themselves were well off? They might oppose our values, or what they believe

to be our values America is complex – there is a traditional side to our culture

and a side dedicated to destroying what is traditional Here, for example, is

a young American writing about the positive changes he sees in American

life since the counterculture began in the 1960s

“ [T]he 60s rid us of certain aesthetic and stylistic inhibitions Ladies

will never again be required to wear white gloves The notion of ‘Sunday

best’ clothes becomes more antiquated every year The conventions of rock

‘n’ roll, rap, and even country music now permit profanity, and they forever

will.” This he believes is all to the good – thus there are people actively trying

to achieve these things, and glorying in them.24

Thus, whether it’s modesty or manners, there’s a strong force in American

culture trying to undermine it, and people abroad who support the old

verities are likely to find themselves antagonists of America

America has allies and supporters in other nations in the world; their

opponents are natural adversaries of America The most dramatic such

example today is America’s support for Israel against a host of those who

are ill-wishers to the Jewish state

However, rich might be another country, it could find itself envying and

seeking to rival America’s global might The most dramatic examples today

involve Russia and China; in the future the most dramatic example may be

a united Europe

In the case of terrorism directed today at America, each of these factors

plays a key role – cultural antipathy, America’s support for enemies, and

envy of American power What role does poverty play?

What is the connection between terrorism and poverty? This is an tant question because a particularly strong variant of wishful thinking holdsthat the terrorist threat to America is caused by economic deprivation andcan best be answered by economic improvements.

impor-For example, a reporter for the Washington Post writes, “ terrorism

the seeds of that problem were planted in the soil of despair, isolation andzealotry.”25

In such a view, terrorists are people whom despair and isolation have led

to zealotry But there is little evidence for this Instead, an increasing body

of evidence and analysis shows that those who point to poverty as a cause

of terrorism are mistaken, at least to the extent that poverty usually existswithout giving birth to terrorism, and terrorism sometimes exists withoutpoverty and deprivation (for example, America’s Unabomber, who was agraduate of Harvard College) Yet people who take this point of view oftenhave an admirable motive They wish to eliminate poverty since it is anevil in the world, and if they can only interest others in their objective byinsisting that addressing poverty will also reduce terrorism, then they’ll usethat method of getting support This isn’t the most reputable approach, butneither is it the worst thing that happens in our world, and at least the goal

is admirable

This analysis is a sophisticated way of blaming Americans for the attacks

on the United States – again blaming the victims for their victimization AmyChua of Yale argues that Americans are hated abroad because we’re rich (inher words, we’re a “market dominant minority”), and therefore the disad-vantaged attack us.26So it turns out that terror is rooted in understandableresentment – not ethnic hatred (or if it is, we’re fueling that by our insis-tence on democracy), not lust for power or wealth, but just resentment Shethus attempts to transfer envy to the level of geopolitical activism Althoughenvy plays its role, it won’t carry this much weight as a cause of globalconflict

We must be careful not to be misled into a response to terrorism that iswholly economic and ameliorative

What have we learned about terrorism and its causes in recent years?

r Terrorists are rarely the completely deprived, but instead are usuallywell-educated people “Mass and indiscriminate murder is the crime ofeducated people ” They believe they have the right to decide for others

what is important and to impose it on them; they are convinced that theirends justify their means.27Terrorists are not, in their own minds and to

outside observers, irrational “ Someone whose rational insights

pro-duce apparently irrational behavior doesn’t fit the usual psychiatric

categories. Rather than being irrational, he takes ideas more seriously

than most He suffers from an excess of reason.”28

r Any connection between poverty and terrorism “is at best indirect,

com-plicated and probably quite weak.”29

r Poverty is usually a pretext, not a cause, of mass murder “Don’t fall for

the hypothesis that poverty is the cause of mass murder It is just a pretext

used by people with other agendas If poverty were eliminated, then the

same people would find another pretext. As logical as the

poverty-breeds terrorism argument may seem, study after study shows that suicide

attackers and their supporters are rarely ignorant or impoverished Nor

are they crazed, cowardly, apathetic or asocial.”30

The causes of terrorism lie as much or more in a political culture of

violence and fanaticism as in poverty.31

r Research dating back decades and updated frequently shows that most

ter-rorists do not come from backgrounds of deprivation For example, only

some 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers are from impoverished

