There
is something terribly and tragically and importantly
symbolic about the Benghazi attack that may be lost in the tidal wave
of details about what happened on September 11, 2012, in an incident
where four American officials were murdered in a terrorist attack. This
point stands at the heart of everything that has happened in American
society and intellectual life during the last decade.
And that point is this:
America
was attacked once again on that September 11, attacked by al-Qaida in
an attempt to destroy the United States—as ridiculous as that goal might
seem. Yet the U.S. government blamed the attack on America itself.
Other
reasons can be adduced for the official position that what happened
that day was due to a video insulting Islam rather than to a terrorist
attack, but this is the factor of overwhelming importance. It
transformed the situation in the following ways:
--Muslims
were the victims of American misbehavior, a point emerging from the
administration’s wider worldview of U.S. aggression and Third World
suffering, as in the lectures of all those left-wing anti-American
academics and the sermons of Jeremiah Wright.
--While freedom of speech and such liberties should be defended they must be limited in some ways to prevent further trouble.
--America’s
proper posture should be one of apology, as in the advertisements that
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made for the Pakistani and other
media.
--The
exercise of American power has been the cause of America’s problems and
not an excess of appeasement. The chickens—in Wright’s phrase—are
merely coming home to roost. Yet once the video—which nobody in the
Middle East was aware of—there were in fact further anti-American riots
in different countries, now over the video which Clinton and others made
known, and in which dozens of people died. This showed that appeasement
and apology caused worse problems.
--The
solution to these Middle East conflicts required a change in U.S.
policies in order to avoid further offense. This meant distancing from
Israel and even historic Arab allies, showing respect and encouragement
even for “moderate” Islamist movements, and other measures.
In short, this is the stance of blaming America and exonerating its enemies that has seized hold of the national consciousness.
Of course, parallel responses met
the Boston bombing as the mass media and academics scrambled to give alternative explanations to the terrorists’ motives.
The
truth is, however, extremely simple: The United States faces a
revolutionary Islamist movement that will neither go away nor moderate
itself. To understand this movement and its ideology, how it is and is
not rooted in Islam, its weaknesses and divisions, the forces willing to
help combat it, and ways to devise strategies to battle it is the prime
international need for the moment.
It
is as necessary to do these things for revolutionary Islamism today as
it was to do the same things regarding Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s;
and for Communism in the 1940s and 1950s.
Yet the U.S. armed forces and other institutions are forbidden from holding this inquiry.
There are, of course, additional issues raised, though many of them also have far deeper significance:
--The
failure of the Obama Administration to defend and rescue Americans in
Benghazi is equivalent to its failures to defend American interests
around the world.
--The
fear of using American power in Libya that day parallels the overall
retreat from the traditional bipartisan policies of credibility,
deterrence, and all the other things in a great power’s lexicon.
--The
standpoint that it is better to let Americans die than to risk
offending certain groups. That might seem harsh but when it was decided
not to send a rescue mission that was precisely what was happening.
--A
lack of competence by a president who didn't know his duty and by
high-ranking subordinates who would not remind him of that duty.
--The
perfect symbolism of the president of the United States going to sleep
in the face of a crisis, the living embodiment of a 2008 election ad by
his opponent about whether he would deal with a crisis that erupted at 3
AM.
--The perfect symbolism of the
secretary of state being the one who did that ad and who said, "What difference does it make" regarding the attackers' motives.
--The
fact that the cover-up seems to be involved with the administration's
need to declare victory over al-Qaida. Not only is that claim untrue but
the idea that if al-Qaida is defeated there is no more threat from
revolutionary Islamism is the central bad theme of Administration Middle
East policy.
--The
issue of why the ambassador was in Benghazi that day. Remember that
President Obama stood before the United Nations General Assembly and
said that he was there
to plan a new school and hospital wing. Was he telling an outright lie?
Was the ambassador there in:
- An attempt to retrieve advanced weapons previously provided to Libyan Islamist groups in the war against the Qadhafi dictatorship because they could be turned against America? Well, such weapons were turned against America that day. If so, the situation showed the bankruptcy of the pro-Islamist policy.
- An effort to funnel weapons to the Syrian rebels, in a policy likely to repeat the problems in Libya? If so, the situation showed the bankruptcy of the pro-Islamist policy.
- A policy of negotiating some kind of deals with extreme and anti-American Islamist terrorists? If so, the situation showed the bankruptcy of the pro-Islamist policy.
And
finally what could be more symbolic than the hiring of Islamist
terrorists to guard the consulate, men who deserted or even turned their
guns against the Americans there? It is truly symbolic because the
Obama Administration has turned to Islamists—in Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey,
Syria, and elsewhere--in the belief that they are best suited to guard
U.S. interests in the Middle East.
In
discussing the Benghazi affair none of these broader issues should be
forgotten. It was not merely an order for the American rescue forces to
“stand down” but for the United States to bow down.
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--------------------
Barry
Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International
Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His next
book, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East,
written with Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, will be published by Yale University
Press in January 2014. His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, also published by Yale. Thirteen of his books can be read and downloaded for free at the website of the GLORIA Center including The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East and The Truth About Syria. His blog is Rubin
Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA)
Center http://www.gloria-center.org
Forthcoming Book: Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Yale University Press)
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
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