Jackson Diehl is by far the best journalist writing in the mass media about the Middle East. In a recent column, he tries to find some middle ground between the dominant ideas — that Islamist regimes are no problem at all and that the Muslim Brotherhood is really moderate — and what he defines as a too extreme conservative and Republican analysis.
While I don’t quite agree with him, there is much of merit in his dichotomy. We should all learn from it even though I’m going to suggest that it needs to be adjusted. Even if Obama’s critics are on the right side about the Middle East and generally understand what’s happening, many of them also make factual and analytical mistakes that undermine their credibility and may sometimes subvert their policies if they win office.
In addition, Diehl reminds us (how rarely that happens nowadays!) how good it feels to debate with people who actually think about the issues and cite evidence even if we disagree with them. He actually believes that there is merit on both sides of the argument, again an attempt at balance, which often seems to be close to extinction in this sad era.
Diehl begins with a highly critical account of a Fox News host and Governor Rick Perry’s hard-hitting but flawed account of contemporary Turkey.
The former said of Turkey — in Diehl’s view, a “mostly accurate but extremely one-sided description” — that since an “Islamist-oriented party took over . . . the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. [Prime Minister Recep Erdogan] has embraced Hamas, and Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cyprus.”
Diehl provides what he sees to be the other side, that the Turkish government:
…has just stationed an advanced radar on its territory that could be used to track and shoot down missiles from Iran; that joined the NATO operaiton against Moammar Gaddafi [sic] in Libya; that has become the host of the opposition to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad; and that, having repeatedly won free democratic elections, amended Turkey’s constitution to expand rights for women, ethnic minorities and unions.
Diehl, to his credit (it’s amazing how rare any balanced account is in the mass media nowadays!), continues, “that, too, was a one-sided account of the Erdogan record. But that is precisely the point: Turkey has become a complex, dynamic, difficult, sometimes infuriating, sometimes very helpful and indisputably important ally of the United States.”
Now Diehl presented five items as being to the credit of Erdogan’s regime. But let’s take them one at a time:
–Advanced radar. True, but it was with extreme reluctance, statements that it would not be used against Iran, and the demand that no information from this installation be supplied to Israel. Arguably a plus, but less of one than it might seem.
–Libya operation. True, but the Turkish regime’s goal was to have an Islamist regime installed in Libya, a government whose anti-Western policy would not bother Erdogan a bit. Hence, not exactly a wonderful gesture.
–Syria. Same as above, only worse. This is not a pro-democratic policy but a pro-Islamist policy.
–Repeatedly won free elections. Absolutely true, but how does this undermine the Fox journalist, Bret Baier’s, analysis?
–Expanded rights. It is true that the constitutional reform offered some real alleviations of historic Turkish statism but, as many liberal critics in Turkey pointed out, the candy coating concealed major steps to subordinate the judiciary to the current government. Arguably, these changes are resulting in diminished rights for Turks.
In other words, if the case against the Turkish regime isn’t 100 percent, it’s far closer to that than half-and-half.
Diehl continues:
The reality is that, like it or not, “Islamist-oriented” governments are about to become the new normal in a region dominated for decades by secular autocrats and pro-American generals. So the crude bias about Muslim movements that is baked into the worldview of many U.S. conservatives—that they are inevitably fundamentalist, anti-democratic, anti-Israel and anti-American, if not explicitly “terrorist”—has become a serious liability. If heeded, it will make it impossible for this administration and future ones to navigate the region’s new politics and preserve crucial alliances.
Truly, a pleasure, as well as enlightening, to read Barry Rubin’s careful and helpful analysis. Personally, I am of the sledgehammer school but Barry Rubin convinces me that this may be the most productive approach in the real world.
It’s hard to figure out what the US could actually do about the rise of Islamism. For example, Mubarak was in his eighties. Certainly the US State Department knew he wasn’t likely to keep on ruling into his nineties. What did the Bush administration do to prepare for the obvious transition? What could they do?