families.32

r Rather, poverty seems to become an excuse for efforts to take political

power; it is seen as a way to rally the masses and a justification for direct

and violent action Poverty is not a cause of violence or terrorism, it is

rationale for it; and absent poverty, the impulse of terrorists trying to

gain political power would simply seek another justification Terror is a

weapon – sometimes used by the weak (as by Arab militants); sometimes

used by the strong (as by Hitler at the height of Nazi Germany’s power

and Stalin always) It is a weapon of choice, and employed in different

ways It is neither the result of poverty; nor is it the peculiar weapon of

the desperate instead of the strong

Finally, in the indirect connection between poverty and terrorism, the nexus

lies in comparative poverty, not absolute deprivation The Middle East is not

one of the poorest regions of the globe But it has some of the world’s greatest

extremes of wealth and poverty Oil wealth in the Middle East has greatly

increased the difference between haves and have-nots, enormously

increas-ing social tensions This is the cauldron from which hatred and terrorism

bubble, not from the differences between the United States and the Islamic

countries, and it is in the bubbling of this cauldron that we are now caught

The problem, from the point of view of wishful thinking and its tions for economic development as a cure for terrorism, is that economicprogress in these countries will first acerbate the differences within, notdecrease them, and so progress will make things worse Wishful thinking isagain shown to be an illusion.

prescrip-“The poor in Muslim states may be the popular base of terrorist support,but they have neither the money nor the votes (who votes doesn’t count,who counts them does, in Stalin’s words) the privileged do Ultimately,Islamic terrorism, just as its Marxist or secessionist version in the West andLatin America was, is a matter of power – who has it and how to get it –not of poverty Accepting this as a fundamental aspect of terrorism doesnot suggest any immediate solutions, but can direct further study towardbetter explanations of terrorism and theories with some potential predictivevalue.”33

A sea of poverty and disappointment is necessary for middle class olutionaries to get any foothold They can exist in Germany or the UnitedStates, but only at the margin and with little or no chance of success If theyare, as Michael Radu says, concerned primarily about power, they are com-pletely marginal in Germany and the United States, for example, becausethere is no likely context in which they can achieve power But in the Arabworld, for example, the context is there (as it was in Russia at the time of theBolshevik coup d’´etat) and so they are a real threat because they could gainpower A terrorist group in a context in which they could achieve power is avery different thing than a terrorist group in a context in which they cannotachieve power, and little is gained by talking about “terrorism,” which isonly a method

rev-Examples are offered continually by secular dictatorships in the region,including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria The governments never cease torepress middle-class revolutionaries looking for a foothold among the poor.For instance, in May 2005, some forty students at Tishreen University in Syriawere arrested and tortured by Syrian police because of their involvement

in Islamic fundamentalist movements “Syria’s emergency laws, adoptedsome 40 years ago as a national security measure” wrote a reporter for

The Chronicle of Higher Education, an American publication, “forbid the

formation of any group without explicit government approval Thus, merelyforming an illegal student group, let alone an Islamist one, is grounds forarrest in Syria.”34Syria also conducts an equally brutal campaign against itsbetter established political rivals In Lebanon, a car bomb killed anti-Syrianpolitical leader George Hawi, just weeks after the similar murder of anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir There is little doubt about the instigators of

the murders.35The murder of political leaders of an opposition is an old

Communist and fascist tactic and is very effective

It is possible that the attachment of Osama bin Laden and other

middle-class radical leaders to Islamic fundamentalism is no deeper than necessary

to mobilize warriors against their chosen enemies We must always keep in

mind that their most direct enemies are other Muslims, in particular those

governing Saudi Arabia “The fight against the enemy nearest to you has

precedence over the fight against the enemy farther away,” said Muhammad

Abd al-Salam Faraj, tried and hanged in connection with the 1981

assassina-tion of Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt “ In all Muslim countries the enemy has

