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The Global Jihadists’ Perpetual Will to War

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In lieu of the blog, I'll post my essay here. Keyes's essay, The Global Jihadist's Perpetual Will to War can be found here. My Sept. 29th essay is below, this is a version before the final editing process (Sorry I couldn't find the finished product):

In Alan Keyes’s recent essay, The Global Jihadists’ Perpetual Will to War, he puts forth his ideas regarding wartime policy and its application today. The bulk of Keyes’s piece is consumed with the explanation and application of the ideas of Thomas Hobbes. He mentions President Bush’s policy only briefly – so briefly that it could easily be mistaken as an attention-getting device. This opening statement is only a small part of Keyes’s piece, but it is the Achilles’ heel to what could have been a passionate and impenetrable argument:

The fundamental flaw of the Bush administration’s war policy lies not so much in its actions, as in the failure to articulate a right understanding of the nature and goals of the war. The Bush policy flounders and seems to fail because in their discussion of the situation, some policymakers still rely upon a shallow, inadequate understanding of war.

Keyes believes that President Bush’s wartime policy suffers from a “failure to articulate a right understanding of the nature and goals of the war.” What does Keyes mean by this? Is it that the President fails to understand war, or is it that his entire cabinet has fallen victim to his own infamous difficulties with communication? Keyes does not offer an immediate answer. Instead, he goes on to assert that ending violence does not equate to ending war, and turns to a selection from Hobbes’s Leviathan to elaborate. In the selection, Hobbes explains that war is defined by a ‘will to contend by battle’. It is not in the first volley of artillery that war begins, claims Hobbes, but in the moment that the inclination to do so is known.

Keyes takes this definition of war for granted, and he gets away with it because numerous current events serve to validate it. He could have chosen the example of how the failure to oust Saddam during the first Gulf War culminated with Operation Iraqi Freedom a decade later. He also could have raised the specter of the Oslo accords. Instead, he chose to reference Israel’s two-front war against Hamas to the south, and Hezbollah to the north. He explains in this example that when Israel left Lebanon under UN mandate, it allowed Hamas to build its wartime infrastructure. He associates the recent violence with the past concessions Israel made to appease the international community – concessions made at the expense of victory. At the time his essay went to print, the war still raged. If his example wasn’t then enough for his opponents to accept, time proved his words to be prophetic: shortly after the publication of Keyes’s essay, Israel once again bowed to international opinion and ended its war in the north short of eradicating Hezbollah’s leadership. Meanwhile, Israel is mired in a bloody peace process with the Hamas controlled Palestinian Authority. Both of Israel’s opponents in this two front war have leveraged their respective peace processes to set the pace of the conflict.

Keyes correctly explains how this is possible by identifying each side of the current global conflict and their respective values. He explains that Israel, the US, Europe and others in the West have become complacent because of their relative security. Westerners live in states where violence is the exception and, as such, their constitution for it is weak. They have a vast material advantage that they equate with wartime efficacy. They do not understand that, in order to prevail in wartime, they must break their enemies’ will or crush their opponents’ capacity for violence. Instead, they believe that if they briefly flex their muscles they can expect peace agreements to last. Keyes shows the folly of assuming that victory is possible through anything less than total war by examining what he believes to be the value standard of the enemies of the West.

By calling the enemies of the West “Islam’s holy warriors,” Keyes makes his biggest gamble. He risks alienating peaceful Muslims and those who see Islam as a religion of peace. Undoubtedly, many would disagree with him. Moral relativism is so pervasive in the US and Europe that many are afraid to make value judgments about other cultures. However, only the resolve of the zealot explains the persistence of those who would make war on the West, and Keyes is banking on his readers coming to this conclusion.

Keyes’s claim that Bush’s actions are not flawed is contradicted by his own argument, which leads his reader to believe the opposite. If prematurely ending violence ensures more violence, then why is Bush’s much-touted Roadmap to Peace not flawed? If Iran has made its will to war known, why is Bush correct in engaging in the circus of negotiations even while Iran processes uranium? If Bush’s actions are not restrained by the fear of civilian casualties, why are US rules of engagement so cumbersome? Keyes cannot answer these questions without contradicting himself, and it is this contradiction that undercuts the possibility of achieving a more powerful argument.

Keyes’s credibility with this issue is unmatched if his background is considered, and his logic is, for the most part, powerful. Passion, however, rings clearest in the company of truth, and truth demands consistency. There are two flaws with Bush’s policy that Keyes could have called out early in his essay that would have lead him to the path of non-contradiction. First, he could have said that Bush’s policy is flawed because it does not take more robust action to demoralize the holy warrior. Second, he could have pointed out that Bush is not doing everything possible to destroy the enemies of the United States and the West. Alternately, he could have simply said that Bush has a flawed understanding of the nature of the current war and omitted any reference to Bush’s actions. Keyes instead chose to soften the blow that supporters of President Bush’s policies would have felt; he decided to preface his most salient point with a statement that damaged his argument.

