Islam, Women and the Sexual Underpinnings of Jihad

The oppresive treatment of women in the Islamic world is well known. What is not sufficiently emphasized is how this oppression ends up producing a core underpinning of violent jihad.

The most obvious form this oppression takes is the sexual assault, particularly on non-muslim women, which is rooted in the Islamic scriptures (Andrew McCarthy: Who Attacked Lara Logan, and Why) :

It happens in Muslim countries and in the Muslim enclaves of Europe and Australia, perpetrated by Islamic supremacists acting on a sense of entitlement derived from their scriptures, fueled by the rage of their jihad, and enabled by the deafening silence of the media.

This  seems to suggest that violence against women and infidels is rooted strictly in religious dogma. But there are social implications of the domination of women embedded in the muslim world that induce violence against muslim women and jihad against Western culture and modernism. Otherwise put, the dogma induces conditions which enhance is receptiveness.

Charles Hugh Smith (Egypt, Libya et al. Demographics, the Oil Curse and Post-Colonial Karma) lists three major factors underlying the current events in the islamic world: demographics, the oil curse and post-colonial karma. With respect to demographics:

These nations have experienced the usual population explosion which accompanies reduced opportunities for women, and as a result the majority of citizens are young, better educated than their elders, and unemployed, underemployed or scratching out a living in the informal economy.

In other words, because women are inhibited from professional careers, all that is left to them is housework and producing babies, hopefully men. 

Unfortunately, when these babies grow into young men, as per Smith, they cannot find satisfactory employment and, as Bernard Lewis explains (A mass expression of outrage against injustice):

... in the Muslim world, casual sex, Western-style, doesn’t exist. If a young man wants sex, there are only two possibilities – marriage and the brothel. You have these vast numbers of young men growing up   without the money, either for the brothel or the brideprice, with raging sexual desire. On the one hand, it can lead to the suicide bomber, who is attracted by the virgins of paradise – the only ones available to him. On the other hand, sheer frustration.

In other words, the socio-economic reality of young muslim men is in direct conflict with the indoctrination they receive at the mosque that they are superior to and dominant over infidels and women.

Nobody should wonder that the ensuing frustration induces violence: against the only thing domestic they are supposed and left to have control over -- women;  and the  western culture and society, whose sexual libertinism they envy with hostility and which Islam prohibits. Infidel women in particular are fair game and within their right.

It is a vicious cycle: the religious dogma prohibits the solutions--emancipation of women (and possibly, a temporary reduction of birth rate; when Martin Kramer suggested it, there was an outcry of "racism" and a demand to "fire" him from Harvard) and modernization of the economy and society--to the problems that itself has created. This is a recipe for disaster that we have witnessed for decades and which will become much worse in the aftermath of the uprising.

The Islamists want neither to lose control over women nor do they believe that they can in the long run get the masses to accept economic and sexual deprivation in the presence of the Western system. That is why they will do everything in their power to islamize it. Islamism, just like communism, must make everybody miserable if it is to survive.

The West should oppose it, not facilitate it.

Western Delusions

Anybody with a minimal knowledge about the Middle-East cannot be but dismayed at the West's suicidal policies. Barry Rubin  (Egypt's Revolution: The More They Reassure Us, The More We Worry) is right:

I think I was the first person to warn that the Egyptian revolution wasn't all roses but also had a dangerous amount of thorns. And the more Western governments and media reassure us, the more we worry. Why? Because it shows they have no idea what they are facing and no idea of what they are doing.

He then proceeds to list quite a few worrying indicators of the future of the Middle-East.

Victor Davis Hanson (A New America in a New World Order) has a similar view of the US incompetence and where it is headed: 

There comes a moment in which a trivial event finally distills chaos into clarity. In the Obama administration’s case, it was the description of the Muslim Brotherhood by the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, who just assured Capitol Hill that the Brotherhood was “largely secular” and has “eschewed violence.” Keep that inanity in mind, and almost everything else becomes clear. Add “Muslim” to “Brotherhood” and these days you get “largely secular.”
…
Abroad, it might mean a new America analogous to France or Germany, which from time to time would chest-pound about current crises, but would risk nothing while calibrating the post-facto humanitarian rhetoric to match realities on the ground.