the reins of power,” he continued “The enemy is the present rulers.” And

bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri is reported to have said, “Victory

for the Islamic movements cannot be attained unless these movements

possess an Islamic base in the heart of the Arab region,” a clear statement

of geopolitical objectives.36Islamic radicalism undergirds the movement as

communist ideology undergirded the foreign policy of the USSR Osama

bin Laden, like the leaders of the Soviet Union, may or may not have believed

in their own demagoguery, but the movement itself was powerful

In August 1996, Osama bin Laden published a fatwa, though technically

he is not a cleric, he may have had no authority to do so, but the document is

certainly a statement of hostility (if not a declaration of war, as he represents

no state), entitled “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the

Land of the Two Holy Places.” (Osama bin Laden, first published in Al Quds

Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper, in August 1996; obtained from the

PBS News Hour Web site.) It is 24 pages long We quote a significant excerpt

that we believe to be representative from it here because it demonstrates the

focus of our adversaries; and because so few Americans have read it It is not

a denunciation of Christianity or Judaism It is not a polemic against the

American way of life It is something much more nationalistic in nature

Praise be to Allah, we seek His help and ask for his pardon It should not be hidden

from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice

imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent

that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the

enemies The people of Islam awakened and realized that they are the main target

for the aggression of the Zionist-Crusaders alliance All false claims and propaganda

about “Human Rights” were hammered down and exposed by the massacres that took

place against the Muslims in every part of the world.

The latest and the greatest of these aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the

death of the Prophet (ALLAH’S BLESSING AND SALUTATIONS ON HIM) is the

occupation of the land of the two Holy Places – the foundation of the house of Islam,

the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka’ba,

the Qiblah of all Muslims – by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies (We bemoan this iniquitous crusaders movement under the leadership of the USA; who fears that the scholars and callers of Islam, will instigate the Ummah of Islam against its’ enemies We, myself and my group, have suffered some of this injustice ourselves; we have been prevented from addressing the Muslims We have been pursued

in Pakistan, Sudan and Afghanistan, hence this long absence on my part But by the Grace of Allah, a safe base is now available in the high Hindukush mountains From here, today we begin the work, talking and discussing the ways of correcting what had happened to the Islamic world in general, and the Land of the two Holy Places in particular We wish to study the means that we could follow to return the situation to its normal path.

The inability of the [Saudi] regime to protect the country, and allowing the enemy of the Ummah – the American crusader forces – to occupy the land for the longest of years The crusader forces became the main cause of our disastrous condition, particularly in the economical aspect of it due to the unjustified heavy spending on these forces As a result of the policy imposed on the country, especially in the field of oil industry where production is restricted or expanded and prices are fixed to suit the American economy ignoring the economy of the country Expensive deals were imposed

on the country to purchase arms People asking what is the justification for the very existence of the regime then? the regime refused to listen to the people accusing them

of being ridiculous and imbecile The matter got worse as previous wrong doings were followed by mischief’s of greater magnitudes All of this taking place in the land of the two Holy Places! It is no longer possible to be quiet It is not acceptable to give a blind eye to this matter The financial and the economical situation of the country and the frightening future in the view of the enormous amount of debts and interest owed

by the government; this is at the time when the wealth of the Ummah being wasted to satisfy personal desires of certain individuals!! while imposing more custom duties and taxes on the nation.

The miserable situation of the social services and infra-structure especially the water service and supply, the basic requirement of life The state of the ill-trained and ill-prepared army and the impotence of its commander in chief despite the incredible amount of money that has been spent on the army The gulf war clearly exposed the situation Therefore every one agreed that the situation can not be rectified unless the root of the problem is tackled Hence it is essential to hit the main enemy who divided the Ummah into small and little countries and pushed it, for the last few decades, into

a state of confusion The Zionist-Crusader alliance moves quickly to contain and abort any “corrective movement” appearing in the Islamic countries Different means and methods are used to achieve their target If there are more than one duty to be carried out, then the most important one should receive priority Clearly after Belief (Imaan) there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land The Mujahideen, your brothers and sons, requesting that you support them in every possible way by supplying them with the necessary information, materials and arms Security men are especially asked to cover up for the Mujahideen and to assist them

as much as possible against the occupying enemy; and to spread rumors, fear and discouragement among the members of the enemy forces

I say to you William (Cohen, Defense Secretary of the United States) that: These youths love death as you love life They inherit dignity, pride, courage, generosity, truthfulness

and sacrifice from father to father They are most delivering and steadfast at war.

