The Fervent Imagination of the Liberals
A focus of this blog has been the crude nature of 'backlash' arguments deployed by opponents of the war on terror. From yesterday’s Guardian, an excellent example of the type by Timothy Garton Ash, Britain’s equivalent of Thomas Freidman. In his ‘thought-piece’, TGA imagines a world 3 years from now, in which, having been attacked by the administration of Hillary Clinton, Iran unleashes a string of suicide bombings in the UK and US killing 10,000.
Not only does TGA join the routine exaggeration of the number of Muslims willing to be recruited to jihadi causes (“Tehran, claiming it already had more than 50,000 volunteers for operations…”), he also makes the mistake of conflating jihadis, mainstream Islamist political parties, and state actors. In his scenario, “Iran's ability to wage asymmetric warfare through Hizbullah, Hamas and its own suicide-bombing brigades”, has been underestimated by the West.
In fact, none of the 9/11 bombers, nor the subsequent bombers in Madrid, London, Istanbul, Bali or anywhere else have had any kind of connection with state-actors. Nor have they been part of political Islamist movements of the type that Hamas or Hizbollah represent. While these mainstream political groups may not have eschewed violence as a political means (although both seem to be in the process of abandoning that tactic), nor have they been involved in the rootless nihilism of Al-Qaeda and its ilk. This is not a careful analysis of the likely fallout from a US invasion of Iran (which might well be disastrous), this is the bandying about of a series of prejudices and clichés about the Middle East. As long as the liberal anti-war position adopts such presuppositions of the war on terror so fully, they stand little chance of producing a more progressive vision for contemporary politics.
Not only does TGA join the routine exaggeration of the number of Muslims willing to be recruited to jihadi causes (“Tehran, claiming it already had more than 50,000 volunteers for operations…”), he also makes the mistake of conflating jihadis, mainstream Islamist political parties, and state actors. In his scenario, “Iran's ability to wage asymmetric warfare through Hizbullah, Hamas and its own suicide-bombing brigades”, has been underestimated by the West.
In fact, none of the 9/11 bombers, nor the subsequent bombers in Madrid, London, Istanbul, Bali or anywhere else have had any kind of connection with state-actors. Nor have they been part of political Islamist movements of the type that Hamas or Hizbollah represent. While these mainstream political groups may not have eschewed violence as a political means (although both seem to be in the process of abandoning that tactic), nor have they been involved in the rootless nihilism of Al-Qaeda and its ilk. This is not a careful analysis of the likely fallout from a US invasion of Iran (which might well be disastrous), this is the bandying about of a series of prejudices and clichés about the Middle East. As long as the liberal anti-war position adopts such presuppositions of the war on terror so fully, they stand little chance of producing a more progressive vision for contemporary politics.
1 Comments:
And if engaging in war with Iraq (1991, 2003) or the Taliban or Iran is sensible, then, the resultant American casualties (are there any other type?) are the price to be paid.
Whining about them is cowardly; exaggerating them turns liberals into the "boy who cried wolf" and renders their future opinions and prescriptions mocked irrelevancies.
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