[Rhodes22-list] The Long Haul - Politics

brad haslett flybrad at yahoo.com
Sat May 20 22:09:03 EDT 2006


The election season is upon us and it doesn't matter
who wins this fall, or in 2008. Here's what we face
folks!

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 Reading Ahmadinejad in Washington 
The Iranian president's letter needs to be taken
seriously. 
by Hillel Fradkin 
05/29/2006, Volume 011, Issue 35 



WILL THE UNITED STATES declare war on the Islamic
Republic of Iran? For months, this question has been
the theme of diplomatic and public discourse--with
horror usually expressed at the idea. But it now seems
that we have this backwards. For the import of the
letter that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran,
sent to President Bush in the first week of May is
that Ahmadinejad and Iran have declared war on the
United States. Many reasons are given, but the most
fundamental is that the United States is a liberal
democracy, the most powerful in the world and the
leader of all the others. Liberal democracy, the
letter says, is an affront to God, and as such its
days are numbered. It would be best if President Bush
and others realized this and abandoned it. But at all
events, Iran will help where possible to hasten its
end. (The full text of the letter, translated into
English from the original Persian, can be found at
www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Ahmadinejad%20letter.pdf.)

Neither the Bush administration nor its many critics
appear to appreciate the significance, ideological and
practical, of the letter. Nor do they appear to
appreciate the remarkable boldness of Ahmadinejad
personally. For the formal characteristics of the
letter as well as its substance have ancient and
modern analogs--letters of Muhammad to the Byzantine,
Persian, and Ethiopian emperors of his day warning
them to accept Islam and his rule or suffer the
consequences, and a letter from Khomeini to Mikhail
Gorbachev along similar lines. Thus, Ahmadinejad
presents himself as the true heir of Muhammad and
Khomeini and may even be suggesting that he is a
founder himself. At the least, he presents himself as
the spokesman and leader of Islam and the Muslim world
in its entirety, transcending the Shiite/Sunni divide.
Both this boldness and this claim are consistent with
the whole series of pronouncements and actions
Ahmadinejad has taken in the brief period since he was
elected last summer. But the letter, in its form and
substance, raises this to a new and much higher level
of clarity and power as well as menace.

The Bush administration and its critics have ignored
all this. They have chosen to view the letter within a
narrower prism--the question of negotiations or rather
non-negotiations over Iran's enrichment of uranium.
For the administration, the letter contained "nothing
new" in this regard. For Bush's critics, it was an
"opening," one that could best be exploited if the
United States were to drop its resistance to direct
participation in negotiations with Tehran.

This reaction is not entirely surprising.
Ahmadinejad's letter does have a bearing on the
struggle over Iran's pursuit of enriched uranium. Its
long catalog of alleged U.S. crimes against Muslim
interests and states specifically, and against Africa,
Latin America, and the poorer parts of the world more
generally, mimics the standard litany of anti-American
complaints. It is intended to further undermine
support for the United States and weaken its position
in the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program. In
this it may have some success. But for these purposes,
it need not have presented its critique in a religious
and ideological mode, up to and including the charge
that Bush is a hypocrite in his claim to be "a
follower of Jesus Christ." That is, Ahmadinejad could
have done without the theological "meanderings" about
which both the administration and its critics
complained. Indeed, for these purposes it would have
been better if he had. Bush's critics--including most
recently Russia's Vladimir Putin--like to charge him
with hypocrisy, but they are by and large not
concerned with Christian standards. And above all, the
attack on liberal democracy could not be assumed to
appeal to secular critics.

Yet Ahmadinejad did decide to approach the world,
Muslim and non-Muslim, theologically--to insist that
nuclear proliferation is not only an issue of policy
but also of theology, indeed of the most fundamental
and important issues of theology. He defends the right
not only of Iran to nuclear technology but also of all
Muslim countries as Muslim. Indeed they have not only
a right but a duty to pursue such technology. The
issue must be understood in the light of the most
fundamental and important conflict in the world today
as Ahmadinejad sees it--a fundamental conflict between
Islam and its rivals, most immediately liberal
democracy as embodied in the United States, but also
Christianity.

All of this can be seen partially but still somewhat
dimly in Ahmadinejad's emphasis on Christian
hypocrisy, which may in this context mean two things:
violations by self-professed Christians of the
standards and teachings of historic Christianity, or
the violation by historic Christianity of the true
teachings of the Prophet Jesus. The latter is a
traditional Islamic view of the defect and even crime
of historic Christians. In calling upon Bush, as
Ahmadinejad does emphatically, to embrace the
"teachings of the prophets," he is calling upon him
not only to abandon liberal democracy but Christianity
as well--to embrace Islam, to which all the world must
ultimately submit, and which is gathering momentum in
our time.