They inherit these values from their ancestors (even from the time of the Jaheliyyah,

before Islam) Our youths believe in paradise after death Those youths have

no intention except to enter paradise by killing you Those youths are different from

your soldiers Your problem will be how to convince your troops to fight, while our

problem will be how to restrain our youths to wait for their turn in fighting and in

operations.

I rejected all the critics, who chose the wrong way; I rejected those who enjoy

fireplaces in clubs discussing eternally;I rejected those, who inspire being lost, think

they are at the goal;I respect those who carried on not asking or bothering about the

difficulties Thewallsofoppressionandhumiliationcannotbedemolishedexceptina

rain of bullets The freeman does not surrender leadership to infidels and sinners Our

Lord, guide this Ummah, and make the right conditions (by which) the people of your

obedience will be in dignity and the people of disobedience in humiliation, and by which

the good deeds are enjoined and the bad deeds are forebode.

There is not much in this document about denying to Americans our way

of life For a document that is supposedly a religious manifesto, there is a

surprising amount about the finances of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia There

is a great deal of a rather nationalist concern – overcast with pan-Arabic and

religious rhetoric – about the alleged occupation of a home country (Saudi

Arabia) by foreign troops (America’s) and an allegedly corrupt regime (the

Saudi monarchy) that permits this There is, that is, much about power and

wealth and about the government of a particular nation.37And there is much

threat and bluster

Rather like the Cold War, there is the sense of a battle between nations

(or the self-anointed leaders of nations) played out in part in an ideological

or religious context in which the emotions of all sides can be more easily

aroused, even if the ideological or religious concerns are not at the root of

the controversies That is to say, the Cold War was not about Communism,

and the War on Terror is not about Islam, except insofar as leaders of each

side needed ideology or religion to rally supporters It is the public culture

that makes the conflict seem to be about ideology or religion To accept as

fact the illusions of the public culture about the basic cause of the conflict

is to lose objectivity about the contest and therefore – via wrong objectives,

wrong methods, wrong priorities, and wrong justifications – to become prey

to mistaken actions and missed opportunities

THE CONTEST IN THE MIDDLE EASTAmericans had been attacked by Islamic terrorists several times before

September 11, 2001 For example, more than two hundred of our Marines

had been killed in a bombing of their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983.38

In response, we chose not to declare war on terrorism, but to withdraw fromLebanon, leaving it ultimately in control of Syria for more than twenty years –

a continuing haven for terrorists About the American reaction to the Beirutbombing Osama bin Laden remarked in an interview with John Miller ofABC News on May 28, 1998, “We have seen in the last decade the decline ofthe American government and the weakness of the American soldier, who

is unprepared to fight long wars This was proven in Beirut when the

Marines fled after two explosions ”39

It is sometimes argued that the beginning of the Islamists’ use of terrorbombing as a tactic against the West was the bombing of the U.S Marinebarracks in Beirut in 1984 That bombing caused the American superpower

to withdraw from Lebanon in just six weeks or so, and is alleged to haveproved to Islamic radicals the value of terror bombing Thus, the increasinguse of terrorism was the Reagan administration’s fault However, terrorismwas a part of the Islamist response to the West in the nineteen century It wasused throughout the war for Israeli independence It use against Americanscan be dated to Beirut in 1984, but even had Reagan been more vigorous inresponse, matters would likely not have unfolded very differently

Bin Laden’s comment is consistent with a radical Islamic interpretation

of recent history According to this interpretation, Muslim fighters defeatedthe stronger superpower – the Soviet Union – in Afghanistan, precipitatingits dissolution, and have now turned to what they apparently consider theweaker superpower – America – and believe they will soon force its collapse

