Day: July 22, 2015
Fear of diplomacy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_pBnwyxGo8&feature=youtu.be
Sorry I can’t embed John Oliver’s commentary here at peacefare.net, but it is worth a few minutes to go enjoy it over at Youtube.
I can however offer this
from Connecticut’s Senator Chris Murphy, who is less funny but easily more interesting. His talk this morning at the Carnegie Endowment put the nuclear deal in the context of a Washington that is shies away from diplomacy–too risky–and tilts instead towards war, for which America is amply well-prepared. He also suggested that rejection of the deal would leave the US no other serious alternative, as the multilateral sanctions, constraints on Iran’s nuclear program and international inspections would evaporate.
This is the vital link in the logic that should lead to support for the deal even among those who don’t like it. Rob Satloff, whose writing I generally admire, argues that it is a false logic. The Congress can reject this deal, he suggests, and still get a satisfactory outcome. I find his argument thoroughly unpersuasive, stringing together an unlikely sequence of events that doesn’t even get us far into the future without resorting to war. Nor does he consider the reaction of the other countries that negotiated the deal.
Senator Murphy is far more realistic. He understands, I think, that rejection of this deal would be the equivalent in our time of Congress’ rejection of President Wilson’s League of Nations. It would put the US in the position of going to war as the only remaining resort rather than implementing an agreement four other permanent members of the UN Security Council find acceptable. Even Saudi Arabia and Israel, now strident opponents of the Iran nuclear deal, would not applaud the US as Iranian missiles rain down on Tel Aviv and the Kingdom’s oil fields. Instead they will be arguing for US ground forces to stop the barrage.
What happens if we reject the deal and refuse to destroy the Iranian nuclear program? Then Iran gets nuclear weapons quickly. Anyone worried about Iranian troublemaking in the region–an entirely well-founded concern–would then have a lot more to be concerned about. A nuclear Iran would no doubt throw its weight around more rather than less.
The Senator made a few other points worth mentioning in his post-speech conversation with Karim Sadjadpour. Even with the deal in force, he thinks the US will retain the right to impose sanctions on Iran for reasons other than nuclear issues. He suggested we would do so if Iran were to execute a terrorist bombing of Israeli tourists, for example. The Senator admitted that US companies are likely to be at a disadvantage in the competition for Iranian business. He thought US anti-bribery legislation would help to protect the business Americans do from capture by regime hardliners.
The Senator was hesitant on one issue: restoring diplomatic relations with Iran. That’s a long way off he suggested. He admitted that the US will need a real presence in Iran to ensure implementation of the agreement but was unwilling to commit to an interest section, suggesting instead that the IAEA inspectors might suffice.
In my view, they won’t, because their remit is entirely technical. I served seven years abroad in US embassies working nonproliferation issues. I think we need our own people in a diplomatically protected facility in Tehran, if only on two and three week trips. But maybe the time is not yet ripe for that proposal. Let’s get the agreement through the uphill fight in Congress first.
PS: If John Oliver didn’t satiate your taste for videos, try this less funny one from Jon Stewart last night (with President Obama).
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Countering Islamic extremism
On Tuesday, the American Enterprise Institute hosted a conference on Islamic extremism, reformism, and the war on terror, which included a panel entitled Options for the Islamic World and the United States. Panelists included: Zainab Al-Suwaij, American Islamic Congress,
Husain Haqqani, Hudson Institute and former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States and Mohamed Younis, Gallup. Danielle Pletka, AEI, moderated.
Pletka spoke of the need to be more frank about Islamic extremism. Political correctness has dominated our national conversation. Both parties say Islamic extremism is not Islam.
But ISIS is a form of Islam, just not a positive form. There is also bigotry. There needs to be an intelligent debate.