Except that I would substitute ‘might mean’ with ‘already means’, as demonstrated at PowerLine (More slush from the limp):

Mr. President, it's good to know you're on message with the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. And what a relief to hear that you're sending Secretary Clinton over to Geneva to lead the charge at the United Nations Human Rights Council. That is a masterstroke. Oh, man, you are lame. And just about everybody knows it but you.

One of the few wiser American foreign policy analysts, Leslie H. Gelb (Libya Protests: Watch Out, Barack Obama) deplores the ignorance that leads many to be

 … overeager to leap “on the right side of history” and march arm-in-arm with the revolutionaries, whom they don’t know from a hole in the wall. To be blunt, I don’t know anyone who has the foggiest idea where these revolutions from Algeria to the borders of Saudi Arabia are going or whether future leaders there will be true democrats or new dictators.

While I agree that we don't have a crystal ball either, he nevertheless discerns an unattractive direction: 

This will mean a more anti-American foreign policy. Truth be told, most Arab peoples and elites blame America for most of their ills: backing their oppressive leaders, invading Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan, and sustaining the Zionist entity, their hate-filled name for Israel.

He then offers five policy guidelines to the Obama administration. Unfortunately, with the west impotent it's too late and it won't work.

First, don’t make your trademark grandiose speeches. Tread carefully and modestly and stick to sound general principles that can survive inevitable surprises and don’t have to be revised daily. Here are some: The U.S. firmly supports peaceful and orderly transition to real, not fake, democracies. The U.S. opposes using force against peoples who demonstrate peacefully. The U.S. stands ready to help as requested by governments and peoples of the region.

The problem is that grandiose speeches are policy insofar as Obama is concerned. Another wise man, David Goldman (aka Spengler) predicted quite correctly after the 2008 election that Obama is an empty suit who will do little else short of speechifying. The latest speech about Lybia uprising (Elliott Abrams: Obama's Pathetic Response to Libya) demonstrates it.

Moreover, when Obama did talk, he expressed exactly those generalities that Gelb recommends. Alas, in the current circumstances in the Middle-East both US enemies and whatever allies it still has (probably not for long) correctly interpret such talk as impotence, which is why the Middle-East takes the direction that Rubin, Gelb and others are concerned about.

Second, avoid soaring rhetoric that undermines America’s remaining friends or sparks another uprising in Iran, which might only lead to another round of slaughter. Instead, urge friendly regimes—publicly and privately—to open up their political systems. Leave decisions on revolution in Iran to the Iranian people, and aid them only when and as asked.

There is no ally of the US that does not already feel undermined by the US, no matter what Obama says. They have already determined that they cannot rely on the US and are scrambling to do whatever they can to survive, even if it means switching camps.

Neither does the US have any influence left to urge any regime to “open up”. In the Middle-East any opening up will, sooner or later, lead to the fall of the regime and ultimately to Islamism. Just watch what is now happening in Tunisia and Egypt.

Third, avoid all pledges for a new Marshall Plan for the region. Otherwise, American money will be squandered in a sea of corruption. Rather, urge the rich, Arab oil states to kick in the billions they’ve been hoarding for decades and bask in the gratitude of their neighbors. They have the money; and we are limited at the moment from providing new and great sums of aid.

American money has been squandered for decades, a lot of it on the Palestinians (see my previous posts as to the results) and yet this has not stopped the flow. Despite the failure of the Palestinians to abide by any of their obligations on which the aid was predicated, both Fatah and Hamas have been receiving to this day huge amounts of aid, which has actually increased the more they acted against Western interests. There is no reason to believe that the West has any policy alternative to what are essentially bribes and protection money, so they are not likely to end.

As to Arab contributions, they won’t happen, not in the least because the notion that, for example, the Saudis will get recognition by Egyptians or Lybians is nonsense. Besides, they need the money to appease their own public and buy protection from Iran and whatever anti-Western regimes the uprising will bring about.

Fourth, make policy on a country-by-country basis, paying close attention to each country’s special history and culture. A grand and brand new strategy will only blur critical distinctions and confuse friend and foe alike.