In their view the United States is further away, less well armed, less ruthless,more morally corrupt, socially degenerate, and therefore “politically andmilitarily enfeebled.”40It seemed to bin Laden that there was a pattern inthe behavior of the United States The terrorists attacked and we denouncedthem and threatened retaliation and withdrew We were all talk and noaction

Yet after the attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001, wesprung on them Perhaps it was because the attack had been on American soil;perhaps it was because so many lives had been lost; perhaps it was because thevictims were civilians not marines Whatever the reason, America respondedvery differently than it had eighteen years before

We defined ourselves as at war We need not have done this We’d beenattacked before by the same group several times, and we hadn’t responded

by saying we were at war We could have treated the terrorist attacks asrather more a crime than an act of war – and we need not have chosen toinclude foreign governments in our list of enemies – we could have restricted

ourselves to the terrorists who are nongovernmental entities But once the

World Trade Center had been destroyed, we chose to declare war and include

in our adversaries certain foreign governments We thereby threw ourselves

into the middle of the Middle Eastern political cauldron

The Islamic terrorists’ threat to us is not primarily religious in its

motivation; it is political The motivation of suicide bombers is not

pri-marily religious either, except insofar as Islam promises paradise to those

who die in its behalf When we define the conflict as one of cultures or

religions, we give it a depth it does not deserve, misidentify our enemies in

a way that makes them far more numerous than they really are, and makes

the problem of countering them even more difficult than it is Those “who

carefully parse the statements of Osama bin Laden find them completely

secular,” writes Louise Richardson of the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard The

World Trade Center towers “were hit not as icons of blasphemy, but of

arro-gant power” (our power) Al-Queda is fighting to get the West out of the

Middle East and it is our involvement there in support of rich and repressive

regimes that is the cause of their actions toward us (the Palestinian cause

is not a real source of al-Queda’s animosity toward us) Suicide bombing,

the weapon of our adversaries that gets the most attention from the media,

is the result of “a desire for glory, coupled with strong group ties and

often more interest in the dying than the killing.”41 There is underway a

political battle for control of the Middle East, in which the prizes are the oil

of the Persian Gulf and the nuclear war capability of Pakistan.42The contest

involves Islamic traditionalists who use terrorism as a weapon, established

governments that use police repression as a weapon, and outside powers

who covet the oil of the Middle East “One could easily do a revisionist

his-tory of 9/11,” wrote Thomas Friedman, “and show how it was simply the

opening salvo in an attempted coup within Saudi Arabia – with the attack on

America meant only as a bank shot to undermine one of the main supports

of the Saudi ruling family.”43

PALESTINEWhat is most striking about Friedman’s comment is that he labels this view,

which is almost certainly the accurate one, “revisionist” and therefore

out-side the mainstream What then is the mainstream view? It is that terrorists

are attacking America because they hate our values and way of life, and

because of our support for Israel in its alleged repression of the Palestinian

people For example, according to a British writer, the United States has been

stuck in a largely unchanging mess in the Mideast for four decades He adds,

“Yet all routes in the maze lead back to the Israel-Palestinian conflict Theperception of the Arab world – and, it should be said, of most Europeans –

is that America’s enduring support for Israel now amounts to a blank checkfor a government led by Ariel Sharon that will never make an enduringpeace Mr Sharon builds settlements and walls in the occupied territoriesthat guarantee such an outcome is impossible The most he can expect fromthe White House is a mild rebuke.”44

However, the view that the Palestinian dispute is at the bottom of theturmoil in the Middle East is mistaken Quite the contrary The disputeover political control in the Islamic world is at the bottom of the Palestinianconflict The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a sideshow to the greater conflict

in the Crescent of Fire The clash of civilizations is one reason for the conflict

in the Crescent of Fire, if for no other reason that the differences betweenAmerican traditional values and Muslim values is exploited by demagoguesand intriguers

