The Chocolate Curtain
Believing in Misery

Saying Yes to Islamist Democracies*

Umar Lee:

We see a US, contrary to what Bush says, that is steadfastly opposed to the form the democratic movement is taking in the Muslim World, which is an Islamist form, and they will support any crook from Hosni Mubarak to the Moroccan King to stop it, and when the US loses, the children of all the bloodsuckers of all those societies will be found riding around Virginia and Manhattan in SUV’s with their own slots on panel discussions at the American Enterprise Institute next to Ms. Ayaan.

Tell us what you really think, Umar.

The comments to the post are interesting as well.

*Yes, I know that's an oxymoron.

Comments

Doubting Thomas

We've allowed Islamic fascists to take over the two countries we supposedly 'liberated' even though the whole point of the war on "terror" is to destroy political Islam. What more does he want?

slickdpdx

Ya, I agree with Thomas and Ummar. The U.S. should have just kept its mouth shut and continued to prop up the bad old regimes while talking about human rights. That tactic is a proven success, isn't it?

GCarty

I still maintain that "Better Saddam than Shari'ah" was one of the reasons why France opposed the war in Iraq.

The Islamist movement is a problem in that it is an ideology with a deep and widespread appeal in Muslim countries. It is not like Nazism (a pure ideology of conquest, which is only popular for as long as it can deliver victories), or Communism (a tyranny ruling by terror, with very little popular support at all).

If you really believe that destroying Islamism is a must (personally I don't - I think the West's only legitimate war aim is destroying anti-Western terrorist organizations), how do you propose to do it?

Ataturk was able to secularize Turkey, but he had impeccable nationalist cred from when he saved Turkey from the Greek invasion in the early 1920s (and even so, he still had to use brutal methods to do so). The Shah of Iran too tried to secularize his own country, but he was too easy to portray as a Western stooge, and was overthrown in an Islamist revolution.

slickdpdx

GCarty: You have some good points. 'Better Saddam than Shariah' was one rationale for France and others (like the U.S.) support of Saddam (not just hands off but positive support!) However, the Baathist regime would not have lasted in the long term (Saddam's death? Before that or a little after?) Could the continuing support for Saddam have resulted in a stronger anti-Western/pro-Shariah movement? Look to your own example - the Shah.

Isaac Schrödinger

GCarty: The outcome of the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq will not be clear for some years. If by 2026, these two nations are like modern-day Iran, then we can say that the democratic experiments have failed.

That's the whole point. Provide the Muslim-majority countries with a system in which grievances are expressed through the political process--not violence. Some say that the whole enterprise will definitely fail. I ask, "Do we have a better option?"

slickdpdx: Good point.

GCarty

In my view there is very little prospect of democracy being established in the oil-rich Arab countries, because those countries are "rentier states" whose governments are funded not through taxes, but through oil revenue accruing directly to the state. The American Patriot slogan "No taxation without representation" also works in reverse.

To enable freedom in the Middle East (and in other parts of the Third World too), single-product economies must be abolished, as they are too vulnerable to kleptocrats.

Isaac Schrödinger

GCarty: Oil is indeed a curse for the Middle East. At the moment, it's not politically feasible for the West to abolish such a system.

We can protect Afghanistan and Iraq, so that the people living in the tyrannical Middle East can actually see a better model of governance and ask themselves, "Why not in my country?"

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