Jonah Goldberg is Wrong--Islam IS The Problem (sort of)

I think Jonah Goldberg is the smartest guy on our team--he's witty, self-effacing, and ridiculously well-educated. I agree with him almost all the time, and his mention of this blog on National Review Online was a huge deal.

Jonah's got a column up at NRO, and then a few blog posts that follow. In this work, Goldberg attempts to take on the difficult questions raised most recently by the terrorist acts at Fort Hood--and whether, as some on the Right would have us believe, Islam itself is "the problem". Goldberg ultimately believes that "The problem with formulating a serious public policy based on the assertion that Islam is the problem is that you guarantee Islam become even more of a problem. It's a bit like Schrodinger's cat. Right now Islam is both problem and solution. If we decide on one, we foreclose the possibility of the other." While evincing a genuine respect for those who do feel "...that Islam is, if not the problem, then at least it is a major problem", he ultimately believes that the more we focus on this as a problem with Islam, the more likely we are to push moderate Muslims into the Jihadist camp.

As I read through Jonah's work yesterday, I was reminded of an exchange I had during a weekend foreign policy seminar a few years ago, in which a pretentious French (but I repeat myself) academic apologist for world Islam was lecturing us on the folly of our policies. In an exchange, I opined that we had not sufficiently focused on Islam itself as the major contributor to extremism--to which he answered with a great dismissive laugh, "ha, ha, ha--would would you do, kill a billion Muslims in order to eliminate the problem." "No", I answered. "I actually don't remember us killing a whole lot of Russians in winning the Cold War. We exposed the emptiness of their ideas--this was the path to victory."

So I was somewhat interested in this part of Goldberg's analysis:

The problem with the Communism analogy is that Communism really was a novel and artificial imposition on society. You could appeal to Ukrainians as Ukrainians in an effort to get them to reject Communist ideology. The rhetoric of freedom had salience both as an appeal to individualism but also to national and cultural self-determination (we didn't call them "captive nations" for nothing). Islam isn't like that, at least not in most places (one exception that comes to mind is Iran where a Persian, nationalist, identity seems to many to be as authentic as the post-revolutionary ideology that rules the country now). In most Islamic countries, Islam isn't a foreign ideology imposed by revolutionaries from within or without. Islam is central to the culture, integral to their identity. Only a relative handful of Russians took great offense when you insulted Marxism, because Marxism was never central to the Russian identity. Indeed, my hunch is that at least in the years between Stalin's death and 1989, you were more likely to invite a punch in the nose from a typical Russian by insulting Tolstoy than by insulting Marx.

Jonah makes excellent points here about the NATURE of Communism and the NATURE of Islam. I agree--there are differences. Where he and I part company is in the IMPACT that such differences have on OUR approach to dealing with them as threats. Fear of radicalizing moderate Islam is insufficient reason for holstering one's rhetorical and ideological weapons, as it is this great mass in the middle that supplies the tacit support for and economic funding to--radical Islam. Without moderate Islam--there is no radical Islam.

So when I say that Islam IS the problem, I mean that the great mass of Muslims in the world who go about their business every day living their ordinary lives--but who nod their heads in agreement at every Tel Aviv pizza parlor bombing and who cheer the actions of Major Hassan. Some say that these reactions aren't Islam per se, but are more POLITICAL reactions to world and social events. I'd like to believe that is the case, but I am unpersuaded, especially given the propensity of moderate Muslims to mention religion in their implicit or explicit defense of these actions.

Others say that identifying Islam as the problem is a misreading of the basic tenets of a great religion--I say this isn't a theological debate, it is an existential struggle, brought about by a radical desire of a thin slice of modern Islam to re-establish a Caliphate. If--as defenders of Islam would have us believe--much of the modern rhetoric of Islamic extremism is inconsistent with Islam--then it is the responsibility of moderate Islam to cleanse itself of not only the rhetoric but of the impulse to support extremism. And, it is not only reasonable for US policy to strive to bring about this internal debate--it is ultimately likely to be the most successful path to settling this dustup on terms agreeable to the West AND to Islam.

So when I say that "Islam IS the Problem", I mean to be specific in defining "the problem". The problem to me is the great heat sink of support that moderate Islam provides radical Islam, and the rhetoric of religious unity and purity in which it is wrapped. There may be nothing wrong with Islam AS A RELIGION--but in its modern cultural expression, it is flawed--and focusing on it as "the problem" or "a big part of the problem" seems prudent to me.