The clash of civilizations is only menacing when there is a specific ment of forces with opposing societies Civilization is a conditioning factor,not an enduring cause taken in isolation At this historical junction, civi-lization factors have been pushed to the forefront

align-A key element is the clash of moralities – with radical Islam representing

a radicalized Puritanism and the West an extreme cosmopolitanism resented by U.S popular (not public) culture Puritanism is patriarchical,religious, moral; cosmopolitanism is egalitarian, tolerant, amoral There

rep-is a strong cosmopolitan element in Islam (the governing powers in mostIslamic states, especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Emirates are cos-mopolitan): and there is a strong puritan element in the West (in Americathere is the religious right and orthodox Judaism) But Puritanism is resur-gent in Islam and cosmopolitanism dominates the United States and reachesaround the world via our popular culture with its glorification of sex, drugs,pornography, relativism, and so on

The Bush administration sees America as puritan (which is the istration’s political orientation), but America is really cosmopolitan So theadministration fails to comprehend the puritan/cosmopolitan division inthe world

admin-The puritan/cosmopolitan divide is much older than the religious divide(especially Christianity/Islam, which is only about fourteen hundred yearsold) Abraham was puritan; the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians werecosmopolitan The Hebrews were puritan; the Phillistines were cosmopoli-tan The Persians were puritan; the Babylonians were cosmopolitan ThePersians became cosmopolitan; the Greeks were puritan The Greeks

became cosmopolitan; the Romans were puritan The Romans became

cosmopolitan; the Germanic tribes were puritan The Byzantines were

cosmopolitan; the Arabs were puritan The Chinese were cosmopolitan; the

Mongols were puritan The Catholic Church was cosmopolitan; the

Protes-tants were puritan The Cavaliers were cosmopolitan; the Roundheads were

puritan The English were cosmopolitan; the Americans were puritan Today,

America is cosmopolitan (the dynamic of history is that successful puritan

societies evolve into cosmopolitan societies); its Islamic radical antagonists

are puritan

Thus, there is not so much a clash of civilizations as a clash of moralities

Or, put differently, a clash of civilizations occurs only when there is a clash

of moralities beneath it

In this context, Palestine is a cockpit in a conflict that is much wider than

Palestine

The real conflict is not over Palestine, but over the efforts of Islamic

rad-icals to seize control of the most financially viable and militarily powerful

elements of the Muslim world (today Saudi Arabia and Pakistan,

respec-tively) and Palestine is a tool in these efforts

The disproportion of cause and effect supports this view How could it be

that the prime minister of Israel proposes to build a wall separating Israelis

from Palestinian Arabs, and as a result the World Trade Center is destroyed

and thousands die in New York City? Yet this is what those who attribute

terrorism to a Palestinian cause assert Sharon’s settlements in Palestinian

lands and his defensive walls neither justify nor explain the broader conflict

in the region in which we have become entangled

The challenge from Muslim radicals is not a clash of civilizations nor a

shout of rage by the disadvantaged, but is instead rooted in political

ambi-tion, intrigue and self-preservation The usually cited causes –Israeli actions

and poverty—are primarily pretexts for terrorism the purpose of which is

much broader than support for the Palestinians Hence, the challenge cannot

be eliminated by resolving the dispute in Palestine

There’s a great struggle for political power going on in the Arab world

occasioned in part by the economic developments of the past fifty years

(oil revenues, population growth, nonoil economic stagnation, emergence

of fundamentalist Islam, etc) The struggle is exported to the rest of the

world via two routes – oil which interests the great powers, and Islam

which overlaps into non-Arab regions Oil entices non-Arab powers to get

involved in the Arab power struggle for their own purposes; and Islam

car-ries the rhetoric and violent methods of the struggle into non-Arab

commu-nities

It was Israel’s misfortune to emerge at this point in Arab history Israel islargely a consequence of European politics and war (of the Zionist impulse ofthe late nineteenth century and of the Nazis and World War II) In the setting

of the internal conflict in the Arab world, Israel became a pawn in the Arabconflict It is thus absurd to suggest that a full reconciliation in Palestine can

be achieved while the Arab struggle continues; and it is a greater absurdity

to suppose that if a peace could somehow be crafted in Palestine, it wouldlead to a broader peace in the Arab world Turmoil in the Arab world is not