Is the Arab Spring the result of somebody (Islamists?) reading the works of Gene Sharp? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp. If so, what could be done?
“has just stationed an advanced radar on its territory that could be used to track and shoot down missiles from Iran; yadda yadda yadda; but when push came to shove Turkey, for all its NATO obligations, refused to permit US troops to transit into northern Iraq in 2003.
…all “emanations” out of Islam are, as you say- “yadda-yadda-yadda”. I get the impression that ‘taqiyya’ is the essence of all publicly voiced – in English or all other non-Islamic languages – coming out of the vast geographic area controlled by Islamist distortions.
Nothing Islamists/Muslims can say on any topic has much value, except among themselves behind their own xenophobic, interlocking, intertwining screens.
Frankly, with all due respect for this Jackson Diehl, the pundits we read are merely voicing their opinions, and they themselves are as much on the wrong side of this distorting ‘taqiyya screen’ as the rest of us non-Islamists….albeit hopefully with miles and years more on-hand, closer, more direct experience with the recieving end of Islamic deceptions. That’s not at all to be denied…just taken into consideration.
The essential, exceptional pundits are, of course, those on our side who are fluent in Arabic.
Our Islamic enemy are masters of deception and evasion and subversion….we must always have those antennae erect during all of our reading.
In sum…..Islam and its subversive, evasive evangelists (sorry…the best word applicable here…..) are to be judged solely upon their actions in our real world, not what they say out of their smirking mouths.
One could argue the only thing Islam is masterful at is general stupidity; saying they take advantage of our own stupid race-based political correctness is not the same thing as saying they are masterful. How smart were dumb con men who robbed rubes at a carnival in the old days? How smart was living with a carnival? Think of the middle east as a decrepit carnival with bearded men in love with controlled arranged marriages rather than love itself and you’ll be closer to what’s happening.
Rubin’s criticism of Diehl is largely accurate. Both leave out some of the larger context. The Muslim Brotherhood was a facist organization hired by both British and American intelligence as a proxy for fighting Arab communism. Coddling the MB was a hideously bad choice, but must be understood as a plausible alternative to Soviet successes in the Middle East such as Syria, Egypt, Libya, etc. In recent decades, both Republic and Democratic administrations developed a new consensus. In the long run, it would be better for America if we funded long term projects such as Freedom House to train young people in the art of peaceful, non-violent revolution using high-tech means such as the internet. Freedom House Projects started under Clinton received increased funding from Congress under Bush. For at least three years, the middle eastern trainees were given the same target date of 2011 for starting their revolutions. Our Diplomats in the Middle East guided the young activists and stayed in touch with them all the way. Sometimes we forced dictators like Mubarak to let the kids out of jail. Search the text of the wikileaks classified cables for “Freedom House” and you will see that it was we who organized the Arab Spring, the we being America.
Rubin is right on so many things, but he is wrong to criticize only Obama for the experiment in Arab democracy. I hate the MB as well, but have to remember that for almost a century, the only who paid for extensive propaganda in Arab lands was the Third Reich which funded the MB. The Soviets followed with a half-hearted propaganda effort in support of their various proxies like Arafat and the elder Assad. Israel cancelled its only Arab language radio service. The only ones doing anti-MB propaganda in Arab entertainment media were dictators like Mubarak. Maybe all of us should learn from our mistakes.
hit ‘em hard, and win
Until the critics of mainstream thinking can realise that projecting their thinking on a different culture doesn’t work and rid themselves of their cognitive egocentrism they won’t get far analyzing the situation.
Many of them have no idea of the history and the tenets driving the opposing faith.
re: Cynic again…this time his #5…
….”Until the critics of mainstream [ my insert: ...military...] thinking can realise that projecting their thinking on a different culture doesn’t work…”
…I inserted “military” here to emphasize my oft-repeated advocacy of “containment” as we practiced successfully against the Soviets. I think the stalemate in our Afghan/Iraqi Theatre right now is the best attention-getter….this has been going on for ten years now….we should’ve left a vacuum in Iraq after we got rid of Saddam…[ you're welcome, World...] to be filled by their indigenous murdering factions.
