Post Global Barometer - Yes I'm Robert of Los Angeles

Observation: Hamas, Gaza, Israel, The West Bank, et al. The past few days have been good ones for Islamists such as Osama bin Laden who have seen their vision of an Islamic empire take small steps forward with the Gaza win, with the Fatah defeat, with Lebanon closer to chaos and with the US "surge" not succeeding (at least by the Pentagon's estimate). Israel, with a Martin Indyk column in The Washington Post this morning and a Calev Ben-Dor analysis in the Jerusalem Post yesterday (both available for viewing in the GPB Supporting Data for Israel), has suggested that all this could actually be good for Israel because it allows Gaza (the violent failed state of radical Islam) to be separated from the West Bank (the haven of moderate Islam led by secular Fatah). The columns by Ben-Dor and Indyk go on to say that Hamas will clearly fail because Gaza is ungovernable (particularly when all monetary resources to govern are denied). Yet, more objective analysis by cutting-edge groups such as Stratfor say "Hamas wants to show that the Western economic embargo against its democratically elected government will only result in more chaos in the territories and create a larger breeding ground for militias and crime families to take root. (The leading crime family in Gaza, Dugmush, is already believed to have aligned itself with al Qaeda-linked militants.) Hamas wants to be seen as a strong political force that Western governments will have to deal with if they want to prevent a larger conflagration down the line." (Stratfor's analysis is also available in GPB Supporting Data for Israel). Hamas has shown in the past it is far more able to govern than Fatah (that's why it defeated Fatah in the January 2006 elections)...and that it is capable, as Fatah is not, of enforcing a cease fire (as it did for several months while Fatah-aligned groups continually fired missiles into Israel). The bet of key analysts is on Hamas, despite international pressure against it, not Fatah.Observation: Appeasement and smart strategies: The GPB has been privileged to have many smart people comment on its observations over the past year. Currently, if you click on the "Comments" button, you'll see two comments by a frequent writer who goes by the name of "Robert of Los Angeles". In his first comment, Robert raises the point that if you are not at physical war with groups like Al Qaeda, then you are appeasing them. It is a very valid argument that many from conservative talk show hosts to center-right analysts have raised. In his second comment, Robert suggests that Radical Islamists are conducting their own "surge" and are using "a coordinated 5 prong attack that may achieve much more by guerrilla and terrorist means than direct military assault." As we at the GPB have modeled the tactics of radical Islamist groups over the past 5 years, we have found what Robert says to be true. Islamists, defined as those who seek to overthrow the existing Middle East power structure to create what some call a Caliphate, are not fighting a "war" as the US defines it...they are not engaging as Robert says in frontal attacks. Their war is one waged for hearts and minds...and control of the global political agenda. Violence or terror is clearly a tool but it is only one tool of many that include the most effective internet and media campaigns we have ever seen. So when we at the GPB suggest that the US is fighting the wrong war, we are not suggesting that the US appease its opponents. Rather, we are suggesting that the US fight the real war...the one the very smart people in bin Laden's camp are fighting, which is a multi-faceted war to win global political support. If anyone doubts that this is a war, one Radical Islamists are winning, they need only look at global public opinion polls and at who is being more effective on the international stage (see the 4 week view of the GPB) if you doubt us. Vote for all that apply OR Add your own Solution
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No, the US will never learn.

I'm a Republican who read Noam Chomsky on a dare. I don't agree with most of what the guy says, but I'm starting to think he's right on some of his views of America's inanely aggressive and intrusive foreign policy. We butt in, screw things up and make things worse for us almost every time. Bush is only the worst of a long line of Presidents, Republican and Democrat, who have conducted foreign policies that hurt rather than help us. We'd be (and the world would be) much better off if we'd take about a decade off from any foreign adventures.

6/13/2007 8:51:46 AM
James R., Springfield, ILVOTE
7


Putin's new hand

The US and Europe seem to have failed to realize that Russia is now a global player with clout again. He really has very little that he needs to negotiate on right now. US and European dithering about human rights, Kosovo and Moldova do nothing but annoy an already miffed Russia. If the US and EU would simply acknowledge Russia's new position on the global stage, I think a lot of these hot issues would suddenly disappear.