a result of turmoil in Palestine; rather the reverse The tail (Palestine) is tootiny (about four million people in Palestine, the total population for UnitedPalestine nine million) to wag the dog (an Arab world of some 165 to 235million – depending on how much of north Africa is included) To insistthat the tail does wag the dog is a fundamental misconception that leads toall sorts of errors of strategy and tactics for America – and it is an element

of the dominance of illusion over reality in our public culture

If Israel did not exist, and there were no conflict in Palestine betweenJews and Muslims, there would remain conflict in the Muslim world betweenmodernizers and traditionalists, it would be violent, and we would be drawninto the conflict, given oil and the geographic significance of much of theregion The Palestinian issue is only a small part of the whole conflict, andwe’d be as involved were there no Israel In consequence, Israel is a benefit

to us in the Middle East, not a cause of our difficulties

Israel has little margin of error for survival The country has a population

of only about five million Jews, and it is only about eight thousand squaremiles in area (smaller than Massachusetts) At its narrowest point, it is onlyabout fifty miles across; and it has many neighbors sworn to its extinction.Israel has fought four wars with its Arab neighbors; it need lose only one to

be eliminated

This is difficult for Americans to comprehend We are a nation of almostthree hundred million; residing on much of a continent (3.7 million squaremiles); protected by two great oceans; with friendly neighbors, both of which

we dominate in population, economics and military strength We have a hugemargin for error; and in fact, as Churchill said, we Americans make mis-take after mistake in international affairs, but ultimately have the resources,leadership, and determination to correct them and win the victory Israel isnot in this position

When one combines the two facts: that the conflict in the Middle East isnot driven by economic deprivation, and that Israel is almost indefensibleand has no margin of error, then it is understandable why many Israelis,including the government, do not accept our illusion – that if they treat thePalestinians as the Palestinians say they wish to be treated, then the result will

be a secure peace and an end to Arab aggression toward Israel It might, but it

might not Israeli has no margin of error to see which it is So it’s no surprise

that the Israelis’ do not rush into a peace that may be flawed, and may be a

fatal trap for them The issues of “right of return” and the unwillingness of

Palestinians to settle for anything less than a united Palestine under Muslim

control could block the path to peace

American opinion has been shifting toward the notion that Israeli

mis-treatment of the Palestinians is causing the Arab world to be anti-American

because we are supporting Israel In giving credence to this point of view, we

are accepting the position of bin Laden and his allies, who have adopted this

position as a justification for their terror tactics against us But the politics

of money and oil that underlie the turmoil in the Arab world would be there

regardless of Israel; and we would be involved in the turmoil regardless of

Palestine

THE ISRAELI–PALESTINIAN SMOKESCREENThe Crescent of Fire’s engagement across and beyond its borders is often

reduced by commentators to a single source of dispute: the Israel-Palestine

conflict Politicians of diverse persuasions contend that it is the key to the

whole dangerous puzzle.45If Israel and the Palestinian authorities in Gaza

and the West Bank follow President Bush’s “road map” to a two-state

solu-tion in which land is exchanged for peace, and Palestinians are

permit-ted to return to their ancestral homes, so goes this proposition, then all

other grievances will recede into obscurity.46Islamic fundamentalism,

insur-gency, terror, war, political intervention, and occupation will recede into

insignificance

For nearly sixty years, it has seemed wise to many people to engage in this

wishful thinking,47even though bundling issues has circumscribed options,

and the linkage has grown increasingly implausible With the stakes

ris-ing, including the possibility of an Iranian Islamic fundamentalist nuclear

weapon,48 it behooves scholars and politicians to acknowledge the

non-likelihood of the “roadmap” culminating in a durable peace for Israel and

Palestine, and in an armistice across the Crescent of Fire

There are two reasons for this unpleasant conclusion First, there are no

terms that can resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict to the satisfaction of both

parties Second, even if there were, those terms would not resolve the

ambi-tions of Islamic fundamentalism, Muslim imperial aspiraambi-tions, intrastate

and intra-Ummah opportunism, and petro rivalries.49

The intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum is exposed in

Palestinian insistence on the right of return and restitution for Palestinian