We Americans should’ve stood aside and held their coats while these factional Islamists butchered each other in vicious civil wars.
Charlie, how do you suggest that the west “contain” the Islamic jihad?
As I recall, having lived through the beginning and end of the “containment” era of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations, there was minimal restraint imposed on the soviets actions and that the supposed “containment” activities consisted almost entirely of appeasement in various forms. They were quite successful in beginning and backing brushfire wars in Africa, South and Central America and promoring openly communist tyrannies while our government bragged about it’s ability to contain them.
It seems to me that the history of containment policies is not quite as good as that of sanctions which is to say very poor indeed. Such policies only delay the inevitable open conflict and in fact these policies intensify such conflicts rather than ameliorate them.
Islamofascist: “War is cool! Kill everybody!”
Liberal: “Umm, that’s bad. I disagree.”
Parent comment: “You liberals are projecting your own views on a different culture! You are the real fascists!”
Good article, makes me wonder if the so called Golden Age of journalism would have been less ideological than now. I suspect no, but there was time when domestic politics ended at the waters edge, which surely is not the case with this president.
Barry Rubin wrote, “There can be democratic elections in which a majority votes for what is in effect a dictatorial government.”
Is that not precisely what happened in America in 2008? Events are insidious!
Oh, please. I had to grit my teeth through eight long years of my fellow Democrats calling George Bush a fascist and a Nazi and I don’t like the other side pulling the same narrishkeit.
one wants to deal with it the reality is they are a bunch of genocidal maniacs
Barack Obama toadies up to them.
I love Barry…and his instincts to try to find the most rational, fact-based path to analysis of problems, then solutions, is a good one.
However, that instinct should not be confused…ever…with deciding whether we would like our moral relativism in large or small bites…of equal tonnage.
When the propaganda machine, currently posing as our mass media and other outlets in our information stream, intentionally distorts by omission or commission, photoshops, stages Green Helmet guy and other false narratives, forges documents, reddens eyes on magazine covers, has stringers giving us false information, disinformation, misinformation…then the “rubber band effect” of immediately distrusting their delivery of “facts” is not only warranted, it’s imperative.
When Turkey embarks a flotilla toward Israel that resembles in intent and impact the very same mayhem that is promoted by the Weather Underground Redux, when they tilt heavily toward the 7th century fanaticism that suffocates rational thought in much of that region, drifting toward a soft tyranny against basic human decency…half measured, weak-willed and limp resistance is merely compromising honor, integrity and valor for a cheap badge of faux “neutrality”.
Being a person who avoids taking an honorable position out of fear of being labeled “uncompromising” is not heroic, it’s cowardly.
Being a person who distorts facts by intentional omission isn’t better than one who falsifies them, it’s simply more devious.
An intentional half-truth is a whole lie. If it is contended that we must “deal” with Hamas, I reject that notion. I prefer that they always believe we are one moment away from deciding to permanently affix a solution to their foreheads. That a little red laser point is in their future.
If it is said that we should wait out the disastrous turn toward radicalism in Turkey, Egypt and Libya…ok. Diplomacy, discretion and deferral of action is probably the right course of action. The sledgehammer can be set down, but never too far from reach.
Unless and until, however, Americans and the rest of the West are given accurate information and unslanted truth about facts on the ground…nobody who loves this country would or should ever trust a single thing advocated by those who mean to overthrow us, harm us or betray us.
Right now…it is certainly not clear where Turkey stands in that necessary analysis. And that…makes all the difference.
Sorry, Barry but press. Obama says America is much more liked all around the world and that those who don’t agree with his policies, don’t t know what they are talking about. I see now that all of this analysis stuff of yours is needless jawboning and the president is right because he says so. You need to stop all this thinking and analysis and just accept that he knows more about is going on than you do.