6/14/2007 5:40:57 AM
Z. Klaffey, LondonVOTE
5


Are all of you completely insane?

Sorry, got that out of my system. It doesn't matter whether we are losing the war or whether we caused the war, it matter that we ARE at war. There is no appeasement, no negotiation BECAUSE first of all there is NO nation to negotiate with in facing Al Qaeda and their very raison d'etre would forbid it. So don't kid yourself about such things. And many truly THINK that you can no more trust a DEAL with Mahmoud than you could with Hitler! Did upending the South on cause a tipping to chaos and greater slavery? Did upending the Nazi cause chaos and Communism - yes it did but it was still worth it. Did upending Eastern Europe bring horror - no, though surviving Bosnians and Kosovars would disagree. You act as if standing for nothing, acting upon nothing, in fact keeping the horrible status quo (which the West DOES share blame in!!) is a GOOD THING and would have lasted anyhow. Nothing is further from the TRUTH. Are we helping the radicals get what they want? I don't think so. If there are not enough Arabs and Muslims that yearn for freedom and to use their Western educations! to help their brother, then it is a shame upon them and not on us. Too long (i.e. before Bush) have extremists been murdering and intimidating the people of the STANs, Iraq and the Levant, too long have the old generation radicals (the protocommunist PLO / PKK), the Baathist and neo-Stalinist parties, the new kids on the block the AQ and the Hezbollah -- made "secular" military oppressors and pseudo-fundamentalist oligarchys the ONLY alternative.

6/14/2007 9:42:14 AM
Robert of Los AngelesVOTE
4


On a positive note (if you're an Islamist)

If you actually were analysts or picked analysts who put key information together, you'd SEE something very interesting about the Islamists "surge" - a coordinated 5 prong attack that may achieve much more by guerrilla and terrorist means than direct military assault. I've questioned whether combining ISLAMISTS here makes sense as different factions have different purposes. But on this 5 or 6 prong attack on Western interests and Israel there is no doubt they're working together. 1) Hamas blitzkrieg in Gaza 2) Tripoli AQ "Fatah al Islam" - ending badly to be sure for AQ but that is to be expected of a martyrdom operation 3) Hezbollah rearming 4) Assasination campaign in Beirut continues. 5) Palestinian uprising in Lebanese camps escalate. Add a free bonus 6) PKK (Syrian supported) attacks on Turkey to destabilize Kurdistan / Iraq Tie this in with a renewed international diplomatic campaign for return of Golan Heights and you realize that Syria is making a strong move to use ALL of these Islamist factions, and wouldn't and couldn't do all of this without Iran.

6/14/2007 11:10:16 AM
Robert of Los AngelesVOTE
2


What about Hizbullah?

Yes - Lieberman and Bush are falling for Bin Laden's trap. But Bin Laden doesn't stand for all Islamists. What about the Shiite group Hizbullah in Lebanon? I wonder what they would have to say.

6/14/2007 7:38:52 AM
Charles in TorontoVOTE
1


"Fall" of Gaza a huge opportunity

With Hamas now isolated in Gaza: 1. Further isolate them.. cutoff everything possible. 2. Encourage Israel to immediately recognize the West Bank as the legitimate Palestinian State. Do the deal now, and let Hamas figure out how to survive on their own.

6/15/2007 9:49:29 AM
Steve Salt Lake CityVOTE
0


"Fall" of Gaza a huge opportunity

With Hamas now isolated in Gaza: 1. Further isolate them.. cutoff everything possible. 2. Encourage Israel to immediately recognize the West Bank as the legitimate Palestinian State. Do the deal now, and let Hamas figure out how to survive on their own.

