Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Salafist totalitarianism; causes and treatment

This is a fascinating review of what must be a really great book by Peter Beinart entitled "The Good Fight: Why Liberals–And only Liberals–Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again". He argues in favour of a *massive* injection of aid into the Muslim world on the vast scale of the Marshall Plan after WWII, because...

...for Beinart, "salafist totalitarianism" is what the Cold War liberal Walt W. Rostow called communism–"a disease of the transition to modernization."
The reviewer goes on to counter:

He ignores the explanation provided by French scholar Olivier Roy, who has argued that jihadism is not a result of poverty or repression in the Muslim world, but rather of an identity crisis on the part of elite Muslims like Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, who have been exposed to Western modernity.
Now this is fascinating:
Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago, in an exhaustive study, has shown that suicide-bombing is a tactic used by populations under real or perceived occupation against occupying powers with democratic governments susceptible to public opinion, including Israel and the United States. If Roy is right, then the center of gravity of the struggle is Europe, not the Muslim world; and if Pape is right, the United States can somewhat reduce the appeal of jihadism by withdrawing from Iraq and limiting the American military presence in other Muslim countries.

(italics mine)

More at www.democracyjournal.or...

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