Just kidding, the man can give a speech but so what. His policies will give rise to wars and attacks on American soil for years to come. He has repeated every defense and diplomacy error of Carter and Clinton and lots of people are going to get killed because of it. In my mind it is not a question of if, it is only a question of when. He gave his usual tagline about israel’s security but did not mention he did nothing to stop iran’s drive for the bomb for three years.
he wants israel destroyed he wants attacks on american soil, and he’s getting it all, too
Ridiculous
Alliance with regional anti-Islamist forces (Israel, Saudi Arabia and the GCC states, Jordan, and Algeria)
I don’t know that Israel is “anti-Islamist”. Do Israelis do see any real difference between “secular” Arabs and “Islamists” in terms of hostility to Israel? AFAICT, Israel avoids any sort of intervention in the internal politics of Arab countries.
Saudi Arabia and several of the GCC states are not truly anti-Islamist. The Saudis push Wahhabi/Salafi Islam, which is the creed of Sunni Islamists, and I’m pretty sure they have funded the Moslem Brotherhood. Certainly a lot of private Saudi and other Gulf money flows to Islamist causes. Qatar supported the Islamist element in the Libyan revolution.
strong support for democratic opposition movements (in Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, and Syria)
The Turkish opposition includes the Kemalist military, which isn’t exactly democratic. I don’t know that any of the sectarian blocs in Lebanon are really democratic. The Syrian opposition is substantially Islamist.
figuring out how to help real moderate forces (Egypt, Tunisia, Libya)
ITYM “real moderate forces (in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya)”. Egypt is no longer a “moderate force”.
“Diehl begins with a highly critical account of a Fox News host and Governor Rick Perry’s hard-hitting but flawed account of contemporary Turkey.
The former said of Turkey — in Diehl’s view, a “mostly accurate but extremely one-sided description” — that since an “Islamist-oriented party took over . . . the murder rate of women has increased 1,400 percent. Press freedom has declined to the level of Russia. [Prime Minister Recep Erdogan] has embraced Hamas, and Turkey has threatened military force against both Israel and Cyprus.”” The first thing that struck me in the preceeding is that the quoted Fox News host is not identified. Was that professional courtesy, or deliberate deception? I expected to find in your post Diehl’s correction(s) to the quoted statement to make it accurate, didn’t find it/them. Since neither Diehl nor you indicated anything near a 1400% increase in prosecutions for women’s murders in Turkey, I must conclude that there is no balancing action!
You praise Diehl for decrying the onesided approach, and go on to show his argument to be not only onesided but deceptive.
Not your best effort.
I think it’s important to remember that ignoring certain Islamist considerations, especially internally, is not the same thing as being ignorant of them.
While it’s true the middle east is important globally, it is not the only place in the world. The U.S. wants to shepherd countries in a larger sense as they relate to one another and the world rather than try to micromanage their internal politics. In this sense the administration may believe the MB is moderate or not but simply not care to micromanage this aspect internally with a realization that the energy to oversee every country in the world in this manner gives few returns.
If you’re a Coptic Christian in Egypt this means you’re pretty much screwed. But really, in a practical sense, what can the U.S. do, for example, to NOT have Article 2 of the old Egyptian constitution once again say Islam is number one politically and everything else, including women number 2?
The U.S. will be happy if Egypt generally does what it wants in the region and that’s pretty much that. The administration may very well feel that Israel could do more to reduce tensions in the region by coming up with reasons to give up the West Bank instead of reasons to keep it. The idea is that the West Bank must give up violence against Israel but this is not formalized in any way. This means that if even 1 terrorist attacks Israel things go back to square one and the West Bank is again on probation. This type of changing goal post rather than an announced and permanent list of demands basically means the West Bank will never measure up, not even to negotiations.
So if the U.S. feels they can’t control the MB anyway, why run up hard against it and simply pretend to go along while keeping that hard eye on them?