But that’s precisely what the West in general and the US in particular have done: compare the treatment of the Iranian, Egyptian, Iranian and Bahreini uprisings. This opened the West to accusations of inconsistency and hypocrisy.

Fifth, don’t just throw out old autocratic babies and suppose you can keep the democratic bathwater. Instead, help, cajole, and push friendly regimes to transition peacefully toward democracy. Specifically, encourage development of political parties, the rule of law, a free press, and genuine elections. That’s much safer both for friendly rulers and far, far better for the people. It reduces risks of their democracy being hijacked by new Lenins. And it will better protect American interests. 

Unfortunately, the US is no longer in any position to significantly influence events in the Middle-East, no matter how much cajoling and pushing it does, as the Palestinian push for the veto has shown. Both allies and enemies perceive the US as weak and disloyal and act accordingly. The contempt is palpable in the Palestinian promise to boycott any US aid.

The notion that Arabs are “genetically” incapable of democracy has correctly been criticized as false but, unfortunately, the same is not true of their cultural capability. It is not by chance that they have no tradition of peaceful transition toward democracy, political parties, the rule of law, a free press, and genuine elections and there is a reason why practically all Arab regimes are authoritarian/dictatorial. Not only that, but except for small elites, the majority in Arab societies are intensely resistant to Western democracy and modernism, as influenced by the mosque.

The consequences of the uprisings are already proving how delusional the West is. It's gonna get much worse.

UPDATE: On Obama's speechifying "gift (Let Him Be Clear: He’s Voting ‘Present’):

We have since learned a lot about Obama’s oratory, and its relation to reality. He was able to call forth visions of the seas receding; he caused people to faint during campaign appearances; he provided the lyric for a video in which Hollywood stars endlessly repeated a single sentence; he caused a columnist to rank one of the speeches on where it stood in Obama’s lifetime oeuvre. We learned that the key point was always the let-me-be-clear moment — and sure enough, there was one in the Libya statement ...The statement consisted of 14 paragraphs that mixed strong adjectives with weak verbs. The only action items were to ask his administration to prepare options; to send an undersecretary of state to talk to other nations; and to send his secretary of state to a meeting of the Human Rights Council next week ...The one thing he wanted to make clear was that we had nothing to do with the “change” — perhaps afraid the unnamed Libyan dictator might blame him for it. In the final paragraph, Obama conveyed a commitment to “continue to stand up for freedom, stand up for justice, and stand up for the dignity of all people.” You have to admit, he has a gift.

UPDATE: More contempt by Leon Wiseltier (We Choose Consultations):

“This violence must stop.” So President Obama declared the other day about the depravity in Tripoli. This “must” is a strange mixture of stridency and passivity. It is the deontic locution familiar from the editorial pages of newspapers, where people who have no power to change the course of events demand that events change their course. This “must” denotes an order, or a permission, or an obligation, or a wish, or a will. It does not denote a plan. It includes no implication, no expectation, of action. It is the rhetoric of futility: this infection must stop, this blizzard must stop, this madness must stop ... Must the murder of his own people by this madman stop, Mr. President? Then stop it.

The Upside Down World of US Demise

In an earlier post I argued that any Arab perception of Western weakness invites pounding and that the PA can rest assured that, no matter what they do, US aid will continue to flow and will possibly increase the more anti-US it acts (which is also interpreted as weakness). 

Almost instantly I added an update about Fayyad, the West's favorite Palestinian PM, who in response to the veto, offered to share power with Hamas -- the dream team.
  
Now this (Palestinians to ‘boycott US’ over Security Council veto):

PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced that he would be prepared to give up US aid that was dependent on political conditions. He said that in 2010, the US gave the PA $223 million in financial aid to cover its deficit of $1.145 billion. This did not include US aid to UNRWA, he said.

Instead of the US boycotting the PA for its recalcitrance and failure to fulfill any of its obligations on which the aid was provided, and for  pushing for the UN resolution against the wishes of the US, it is the PA who is boycotting the US!

To this day the PA has never paid any attention to the political conditions under which it received the aid. Now it has the gall to tell the US "We will accept your aid only if you eliminate all conditions altogether".