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I would disagree with the statement "Keyes’s credibility with this issue is unmatched if his background is considered..."

I live in Illinois and remember seeing him in the 04 Senatorial debates and coming away with the impression that, for lack of a better term, he was "bat-shit crazy." Listening to him, one would conclude that American culture (Keyes believes American culture to be Christian at its root) is at heart intolerant and theocratic (he's very extreme religious right).

I think this strain of "apocalyptic Christianity" distorts neoconservative thinking on foreign policy. How could people who base their thinking on radical Christianity not over-estimate the importance of religion in the thinking of others.

When Keyes says jihadism " is the root of the perpetual war in the Middle East, and of the threat that it poses to the rest of the world. The dedication to holy war results in a permanent will to war that may change only when all enemies have been eliminated or reduced to submission," I can't help but chuckle. What about:

a) Palestinian nationalism (historically the infitada was not motivated by Islamic extremism... many Palestinians are Christians)

B) the importance of secular authoritarianism (Turkey, Egypt and the other "moderate" Mideast autocracies, the Baath party in Syria and Iraq, etc.): they oppress their own people, and Islamism is often more strongly motivated by and directed against our "allies" than by anything having to do with the US

c) power politics: why is Iran friendly with Russia? Russia has been oppressing and colonizing Muslims since before there was a US. Moreover, Russia and Persia are historically bitter rivals for supremacy in the region. They are drawn together because both have an interest in countering the perceived hegemon, the US.

I'm not saying Islamic ideology isn't important, but rather that other forces are operative. Moreover, Islamic fundamentalism didn't really exist as a force until thirty years ago. Communism lasted seven decades and then seemed to disappear overnight (for reasons that are clear only in hindsight). Sovietologists were certain of the unending enmity of communism until the enmity of communism suddenly ended. I would be equally skeptical of claims made by "Islamologists."

Do jihadists have a "permanent will to war"? One could have said the same thing about communism and Irish republicanism... forces that were defeated by a policy of "strength + diplomacy," which is historically the American (and British) approach to foreign policy.

Certainly, attempting to exploit diplomatically differences between our enemies and rivals (rather than unifying them by labeling them all as inherently evil) would be a sensible foreign policy. To go back to the communism example, the moment when Nixon went to China was probably the death-knell for communism's quest for world supremacy.

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I wrote my Representative (who I had met when applying to service academies) some time ago making the case for strikes on Iran. For someone in the military, the letter was a risk to my career.

I am convinced that our fundamental view of foreign policy must change before we will have any hope of success defeating the geopolitical version of Islam which is a serious threat to our lives.

With a change in our foreign policy we would also be in an unprecedented position to deal the death blow to Socialism.

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend "The Foreign Policy of Self-Interest" by Peter Schwartz (available off ARI).

Edited by badkarma556
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[Edit: Response to Korthor]

There are few people that share Keyes's employment history. Explaining that Keyes's religious beliefs damage his hold on reality and hence, his position would have gone far beyond the scope of the assignment probably would have prevented me from getting a perfect grade.

I would put forth that the regimes you listed are de facto theocracies, and I would challenge the notion that Islamic theocracy wasn't a force in the world prior to 30 years ago. I also think that communism's quest for world suppremacy continues. Its defeat is not guaranteed.

Edited by FeatherFall
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1. Islamic fundamentalism might have been a motivating ideology prior to 1979, but it wasn't a geopolitical force.

2. The "moderate" Muslim autocracies and quasi-autocracies are de facto theocracies? Most of them explicitly repress Islamist parties. Turkey goes so far as to outlaw women's wearing of the veil in public buildings because of the practice's perceived connection to Islamic fundamentalism. Maybe you were thinking of Saudia Arabia? If so, attacking Saudia Arabia would be a strategic catastrophe (not to mention an economic one).

3. To clarify my point about Muslim autocracy, much of the support for Islamic fundamentalism derives from people being pissed at their governments. Fundamentalism provides a convenient vehicle for such discontent.

4. "Communism's quest for world supremacy still continues?" Really? Maybe Russia's just been pretending for the past seventeen years? No wonder you consider Keyes to be a reasonable, authoritative voice. Personally, I would rather listen to the goblins that live in my radiator. There are socialist economies out there, but they are hardly engaged in a global war against the US... If push came to shove, we could probably take on Sweden if we had to. If you're thinking of Chavez, Venezuela is hardly the new Soviet Union. Latin American populist autocracy is a perennial phenemon of little strategic consequence to the US. In addiiton, Latin America is predominantly democratic and capitalist; even if the people cheer Chavez, the governments have little use for him.