The statement “There can be democratic elections in which a majority votes for what is in effect a dictatorial government.” in self-contradictory and verges on doublethink. Let me know when parliaments become dictatorial just because they create laws their own voters go along with you don’t like and let’s forget this “one time, one vote” as a myth used as a scare tactic and has little other use or history in the region. Sure, the MB are would be dictators, especially towards Israel but in reality they have no such power inside or outside of Egypt. Law is law and is not an agreed upon standard in terms of the values that constitute those laws. To say you don’t like those laws is not the same thing as an absence of law; it’s an absence of YOUR law.
You’re completely delusional re what Israel can and can’t do. First off, the Arabs demand to settle millions of Arabs inside Israel as a condition for “peace” and have never shown in the last 19 years since the beginning of the “peace” process any real intention of letting it go. The population of Israel is 7.5 million, of which 20% are Arabs (16% Muslims). It’s not like the American population of about 300 million that can absorb millions of Muslim-Arab immigrants without noticing too much of a change. I’d say the Arab intention is quite clear. That demand makes any agreement impossible. So the other option is complete unilateral withdrawal. We’ve already tried that in Gaza. The result? An increase of 500-600% in rocket attacks in the first year, and an additional increase of 100% the next year, Hamas winning the parliamentary election and taking over Gaza, Hamas announcing all agreements with Israel are null and void, thereby officially declaring war. From Gaza they can cover all of southern Israel with rockets, and they probably already have rockets that can reach Tel Aviv, but in short supply. From Judea and Samaria they could attack much of central Israel, where 70% of the population live, even with homemade Kassam rockets, and the rest with Grad rockets. They could target our only national airport and target airplanes with anti-aircraft artillery. They could hit many strategic targets in our coastal plane, including ones that could result in mass-death disasters. And they educate their children that Israel is part of Palestine, that the Jews are as mythically evil as the Nazis described us, and that they should find to the end. But of course, Israelis are not really human, so when I say I want to live it can’t possibly be the reason why I’m reluctant to carry out this wonderful plan of self-desctruction – no, it must be an excuse.
“that they should find to the end” should be “that they should fight to the end”.
Saudi Arabia anti-Islamist? How so? By spreading Wahhabism in our jails, or 15 of the 19 terrorist were from that dirt pit?
You deep thinkers better get your head out of the sand,(no pun intended), and realize in the past 1400 years there has been no Islamism. Just Islam in all it’s sick forms. Ask Turkey.
Islam only understands strength. Be strong, quiet, and carry a big stick. Contain Islam, and stop importing that pagan crap.
Thank you, Leatherneck for inserting my favorite strategy,”Contain Islam”, just above.
I’ve read here and there that this “Containment” of Islam won’t work when they’re nuclear capable with long range ballistic missiles, that our first strike against Iranian reactors must wreak complete ruin before they have a chance to return with short-range rocket fire against Israel….or even hitting coastal American cities via nuclear rockets fired from Iranian submarines offshore…our shore….much as the Nazi’s were capable of during the Second World War. Remember the Nazi saboteurs landing on Long Island, and I think Virginia or North Carolina? ….brought over here by Nazi submarines?
But, we did indeed contain the Soviets over a much wider land area than Islam has now….and the Soviets were indeed very heavily armed with a lethal variety of nuclear missiles. Of course, we were similiarly armed.
If we (…I…) could monitor the closed-door meetings inside the Pentagon, White House and other places with note pads on our knees, we could have more valid comments. Absent that close observation, we must War-Game here at a disadvantage.
Still, “big picture”, I think “containment” offers the least bloodshed, with no lingering radio-activity. Remember northeastern Japan so recently, and that nuclear scare was caused by a natural disaster. They’re now worried about crops being poisoned.
Old Cold Warriers are mostly gone now, so the younger generations have to re-learn these nuclear lessons anew, applied now towards Islam.
We should come out in the open and say that Islam is our enemy. I cringe in disgust whenever I think of our Commander in Chief bowing before that Saudi King, as was shown in that infamous photograph. Even the Saudi King looked startled.
Do all Muslims bow to the keeper of the pagan cube called the Kaabba? Were the black rock will take away your sins.
Islam is one of the enemys of Nationalists Americans.