THIS IS THE WAY THE LETTER will be understood and
received by many Muslims, both inside and outside
Iran. Far from being simply meandering, the letter
manages to interweave appeals to two different
audiences, the non-Muslim and largely secular world
and the Muslim world. Its objective--to prosecute the
war on behalf of Islam--unites the two. To that end,
it aims to divide and weaken Islam's adversary--the
non-Muslim world--and to rally the Muslim world behind
Ahmadinejad. In both respects it seems so far to be
succeeding. Ahmadinejad followed the publication of
the letter with a visit to Indonesia, the largest and
most moderate of all Muslim countries and also very
far removed from Iran's usual sphere of concerns. Iran
invested heavily in ensuring that he received a warm
and even triumphal reception there. Ahmadinejad seems
to have received praise from Indonesian officials and
the leaders of other Muslim countries in the region,
as well as from clerical figures, including the head
of Indonesia's Islamic State University, generally
regarded as a leader of moderate Islam. Ahmadinejad
has not only declared war but has taken an interim
victory lap.

But, it may be asked, So what? So what if Ahmadinejad
has declared that Islam is in fundamental, even
mortal, conflict with the rest of the world? Formally
that has always been the position of the Iranian
Revolution. So what if he declares that Iran and the
Muslim world are now on the march and have seized the
initiative? The power of Iran may be measured in
concrete ways and is, for now, limited and may remain
so if we can only reach agreement on halting uranium
enrichment. Are Ahmadinejad and Iran not further
limited by his disability that he is a Shiite in a
Muslim world that is overwhelmingly Sunni? And so what
if Ahmadinejad implicitly lays claim to the mantle of
Khomeini? Will he not ultimately be constrained by the
very regime Khomeini established and built, in which
he is presently subordinate to others--the regnant
ayatollahs, including Khamenei the Supreme Guide--with
a greater claim on authority? Will not the latter
constrain him, if only out of self-interest and their
own ambition to rule?

So what, in short, if Ahmadinejad wants to see the
world in theological terms and to believe Islam is on
the march and he is at its head? So what if he sees
fit to burden us with these theological musings? The
world, when all is said and done, is something else,
and his views are out of touch with its reality and
even, may it be said, delusional.

These objections would be more persuasive if we could
forget that we have within living memory experience of
revolutionary leaders--for that is what Ahmadinejad
emphatically is--who faced apparently great odds in
coming to personal power and great odds in taking on
the powers of the world and nevertheless achieved
both. Such people come up with practical if brutal
solutions to their apparent disabilities. For us, who
are ever so prudent and cautious, it would be safer to
entertain the possibility that Ahmadinejad is a man
who may also find solutions to the obstacles in his
way, a man who finds great opportunities to be
exploited and has the cunning and the will to do so.

Indeed, there is substantial evidence that he has
already begun. Although subordinate to higher
authority in the Iranian regime, he came to office in
that regime at a time when its morale was low. He has
managed to revive its spirit, especially among the
cadres, like the militia, on whom it depends. It is a
serious question whether his superiors--who ever since
the rise of the reform movement in 1997 have been
preoccupied by fear of collapse--do not need him as
much as he needs them.

It is true that Ahmadinejad presently occupies a
subordinate office, a deficiency reinforced by the
fact that he is not a jurist, let alone an ayatollah,
and thus lacks the credentials for supreme rule as
defined by the principle of the regime--"the rule of
the jurisprudent."

But he may be in the process of addressing that
difficulty by enlisting a source of authority--the
Hidden Imam--consistent with and even superior to that
principle. Ahmadinejad has presented himself as the
herald or "prophet" of the Hidden Imam--the ultimate,
if absent, ruler and authority for so-called Twelver
Shiism--and has gone so far as to claim that he had a
vision of the Imam, at the U.N. of all places.

It remains to be seen what further use Ahmadinejad may
make of this status and the kind of authority it may
convey and with what success. It would amount to a
further radicalization of Khomeini's original radical
break with the tradition of Twelver Shiism, which
opposed and still opposes the political engagement of
clerics. Formally it is constrained by the regime
Khomeini founded, but emotionally it is a plausible
extension. At least one ayatollah is reported to have
declared in recent days that Ahmadinejad's letter was
the "hand of God."