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Korthor, first of all, please excuse my previous post. Turkey may be the one exception. You'll have to convince me of the others.

I doubt that the goblins living in your radiator were, at any point, ambassadors to the UN or assistants in the state department. But that is beside the point. If those goblins ever quoted Hobbes or put forth an argument that, despite its flaws, gave the ideological ammunition necessary to defeat a geopolitical force, I'd say that they had some good ideas. Even if they were Christians.

Next, a few questions:

Are you familiar with the word caliphate's origins and history? If guiding ideologies don't drive geopolitical forces, what does? Can a regime suppress one Islamic theocrat and support another form of theocracy? What country is currently building a military to rival that of the US? Is Hugo Chavez currently shifting oil exports from the US to that country? Is oil of strategic consequence? Has Russia reversed the course of liberalization that began at the end of the cold war?

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I would say that the caliphate had as little relation to modern Islamic fundamentalism as primitive socialism did to the Soviet Union. Islamic fundamentalism isn't dangerous because Islam is dangerous, but because of the way this ideology has been intertwined with an anti-imperialist (i.e., anti-Western) agenda.

Besides Turkey, I could point to Egypt as a shining beacon of secular authoritarianism, which is as we speak weakining its democracy (such as it is) to fend off against Islamic fundamentalism. For the story, look here...

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....ION-BOYCOTT.xml

Could you point me to a single Islamic fundamentalist govenment besides Iran? My point is that the many mideast governments are scared of Islamic fundamentalism... that's why they were so eager to torture the people we "extraordinarily rendered" to them as part of the War on Terror.

In the end, I think the root of our disagreement lies in your question, "If guiding ideologies don't drive geopolitical forces, what does?" Well, the oldest and most-respected school of international relations theory, "realism," would say that the intererts of nation states (especially the drive for military superiority) drives geopolitical forces. While cultural and ideological factors play a role in defining those interests, we shouldn't ignore the role of geopolitical "strategery"! Just because Islamic fundamentalism is hysterical about the Great Satan, it doesn't mean that we need be hysterical about Islamic fundamentalism. Only the neoconservative establishment (and their Objectivist admirers) would be irrational enough to assume that the actions of sophisticated and powerful nation-states can be explained by some pathology peculiar to the "Islamic" (or communist or Oriental or papist) mind. Iran is a threat, but the question of whether or not to attack them requires a more sophisticated geopolitical analysis than offered by our esteemed former UN Ambassador. After all, the goblins in my radiator have told me that such an attack would spark a really big, really bad war (certainly the biggest since WWII); such a war should not be entered into based on half-assed speculations about the "Islamic" mind and random quotes from the Quaran spruced up with some references to Hobbes and Clausewitz.

Finally, Russia isn't communist: if anything it's sliding into soft fascism. And oh yeah! China will be a military rival in twenty years. Countering them might even require military alliances with an increasingly Islamist Indonesia.

P.S. At the risk of being called a Libertarian, I've included a quote from Bill Maher that epitomizes my opinion of the neoconservative "intellectuals"

"And finally, New Rule, in two parts: A) You can't call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid. And B), if you're someone from one of the think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War, and who predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn't need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD's would be found, that the looting wasn't problematic, and the mission was accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that the whole bloody mess wouldn't turn into a civil war...you have to stop making predictions! ...

The think tanks that incubated the Iraq war have lofty names like the Heritage Foundation and the Project for a New American Century. Whatever. They've been wrong so often, I'm surprised they're not my broker. Richard Perle thought we could win Iraq with 40,000 troops. Paul Wolfowitz predicted, in 2003, that within a year, the grateful people of Baghdad would name some grand square in their fine city after President Bush. And he was right when he said they'd be waving American flags. They were on fire.

William Kristol pooh-poohed the fears that Sunnis and Shiites would be at each others' throats, as "the stuff of pop psychology." Right. And having your head chopped off is just a quick way to drop 11 pounds. Kristol, of course, is revered by much of the right because he was Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and was known as "Quayle's Brain." Which sounded impressive until I remembered Dan Quayle didn't have a brain.

And now, Mr. Kristol proposes immediate military action against Iran, predicting the Iranians will thank us for it. Hey, you know what, Nostrodamus? Why don't you sit this one out? "

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You're right about the point at which our disagreement begins. There is a false dichotomy between realism and idealism. The prevailing 'realist' attitude disconnects ideas from actions, and so fails to properly guide actions. Your eagerness to tout a pragmatist ideology explains why you disconnect ideas from the regimes they create. I think this discussion has evolved out of this thread. If you'd like to discuss the nature of war or the definition of theocracy, I'd appreciate it if you'd start a new thread. Actually, If a moderator could split the thread from where I posted my essay, that would be nice.

Anyway, it doesn't look like the situation is resolving itself as quickly as last time.

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