Islam’s Achilles Heel

August 25, 2010 - Paul Hollrah

In a July 21, 2010 statement, former Speaker Newt Gingrich threw down the gauntlet exactly as it should be by every American political leader. He said, “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.” Referring to the proposed “Cordoba House” mosque overlooking the World Trade Center site, where Islamic jihadists killed more than 3000 innocent people, he said,

“Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to ‘symbolize interfaith cooperation’ when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.

“Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for ‘religious toleration’ are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca. And they lecture us about tolerance… America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. ..”

The cultural-political offensive of which Gingrich speaks is a clear indicator of why it is time we elected a president with the experience, the knowledge, the mental toughness, and the historical perspective necessary to lead our country in time of war.

The Muslim Umma now consists of some 1.5 billion people, worldwide. And while birth rates in the Muslim world may be declining to just above replacement rates, Muslim birthrates in Europe and the United States continue to far outstrip those of native Europeans and Americans. This fact, coupled with radical Islam’s unwavering determination and limitless patience, should tell us that the West could never win a war of attrition against Islam. If we are to win the War on Terror we must look elsewhere to find radical Islam’s Achilles heel.

So what is their weakness? It is not in numbers; the Umma provides an almost unlimited source of jihadist war fighters for al Qaeda and its subsidiaries and the Taliban. It is not their fear of death because, for Muslims, the greatest honor is to die in the service of Allah. And it certainly is not their fear of war. Radical Islam is willing to sacrifice unlimited numbers of men, women, and children in their quest for world domination.

However, if we can assume that Muslim women… oppressed, abused, covered from head to toe with layers of shapeless black cloth, and treated no better than farm animals… are no less vain than women in western cultures, then the Achilles heel of radical Islam is almost certainly the long-smoldering desire of Muslim women to enjoy the same freedom of expression and the same realization of self-worth available to women in western cultures.

In majority Islamic countries women are not allowed to vote, they can’t go out in public without being covered from head to toe and without their husband or another male member of the family, they’re not allowed to drive an automobile or work outside the home, and they’re not allowed to receive a meaningful education. And if a woman brings dishonor to her family by being raped, committing adultery, consorting with infidels, or converting to Christianity or Judaism, she may even be subject to “honor killing,” i.e. put to death by the male members of her family.

In Iran, a woman named Hajieh Esmailvand currently stands convicted of adultery. And while she has been imprisoned since January 2000, news reports suggest that, after serving five more years behind bars, she will be buried up to her chest and stoned to death.

On Wednesday, August 11, within minutes of hearing the latest details of Ms. Esmailvand’s plight on CNN, Barack Obama issued a White House press release offering his best wishes to Muslims in the United States and around the world as they began their celebration of Ramadan. In his statement, Obama expressed the belief that “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality,” and that the rituals of Ramadan “remind us of the principles that we hold in common and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings...”

Somehow, the concept of gender equality and the barbaric practice of “stoning” was lost in the translation, as was any mention of the complete absence of Christian and Jewish places of worship in the Muslim world.

He concluded by saying, “Here in the United States, Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country.” This assumes, of course, that one considers the act of turning a large section of lower Manhattan into a mass grave to be an “extraordinary contribution to our country.”

As evidence of a latent hunger for gender equality, 300 Afghan women recently demonstrated against a new law requiring women to submit to the sexual demands of their husbands at least once every four days. For their courage they were pelted with stones and called “dogs” and “slaves of the Christians.” In the absence of worldwide support from non-Muslim women, their courage will likely be seen as just an isolated act of defiance warranting a Fatwa (sentence of death). What is needed to inspire Muslim women around the globe is a definitive statement by Michelle Robinson Obama, the wife of the most revered man in the Muslim world.

Unfortunately, her best opportunity came and went in early June 2009 when Obama made his first trip to the Middle East. Instead of accompanying her husband to Saudi Arabia, where he famously bowed to the Saudi King, and to Cairo, where he proclaimed to the world that, “Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” Michelle stayed behind in Washington, later flying to join her junketing husband in Paris for a glitzy weekend conquest of the City of Lights.

So why did Mrs. Obama not accompany her husband to the Middle East, as Laura Bush did during her husband’s presidency? Could it be that the Obamas were bowing to Muslim custom which prohibited him from bringing his wife into countries that accept Sharia Law?

While even the most strident women’s rights groups in the West appear to have been intimidated into inaction, lest they become targets of Muslim brutality, we should not assume that Muslim women are beyond the reach of western image makers and thought leaders. And while Michelle Obama is unlikely to take a proactive role in proselytizing the women of the Muslim world, she can be drawn unwillingly into that role.

While it is currently a target for defeat by conservative women’s groups, the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA), sponsored by Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, is now awaiting action in House and Senate committees. Under the proposal, violence is defined as “any act of gender-based violence against women or girls committed because of their gender that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life…”

The bill creates an “Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues,” based in the State Department and tasked to assure a “gender integration” perspective in all State Department policies and programs. The bill calls for a “comprehensive, five-year international strategy to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls internationally…”

Instead of attacking IVAWA as just another leftist plot to extend American feminist ideals to women around the world, conservative women might begin thinking in terms of a grand strategy to infiltrate or hijack IVAWA, using it as a cultural weapon-of-mass-destruction against radical Islam with Michelle Obama out front, leading the charge. Inasmuch as the purpose of IVAWA is to support the development and enforcement of legal and judicial sanctions and protections, both civil and criminal, on behalf of oppressed women everywhere, why not turn it to our strategic advantage in the War on Terror?

If it is true that the unfulfilled aspirations of Muslim women is the only real weakness of radical Islam, it may be that the only way we can ever hope to defeat them is by creating chaos within the Muslim family structure… between fathers and daughters, between sisters and brothers, and between husbands and wives… depriving Muslim men of their whipping dogs, their sex slaves, and their human doormats. If we can keep Abdul and Mahmoud occupied, worrying about restoring peace in their own bedrooms, they won’t be spending nearly as much time thinking of ways to send all of us infidels to our final reward.

If enough American women… conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats… will co-opt a well-funded government vehicle such as IVAWA, showing Muslim women what western life has to offer and demanding that they be set free, how could Michelle Obama refuse to play a leading role?

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Paul Hollrah is a Senior Fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute.