Fitzgerald: The ideology of Islam and the "war on terror's" "central front"

“CIA director Michael Hayden has warned that every major terrorist threat confronting the world has ties to Pakistan.” It would be comforting if one had the feeling that Michael Hayden, and Admiral McConnell, and all those who work with them, or will replace them, would focus for a moment not on this or that ever-changing "central front" but on the ideology of Islam, and came to grasp the not-very-difficult notion that the ideology of Islam is not peaceful. This ideology does not inculcate the idea of equality between Muslims and non-Muslims, but is based, rather, on one central and simple notion: that the main, and permanent, and most significant division of humanity is that between Muslims and non-Muslims, Believers and Infidels. And the former, those Believers, are taught that they are in a state of permanent war -- though not necessarily open warfare -- with Infidels, and that they have a duty, those Believers, to participate in the "struggle" or Jihad to remove all obstacles to the spread and then the dominance of Islam everywhere in the world.

This cannot be grasped except through taking the time to study a bit. It cannot be outsourced to underlings who will provide the usual three-page "Executive Summary" (with bullets, bien entendu). It must be studied, and then thought about, and then studied some more, and then connected to the actual history, over 1350 years, of Muslim conquest, and attempted conquest, of non-Muslim lands and peoples, and of the subjugation of the latter as, at best, dhimmis.

All of this may seem like a tall order, but it really isn't. It would save so much fantastically expensive and wasted effort, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, everywhere. It would alert those who have the responsibility of instructing and protecting us as to the permanent nature of this war, and would further alert them as to the main instruments of Jihad -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest -- which have little to do with what happens in the lands that are already Muslim, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, but a great deal to do with those countries under greatest threat from Jihad. Aside from Israel and India (and neither threat, in those cases, will be diminished by the surrender of further territory by either -- giving up either the "West Bank" or Indian-controlled Kashmir will merely whet, not sate, Muslim appetites, and feed, all over the world, Muslim triumphalism -- but to understand that, you have first to study the doctrine and the practice of Islam), those countries are those of Western Europe, the historic heart of the West.

Can those in Washington who are accustomed to thinking of military means alone in that ill-named "war on terror" possibly begin to bethink themselves? Can they stop long enough from their frantic and hectic immersion in the day-to-day and stand back, and stop, and begin to read, to study, to burn the midnight oil, so as begin to understand the broader picture, to connect all dots, to see things with a wide enough vision, and under the aspect not of eternity, but of a very long period to come? This period has no end point, but can be managed indefinitely, if the Muslim world’s sources of power -- the trillions that come from an accident of geology, and the millions of Muslims heedlessly, negligently, allowed to settle deep behind what Muslims themselves are taught to regard as enemy lines -- are diminished or undone.

That smooth man, Husain Haqqani, is now trying to sweet-talk the new Administration into another $15 billion. Does it occur to no one to ask Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. and Kuwait and Qatar and all the other "staunch allies" in the "war on terror" to show that support, since they are rolling, collectively, in several trillion surplus dollars, by starting to pay for Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan? Now that the Americans have spent more than $2 trillion on Iraq alone, and have been shelling out money to Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan, and of course the "Palestinian" "Authority," shouldn't they be asked to fund the next round and the next?

Why is that simply not even being discussed? Why is it impossible? Could it be because the Muslim states are not on our side? Could it be because they are content to see the Americans be bled dry by the endless needs of the Islamic world? Those needs will never go away, because inshallah-fatalism that has its source in Islam will guarantee economic paralysis. It will guarantee that aid from Western Infidels will not possibly create modern economies, or do away with huge corruption, or prevent those outraged by such corruption (made possible by the very sums given by Westerners) to find the obvious vehicle for their fury in a renewed and more fanatical commitment to Islam. Without the aid, no corruption. Without the corruption, no rage among the populace at the obvious unfairness. Without the rage among the populace at the obvious unfairness, no return to supporting such groups, once despised, as the Taliban.

Can't this simple lesson be learned? Opponents of misrule in Muslim lands will always, in the end, turn to Islam. If that "turn to Islam" did not have dangerous consequences for Infidels, if it were merely something like a Good-Government slate, one might be able to endure it. But it isn't, and it can't be. A return to Islam means a return to the whole thing, and that means increased hostility toward Infidels. So in the end, that Infidel aid to any government of any Muslim country will guarantee a rise in anti-Infidel sentiment.

But if the aid comes from other Muslim countries, then if there is resentment of how that aid is (inevitably) parceled out, or used and misused, it will at the very least not contribute to anti-American or other anti-Infidel sentiment. That's another reason why such aid ought to be coming, at this point, entirely from Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich sheikdoms. They had no compunction about supplying economic (and diplomatic) support to the Taliban in Afghanistan. They ought now to, if they really are "against al-Qaeda," give aid to Pakistan.

It will be a test of the rich Arabs, and the commitment that we keep (wrongly) attributing to them. If they fail that test, and if Pakistan dissolves as different groups and tribes within that country war among themselves, that will weaken the Camp of Islam and Jihad. And eventually it will damage, far more than it harms Infidels, others in that camp. So be it.

Those who have been strung along for decades by a succession of generals and zamindars now see Pakistan for what it is. Because the people of Pakistan have only Islam, and like the Arabs have no other identity that works against Islam -- unlike, say, the Iranians or the Berbers or the Kurds -- their hearts and minds cannot be won, even if the occasional smiling Husain Haqqani and other plausible anglophones (assorted Ispahani girls and other Western-educated children of zamindars) will lead the unwary in Washington to think otherwise.