AT ALL EVENTS, there is little evidence that his
ostensible superiors are inclined to restrain him.
Ayatollah Khamenei gave a talk prior to the letter
that endorsed Ahmadinejad's policies without
reservation. Moreover, Ahmadinejad's supporters in the
Basij militia and other "revolutionary" institutions
have announced and begun to implement a purge of
"opponents of the revolution" in key places, including
the universities. In the presently unforeseeable event
that his superiors tried to force a showdown, it is
not clear who would have more "troops."

Outside Iran, Ahmadinejad encounters a world of
opportunities. The non-Muslim countries are very much
divided over Iran's ambitions, acting either
hesitantly or at cross purposes. Even his main
adversary, the United States, seems divided and
uncertain.

The Muslim world, for its part, is rich with the
opportunities created by great longing, great
resentment, and great anger. Those longings (for a
more glorious role for Islam) and those resentments
(over the fallen estate of Islam) have been brewing
for a long time. For those in the Muslim world moved
by these sentiments, the attacks of September 11,
2001, offered the satisfaction of a victory and
produced admiration for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

But Osama also promised further victories, that this
was the beginning, not the end, of the new Islamic
jihad. And in this he has not been successful,
presumably because of the vigor of American and allied
attacks on al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Even
in Iraq, where al Qaeda under the direction of Abu
Musab al Zarqawi keeps up the battle, it has not yet
achieved its aim of driving American forces out and
may not. Moreover, its engagement in Iraq has had
liabilities for al Qaeda, which were the substance of
al-Zawahiri's letter of last summer. Al Qaeda as such
may be in decline.

In these circumstances, Ahmadinejad has attempted to
step into bin Laden's place as the leader of the
radical Islamic movement, as the man with the will and
capacity to challenge and threaten the United States.
Ahmadinejad has already enjoyed some success in parts
of the Muslim world. This has been accompanied by the
resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
especially Palestine, where Hamas won control of the
Palestinian Authority. This has permitted him to
assert, as he does in his letter, that the forces of
radical Islam--or, as he would have it, simply
Islam--are on a roll. Ahmadinejad has bent every
effort to support and join forces with Hamas and may
well succeed. And, as always, he has Hezbollah in
Lebanon at his disposal.

>From all these developments, the radical movement has
gained renewed confidence in the claim, first put
forward by Osama bin Laden, that its adversaries,
principally the United States, do not have the stomach
for a long fight, or even a short one. Islam's enemies
can and will be pushed back and defeated by radical
forces, because the latter, unlike their enemies, do
not fear death and even welcome it. They can even, as
Ahmadinejad recently said, accept the possibility of
nuclear war as a necessity of the struggle. Altogether
the spirits of the radical Islamic movement are high,
and Ahmadinejad is the most powerful voice of that
spirit.

This renewed ideological vigor and confidence present
us with a host of difficulties in addition to the more
material problem of the prospective Iranian bomb. It
remains to be seen what we can and will do to keep the
mullahs from obtaining nuclear bombs. Were we to be
successful by diplomacy--unlikely--or by military
action--ruled out of bounds by many--it would
certainly affect the ideological struggle, as well as
be a great good in itself. It would do so because it
would be a defeat, and a significant one, for radical
Islam. But given the temper of the man and the needs
of the Iranian regime, it would not end ideological
and other kinds of warfare.

For the moment all this is unknown. But what is known,
or what should be known and deeply grasped, is that
everything Ahmadinejad--and for that matter the
radical movement as a whole--does is guided by an
ideological vision and commitment. It needs to be
addressed as such. For the moment and not only for the
moment, this requires that liberal democrats declare
that they have no intention of abandoning their way of
life and see no need to do so, since they are fully
prepared to defend it and because that way of life
provides the resources--political, economic, and
military--to defend itself.

It is necessary to inform Ahmadinejad and his radical
allies that they are in for a real fight. This may not
suffice to lead them to question their fundamental
assumption and inspiration that we are on the run. But
it may give pause to the many Muslims and non-Muslims
standing on the sidelines, who see radical success and
do not see American or Western resolve. 

Of course the best person to make the first such
declaration is President Bush--not as a Christian but
as the world's leading liberal democrat. And not to
Ahmadinejad, for whom a direct reply would be a
victory, but to the Iranian people, the Muslim world,
and the non-Muslim world.



Hillel Fradkin is a senior fellow at the Hudson
Institute and coeditor of Current Trends in Islamist
Ideology.

 
 
© Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard,
All Rights Reserved.  


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