6/15/2007 9:53:17 AM
Steve Salt Lake CityVOTE
0


Thanks ...and you're right (see what a little flattery and attention will do)

You're absolutely right that Gaza and most of the news is very bad for us and we've made many mistakes both politically and militarily. But I take solace that the battle lines are becoming clearer, no more fence sitters, and some very strange bedfellows. And while the new Israel-Fatah alliance of necessity is not the GOOD bad news of Hitler attacking Stalin throwing him into Churchill's ready embrace (because the West Bank is not the strategic lynchpin of the region)and yet it is a symbolic wonder that the next handshake between a PLO and a Zionist leader (maybe alongside Mount Moriah) will be a little warmer and a little more genuine.

6/15/2007 9:28:54 AM
Robert of Los Angeles

Politics of Rage Revisited - Fascism in the Islamic World

You want questions on how to improve relationships with the world after the end of the Bush administration. Let us presume a Democrat will prevail in 2008, this will certainly please a majority of your audience. The first question should be – How will the next President understand the temper and dynamics of the Middle East and the Islamic world?


One answer may be to update your classic essay after 9/11 “Why do they hate us?”
http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/101501_why.html
At this point both left and right misunderstand what is meant by such a title, as Ron Paul so awkwardly talked about the “elephant in the room” (reasons for Islamic anti-Americanism) to a room full of elephants (the GOP debate) – i.e., it’s a shorthand to say the Arab claims and complaints due to Western imperialism, Zionism and pre-emptive attacks are an excuse for terrorism. Nothing could further from the reality of your great summary of Middle East history where you honestly note everyone’s victories and defeats, failures and accomplishments in this region but focus on Islam’s failure to create ways to reform institutions and nations.

Let me in my terms create a description of how I understand what is currently happening in the Islamic world. Many commentators have begun to note how Islam has not had the “Reformation” and “Enlightenment” that Christendom did which by the way took many hundreds of years of turmoil to create patterns and institutions of pluralism and democracy. While this is a powerful truth, so is the “Politics of rage”, your other title for your essay “Why they hate us”. The use of rage communally and nationally is not isolated, even now, only to Islam, and devastated Europe and thus the world a scant 60 years ago but is far from ending its reign of terror because it is a free-form metastasizing ideology latching on to many cultures and ways of thought to wreak poison and violence and reaction and war. This is has grown from how economics and culture have been altered by technology – and so began slowly in the 19th century, created most of the havoc of the 20th but has plenty of steam left especially in the developing world in the 21st.
In the beginning was socialism. It was hoped that redistribution and worker rule over all institutions including property and business would ameliorate the growing problems of industrialism. Wherever this idealism failed, sometimes by the success of modern Western capitalism in co-opting such efforts, or the horrid dictatorships of the proletariat – Communism, or simply the malaise where no spiritual values or ideals really exist where economics and politics were supreme, the result was nihilism. And nihilism leads of course to destructive behavior, more often than not, prompted by new creatures with powerful rhetoric, using the rage of the masses for their own purposes – it’s the same story really from the streets of the failing Weimar Republic, to Mao’s Red Guard, to Khomeini’s Revolution.
But what follows is critical – amorphous rage does not stay unpurposeful, fomenting endless chaos – it forms into what we understand as fascism. Fascism is called right wing – and deservedly so for several reasons but ultimately misleading. It is right wing because it uses jingoistic rhetoric (nationalistic or in the Middle East, sometimes at least deceptively Pan-Arabic) and religious fervor to rally. It is right wing because with socialism discredited and classical liberalism devalued, debased, deformed, the spectrum shifts to the right. But ultimately, men are using this nationalism and religion to gain or hold power and consolidate it by expanding the state and merging religious and other cultural institutions with it. We saw that with Nazis, subverting the churches of Germany, co-opting them in a national patriotic church and oppressing those who protested. Most historians do not see Nazism to have been representing any legitimate form of Christendom when it exalted pagan values, but it still used a call for the return of the Holy Roman Empire in a 1000 year Reich (Millennialism as political ideology). Further, fascism uses militarism in fascinating, seemingly contradictory ways – to increase the power of the state internally and of course to project and threaten abroad, but also taps the energy and radicalism of youth (an eternal “revolution”) to threaten and devalue any countervailing institutions in society – a very effective way to minimize any potential enemies not only political but simply cultural.