All of this is predicated on the knowledge that the US is more likely than not to continue the aid without even nominal obligations by the PA. In fact, I do not put it past the Obama administration to offer the sorry spectacle of begging the PA to take the money. That's how pathetic the US has become.

Some superpower.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike. Caroline Glick on the Palestinian "boycott" of the US:

As the revolutions throughout the region show, in the real world, the Arabs do not care about the Palestinians. Europeans and leftist Americans care about the Palestinians. European leaders need to support the Palestinians for domestic political reasons. US leaders support the Palestinians to maintain good relations with Europe and with the American Left.

Recognizing this, the likes of Abbas and Fayyad understand that no matter what they say or do, the West will probably not abandon them. Europeans need them to continue carrying out their political war against Israel because that is what their constituents demand. US leaders will continue to support them because they follow Europe's lead.

Palestinian Hypocrisy and US (and Western) Stupidity

In the aftermath of what likely is the last US veto in support of Israel -- after that fiasco what are the chances that  Obama will embarass and isolate himself again and veto the coming UN declaration of a Palestinian state, particularly as a bankrupt US is on the verge of being driven out of the Middle East with its tail between its legs? -- Abbas's reaction was to call for an anti-American "day of rage" (one of two Arab instincts, the other is to blame or attack the Jews), while carefully making it clear that the PA would not sever relations with the US. 

Of course, predictably that's  the standard Palestinian (and Arab) operating procedure: extract as much aid as possible from the West while inciting anti-West hatred in the domestic and pan-Arab arena. 

On the one hand it would be impossible for Abbas to survive without Western aid (the Arabs contribute zilch), and that will be true of any future Palestinian state. On the other hand, the PA is at the same risk as all other autocratic and corrupt Arab regimes of an uprising.  In fact, the risk is greater due the Hamas's incitement against and subversion of it (it is widely suspected that only the IDF  prevents Hamas from taking over the West Bank). Hence the Palestinian hypocrisy of biting the hand that feeds them.

This behavior is understandable: if you have a funding source that for six decades pumps you with funds regardless of how hostile to it and its interests you are, why wouldn't you continue to behave hypocritically if you not only get away with it, but if your survival depends on it?

There were claims in the press and by the PA that Obama threatened Abbas with ending financial support if he went ahead with pushing for the UNSC resolution. Frankly, the notion that the US threatened existentially the Palestinians rather than Israel, is hardly believable, is it? (if he did it, it was only because Abbas put him personally in a difficult situation, by exposing the incoherence of his policies and isolating him).

Abbas's response proves that the threat, if issued, was not believable. He correctly interpreted it as a bluff and doubts that the US, and certainly Europe (which voted for the resolution) will  withhold aid. He knows that no matter what the Palestinians do, even terrorizing and killing Americans and sobotaging US and Western important interests, the money will continue to flow regularly. In fact, aid is likely to increase the more recalcitrant and violent the PA becomes.

And to prove this point, here is the West's favorite Palestinian leader, the "moderate with integrity who is busy building the institutional infrastructure for a state" (PA prime minister offers unity deal to Hamas):

"After US veto of UN resolution, Fayyad says PA "not willing to compromise for a fistful of dollars," will rule with Hamas as long as ceasefire upheld."

Note the disdain -- a fistful of dollars -- he expresses for the huge amounts of aid extracted from the West and without which the PA (and the Palestinian society) could not survive. 

The only reason Fayyad, who has no political basis, is tolerated by the PLO/Fatah leadership is as an acceptable facade for Western aid. That he displays such contempt and has no reservations offering to share power with Hamas demonstrates how confident he is nothing will stop the aid. In fact, it  may well increase even if the unity materializes: after all, such an increase is required to reward Hamas's agreement and to incentivize it to moderate. Fayyad and Hamas -- the dream team: the former funds the terror of the latter with western funds.

For six decades the West has vested itself in the Palestinian in the delusion that they are interested in peace and their own state, and the only impediment to peace is Israel. So addicted is the West to it that no reality is permitted to defy it. And, as per my previous post, the Western media is complicit in sustaining that delusion by blatantly ignoring and distorting reality.