Al-Suwaij noted that President Obama states that the US is not at war with Islam, but doesn’t distinguish between Islam as a religion and Islamism driven by ideologues and extremists. We need to address these issues wisely, but firmly. The majority of the problems in the Muslim world come from the lack of human rights. Authoritarian rulers are the basis of extremism and support extremism. The Muslim public realizes that radicalism is the biggest threat to them. If they see the US doing nothing about it, they assume that the US works with these groups.
Haqqani explained that Islam is not monolithic. We are dealing with a problem of those Muslims who are engaged in a war. Muslims in the West are sensitive to criticism of their religion, but Western publics are not criticizing Muslim piety; they are criticizing beheadings. The US made a critical error in the Cold War by using Islamic fundamentalism to counter Communism. It worked in the short-term but backfired.
On Monday, David Cameron outlined a strategy for countering extremism, in which he stated: “We’ve got to show that if you say ‘yes I condemn terror – but the Kuffar are inferior’, or ‘violence in London isn’t justified, but suicide bombs in Israel are a different matter’ – then you too are part of the problem.” Haqqani wants a similar statement from President Obama. Islamic extremism has to do with Islam because the extremists self-identify as Muslims. An ideological counter-narrative is needed. US policy must include military, intelligence, ideological and law-enforcement components, but the ideological component is missing. Haqqani argued that Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Muslim community of India don’t produce extremists because these countries allow more freedom for Muslim scholarly debate. The West needs to give a voice to unheard Muslim voices and protect pluralism.
Younis said there is not a war on Islam, but a war within Islam. The US needs to support diversity of opinion in the Islamic world. There is a need to increase jurisprudential literacy among Muslim masses; there are plenty of Muslim scholars who counter extremism. People have been convinced that joining the Muslim Brotherhood will get them into heaven, but this is not in the Quran. There is a conflation of sharia (the ideals of Islamic law) and fiqh (the worldly implementation of sharia). The premise of Islamic schools of thought has been debate; ISIS is antithetical to this and takfirism (excommunicating fellow Muslims) is not a traditional approach.
When Gallup polled Muslims about 9/11, the the minority who felt it was justified gave political reasons, not religious ones. Younis has observed three main grievances:
- The perception of US political hegemony–the US doesn’t support self-governance for Muslims.
- Conflicts in the Middle East, including Iraq and Israel-Palestine.
- The perception that Islam is not respected in the West.
Younis asserted, however, that increased jurisprudential literacy cannot come from the the US government because it is not expert at reforming religion. If we openly support pluralist voices, they will be accused of working for the West. We need to address the ecosystem that breeds extremism. The Brotherhood appealed to Egyptians because it was the only group addressing the needs of much of the population. We should focus on job creation, human capital, and youth engagement.
Al-Suwaij claimed that the US can help since we spend millions annually on promoting civil society, helping to catalyze the Arab Spring. That did not turn out well, but we could use a similar mechanism to bring religious reform.
Haqqani thought extremism comes partly from grievances and partly from conspiracy theories. The works of Sayyid Qutb argue that the West is corrupt and controlled by Jews. The narratives that the Islamic world declined because of colonialism or that Islam is under threat are false. The Islamic world was colonized because it was already weak. The West must fight conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, and sectarianism; American academia, NGOs, and think tanks, can play a role. The US government can facilitate.
Al-Suwaij asserted that a few years ago, the American Islamic Congress discovered that curricula at many Islamic schools taught hatred, anti-Semitism and violence. Many Islamic groups on college campuses encourage Muslims to be more extreme or join radical groups abroad and encourage non-Muslims to convert. Younis asserted that on one side, there are those who ask Muslims to condemn radicalism, despite the fact that Muslim groups have been doing so for years. On the other side, there is the “Islam is peace” argument, which ignores the fact that some commit violence in the name of Islam. This “food fight” is unhelpful. Al-Suwaij noted that many of the condemnations that Islamic groups make in public don’t apply in small groups behind closed doors. Even though Muslims have equal rights in the US, there is still anti-Western rhetoric.
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