What does this mean for the world? There is the impact of communist states and post communist states morphing into fascism. Some of these regimes are almost farcical and appear to be harmless anachronisms if not for the way people suffer under them. China is destined for great power and so its “capital” driven economic expansion is what we see and we underplay the most “quiet” fascist government ever. There is no anti-Western rage of times past and we hope that prosperity and global access will subvert the contradictions of a business-oriented classless society led by a totalitarian party apparatus.

But there is no such quiet, no such productive alternatives to nihilist and /or fundamentalist rage in the Middle East and wherever radical Islamist thought can gain a foothold in Muslim populations. That is the nature of what has come to be called Islamo-fascism and we can thank a old-time leftist journalist Oriana Fallaci for popularizing the term in the interval where the West apologized for talking about a “crusade” against jihads and euphemizing a strategy against a war on terror, when terror is a tactic, not an ideology, certainly not a nation or power under itself. So if we question using the term “Islamic fascism”, we could change it to Iranian fascism, or Al Qaeda fundamentalist-inspired fascism, but we need to call it what it is.


But politicians and all Americans should know how Islam differs from its twisted image of Islamic fundamentalism, though as you said in your essay the practice and institutions of Islam like Christendom have been contradictory over history. Islam is an egalitarian philosophy but created sprawling empires, that were often echoes of past glories recreated for Islam (e.g. the North African and Central Asian caliphates were like the Pharoah and Nebuchadnezzar of old, and the most elaborate and corrupt empire, the Ottoman, had taken possession of the Christian regime whose name defines convoluted politics, the Byzantine.). Islam was created as a protest movement against tribalism, slavery and treatment of women as chattel. Yet singularly has failed to stamp out these oppressions, often spreading it instead of controlling it because of inconsistent theology due to vague traditions of hadith, with little spirit of reformation for clerics to represent the umma to meet the needs of changing society but plenty use of sunna in facile interpretation to justify sultanates and slavery.

But like many in the West, many worked through the ages, in empires and in village to improve culture and society, the lot of their fellow Muslim. And being Muslim is an important thing, a duty to God and to your fellow man, and a belief that God will judge the unjust, even those who claim they are acting in the lights of religious belief. In this, Muslims, both devout and secular, are not much different from Christians, both pious and nominal, in cherishing eternal values and justice.

But what has fascist ideology as practiced within the Islamic world wrought, even in the past 30 years?

Nationalistic and Pan Islamic regimes have been seen as emperors with no clothes, and yet try to maintain control over fundamentalism – yet these are still the Weimar Republics of the Middle East, weak, sometimes unstable or alternatively rigid and unchanging, some subject to ethnic tensions that could escalate centrifugally. Iran is was the new face of Islamic revolution. Saddam’s Iraq was ever the old way of neo-Stalinist application of socialism with a Muslim face. We see the old versus the new (socialist versus the Islamofascist) in the generational wave of discord within the Palestinian movement. We see it in Kaddafi stepping away from his old ways because he was the mentor of the Red terrorists from PLO to Baader Meinhof to IRA but never a Wahhabist Islamic radicals.

Mahmoud Ahmadenijad is taking the Islamic revolution to a new fascist level, seemingly wanting to take pages from Hitler’s playbook in most frightening ways. Denying the Holocaust, while seeking a new destruction of Israel quite explicitly, and seeking to usher in a millenial reign, a Holy Empire (starring the 12th imam as well as Jesus) is only one avenue. He clearly wants to antagonize and shock while simultaneously weakening worldwide resolve to protest. The Easter “gift” of British sailors “catch and release” is illuminating. I wonder if Germany did something similar in the 1930s. Most of the recent Western “spies” are those working for liberal causes (Wilson Institute, Soros Open Society) for peace and reconciliation. Did Hitler play this same game with academics from the West, maybe Mussolini did?