The policies predicated on this delusion are the single most important factor sustaining the conflict.

The delusion is suicidal. Once the dust in the Arab world settles, the ensuing new world order will make the utter demise of the west excruciatingly clear. Abbas and Fayyad are right: this will cause the West to intensify its support of the Palestinians and its pressure on Israel.

UPDATE: Was Abbas right to believe that there would be no discontinuation of the aid? Caroline Glick in Obama's devastatingly mixed signals:

Finally, by standing by as Abbas pushed forward with the resolutio despite Obama's repeatedly stated opposition, the president showed all actors in the region that there is no price to be paid for defying the US. Obama did not announce that he is ending US financial support for Fatah. He did not state that the US is ending its training of the Fatah forces. Instead, he sent Rice before the cameras to tell the world that he agrees with the Palestinians, who just slapped him in the face.

UPDATE: Elder of Zion adds:

The 'Palestinians' are willing to give up the $223 million that the US provided to cover their budget deficit. How magnanimous of them. But they're not willing to give up the US contribution to UNRWA, which was $267 million in 2009 and $95 million by March 2010. Nor are they willing to give up the other aid money they get from the US, which was projected to total $502.9 million in 2010 and $550 million in 2011. That money goes for things like incitement on 'Palestinian Authority' television, paying stipends to the families of terrorists held in Israeli prisons and to the families of 'martyrs,' paying salaries of Hamas affiliates in Gaza, and lining the pockets of Abu Bluff, Fayyad and their friends.

The Washington Post and the Obama Veto

The title of the Washington Post editorial reaction to the Obama veto at the UN Abbas proves he prefers posturing to a peace process is, finally, correct. This characteristic of the Palestinian leadership should have been obvious to the western media ever since Oslo, but it looks as if the editorial is more an offense taken to Abbas's disregard for the Post's esteemed president and less a recognition of its own failure or refusal to see reality for what it was.

The Post fails to face the fact that Abbas's rebuff is the direct result of Obama's disastrous policies, not the least of which is his stupid handling of the veto itself (Elliott Abrams: How to Lose Friends and Not Influence People), and judging by the events in the Middle-East, the US ain't seen nothing yet (Lawrence Solomon: The next oil crisis). In fact the US may well be driven out of the Middle East altogether (Mideast unrest puts US military access in jeopardy), fulfilling the strategy of Iran and the islamists. Having given Abbas an American pretext to stall the "peace talks", having cut Mubarak's support from underneath Abbas (and proven to the pro-American Arab regimes that the US is disloyal to its allies and impotent as a power), what did Obama (and the Post) expect Abbas would do?

The Post claims that  

"The only effect of the Palestinian initiative will be to embarrass the Obama administration at a delicate moment, when popular uprisings around the Middle East already are challenging pro-American leaders."  

But Obama kept embarrassing himself by his ignorance of Middle-East realities and the incompetence of his administration foreign and domestic policies. It is Obama who triggered the chain-reaction that are is now challenging the US, by unceremoniously kicking Mubarak out in an honor-shame driven Middle East. And it is Obama, not Abbas, who conditioned the peace talks on the Jews stopping building in the West Bank. He did this in an attempt to realign the US with the strong horse in the Middle East, the islamists, in the aftermath of American self-inflicted decline, deluding himself that appeasement will save America’s influence in the Middle-East.

According to the Post Abbas's action "Conceivably, could cause Arab protests now focused on autocratic rule to take an ugly anti-American turn." But any collapse of the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East would have taken this turn no matter what the US did. That's because the Arab street has always been anti-American and not just because of support of their dictators. This is something the west refuses to accept.

Second, such turn would certainly materialize when the US proved itself to be both disloyal to its allies, appeasing its enemies and impotent. Policies of "engagement" are ineffective in the Middle East: they are interpreted as weakness and invite merciless pounding, not appreciation. Obama did not learn much from Carter's failure, but Qaradawi and the islamists did.

Mr. Abbas has known all of this all along. Yet he refused to set aside the resolution even when the administration offered a generous compromise - a proposed "presidential statement" from the Security Council criticizing Israeli settlements as well as the firing of rockets at Israel from Gaza.

Actually, nobody really knew until the veto came what Obama would do, possibly not even Obama himself. From his past policies and pronouncements it was widely and reasonably suspected that he would for the first time in US history, withdraw support for Israel. After all, why would he veto a resolution that reiterated his own policy (the pretext used by Abbas to disengage from talks)? In the circumstances Abbas could have well believed that either Obama would not veto, or, if he did veto, against all 14 other members of the UNSC, he would expose America's isolation. The absurd and inconsistent statement by Rice following the veto clearly demonstrates that such an assumption was well founded.

"Mr. Abbas's stubbornness might seem spectacularly self-defeating - but only if one assumes that he is genuinely interested in a peace deal. In fact, the U.N. gambit allows him to posture as a champion of the Palestinian cause without having to consider any of the hard choices that would be needed to found a Palestinian state. It enables him to deflect criticism from the rival Hamas movement about his friendly relations with the United States. It might even allow him to head off a popular Palestinian rebellion against his own autocratic behavior - Mr. Abbas has failed to schedule overdue elections, including for his own post as president."

 

But it is precisely that false assumption that the Post and the rest of the western media has systematically supported, promoted and instigated, ignoring and distorting the reality of the conflict that did not square with that delusion. The Oslo failure rests almost entirely on the western policies predicated on this false assumption, for which the western media was a core enabler, as media monitors such as CAMERA, Palestinian Media Watch and serious bloggers demonstrated with regularity.

And now the Post is blaming Abbas for what is essentially the predictable consequence of the west's own disastrous policies, in which the Post has been fully complicit. The Post lists the many advantages Abbas derives from disregarding Obama's last minute, hardly believable threats, for which Obama is fully responsible. The US having brought Abbas to this point, the Post now expect him to act against what he, rather than the US administration, perceives to be his own interest, let alone survival? After all he rode the US horse for financial benefit and pressure on Israel, and it now proves to be not a strong horse anymore. In the current atmosphere in the Middle East, with Mubarak support gone and Saudia's Abdullah thrashing Obama and seeking Iran, and raising Islamism, what was Abbas most likely to do?

"The Obama administration has all along insisted that Mr. Abbas is willing and able to make peace with Israel - despite considerable evidence to the contrary. If the U.N. resolution veto has one good effect, perhaps it will be to prompt a reevaluation of a leader who has repeatedly proved both weak and intransigent."

Despite evidence to the contrary? How disingenuous. For very little of this evidence appeared in the Post and the rest of the western media. Indeed, the Post published even Hamas opinions suggesting that even that anti-semitic, genocidal terrorist organization, openly committed to jihad against all infidels was willing and able to make peace with Israel.

It was not just the Obama administration, but in fact all US administrations since Oslo, including Bush's in its last couple of years, that persisted in this delusion and undertook policies of blind support for the Palestinians and pressure on Israel for concessions that guaranteed we would be today exactly where we are. In this the western media is a core accomplice.

Abbas has been weak and intransigent because of Palestinian culture and western misguided policies. What excuse does Obama have for being the same? A reevaluation is indeed long due, not of Abbas, but rather of the US and western policies, the competence of the Obama administration, as well as of the media's professionalism and objectivity.

But, as the editorial and the pathetic statement by the Obama administration following the veto demonstrate, this won't happen. And given the current developments in the Middle East unleashed by Obama, I very much doubt that it would do much good.

UPDATE: Another lesson that the US should have learned a long time ago but won't (PA calls for 'day of rage' after UNSC veto).

Serves the US right for having supported the Palestinians for more than six decades and enriched their corrupt and treacherous leaders.

My guess is that this is the last veto by the US and that it will entirely succumb to the Palestinians. Ah, the fruits of ignorance and stupidity and how a superpower is bound to self-destruct. Ask Rome.

UPDATE: An understanding similar to mine of Abbas's strategy facilitated by Obama from Shai Franklin (Why Israel can still rely on U.S. support at the UN).The critical part:

"The Arabs rejected the U.S. proposal, for the same reason the U.S. offered it. They don't care whether the Council issues anything, be it a full-fledged resolution or a less formal statement. They care about forcing the United States to veto a tactical resolution now so we'll have less credibility later on when a vote on Palestinian statehood comes before the Council."

UPDATE: The US was one word away from dropping the veto. The NYT:

"The U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Friday that would have declared continued Israeli settlements in the West Bank "illegal" after the U.S. failed to persuade the Palestinian Authority to change the text [to "illegitimate"] so that the Obama administration could support it."

UPDATE: CAMERA: A New Low: New York Times Running Interference for Yusuf Qaradawi

For the past several weeks, The New York Times has been running interference for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization set to play a significant role in Egyptian politics after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. In addition to publishing commentaries by two apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan and Essam El-Errian, on its op-ed page, the Times has published a news story that depicts the group’s spiritual leader, Yusuf Qaradawi, as “committed to pluralism and democracy.”

 

 

Obama is a consequence, not cause of US demise

Many criticize Obama as being responsible for the demise of the US as the superpower. That is a mistake: Obama is an indicator, not a cause, he just accelerates the process.

Had the US still been a superpower, Obama would have not been elected. He was elected because those who own the country -- the Wall Street elite -- having sucked the country dry for the umpteenth time -- recognized the cumulative damage they caused is lethal and concluded that they should realign a US in decline with the emerging strong, the Iran/Syria/Turkey axis of evil. If you can't beat them -- and the US probably can't anymore -- join them.

Many attribute Obama's policies to either ignorance/incompetence or to leftist ideology. But, first, the two are not mutually exclusive: it is both true that Obama is devoid of economic and historical fundamentals and that he absorbed the anti-colonialist/socialist dogma from his mother, father and his social environment. Indeed, it is not knowledge that makes such ideology attractive.


Second and more important, whatever the personal source of Obama's policies, what really matters is that they are compatible with what the owners of the country want and for which reason they selected Obama. For as I argued in an old article, the realignment increasingly promoted by academics e.g Mearsheimer and Walt, failed "peace-processors" e.g Aaron David Miller and many others are just an expression of what the country's owners believe a US in decline should do, particularly given its dependence on ME oil, to save itself from the islamist onslaught.

That's the most reasonable way to understand Obama's systematic policies of dumping allies and appeasing enemies. If Obama is ignorant and incompetent, it is certainly not when it comes to the preferences and objectives of those who put him in power and keep him there. In other words, Obama's policies reflect his competence in satisfying the US financial elite.


Where the US (and the West in general) goes wrong is that ignorance --
not just Obama's, but the US elite's, his advisors's and the public's in general -- induces a delusion that these policies will achieve their desired objectives. In fact,  the exact opposite of what is intended will happen: triumphalist islamists correctly interpret appeasement as what it really is -- decadence and weakness -- and will pound relentlessly and mercilessly.


Multiple reinforcing factors will ensure that. First, there is the Islamic dogma that compels them to vanquish and subjugate infidels. Second, there's envy of the West: while under their dogma muslim societies stagnate, the West  progresses precisely because it got rid of its own handicapping religious dogma. Third, because the middle-eastern culture is riddled through with zero-sum game and absurd conspiracy theories that prevent muslims from taking responsibility for their own failures and induce them to scapegoat and destroy the west.


If the Islamists achieve their Quranic objectives it will happen only because the west is committing suicide.

UPDATE: My argument is clearly being validated by the events in the ME. Only the anti-west regimes stand while US allies fall. The US is being driven out from the ME and it stills lacks comprehension. And it ain't seen nothing yet.

Even Abbas ignored Obama's threats and went to the UNSC because he could not lose: either Obama went along (proving his weakness) or he vetoed against all others, demonstrating US isolation (and thus also weakness). That was a direct result of the fall of Mubarak and the arabs pushing Abbas to expose the US weakness.

Forget the US, it's gone.


UPDATE: There is no better validation of my argument that the US elite has decided that realignment in the Middle East was the solution to US decline than Thomas Friedman, a regurgitator of elite's view. When he started criticizing Israel and lauding the Palestinian's desire for peace, the writing was on the wall. Friedman also supported Obama, of course.