DUBIOUS “DIALOGUE”
Amir Taheri
New York Post, December 15, 2008
Barack Obama has been toying with the idea of dialogue with the Islamic world for two years now—but he has yet to approach the idea of actually saying anything meaningful.
At one point, his advisers talked of convening a White House summit with Muslim leaders. When that scheme was exposed as fanciful, they recommended that he attend the Islamic Summit Conference, convened once every three years. But that, too, has turned out to be problematic—so now they talking of plans for “a major address in an Islamic capital.”
But what does Obama wish to say in this dialogue? “The message I want to send is that we will be unyielding in stamping out the terrorist extremism we saw in Mumbai,” Obama told The Chicago Tribune last Tuesday.
Note that the American president-elect mentions Mumbai—and not the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington or scores of others carried out by Islamic terrorists against Western targets. Note also that he talks of “terrorist extremism,” not “Islamic” or even “Islamist” terrorism. The reason, of course, is his desire not to ruffle Muslim feathers. And herein lies the fundamental weakness of his position.
If the terrorism we saw on 9/11 and many other occasions has nothing to do with Islam, then why bring up the issue with Muslim leaders rather than Buddhist monks? Alternately, if this type of terrorism does have Islamic roots, why not give it its proper designation? In fact, Islamic feathers need to be ruffled if we are to defeat Islamic terrorism. Muslims should be told that they’ve been too complacent in recognizing the threat.
To be sure, not all Muslims are terrorists. But virtually all terrorists are Muslims. Nor do they live on another planet: They are recruited, trained and sheltered in Muslim countries. Individual Muslims and Islamic charities finance them; Islamic governments provide them with passports and safe havens. The media regimes in most Muslim countries (often state controlled) propagate the very themes that sustain the terrorist ideology in its different versions.
What Obama ignores is that Islamic terrorism isn’t limited to suicide attacks against the “infidel”; it also comes in the form of terrorizing ordinary Muslim citizens into conformity with rites and rules that should have no place in a civilized society. The vast majority of the victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims. They would resent an American leader who tries to ignore or relativize the broader reality of Islamic terrorism in the name of political correctness.
Obama talks of “a unique opportunity to reboot America’s image,” as if his nation’s problems with terrorism were due to poor public relations on Washington’s part. Does he think so highly of his own talent for seducing people with words that he believes that he can do with a single speech what his five predecessors have failed to do since 1979—namely, remove the threat of Islamic terror?
When it comes to a dialogue with Muslims, Obama faces another problem: ambiguities about his own religious identity. Most Muslims still regard him as one of their own: His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were Muslims, as was his stepfather—so he is deemed a Muslim by birth and thus a member of the ummah (the community of the faithful), unless and until he formally disowns his male ancestors’ faith. If he were truly a convert to Christianity, he would have replaced his Arabic and Islamic first and middle names—Barack (blessing) and Hussein (beautiful)—with baptismal Christian names.
The president-elect should have better advice on religion with international politics. America faces groups and states that divide mankind into religious blocs and seek domination for their own Islamic camp.…
Obama should [also] know that Islam is torn by several interconnected theological and political conflicts: Sunnis vs. Shiites, modernists vs. traditionalists, despots vs. democrats, moderates vs. radicals. There is, in fact, no such thing as “the Muslim world” that he can address as a single unit (let alone seduce into adopting America as a friend).
And what “Muslim capital” can he make that “major address” in? Cairo or the capital of any of the other Arab despotic regimes close to the United States would signal the burial of US support for democratization in the Middle East. Ankara?… Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, could be a good choice—but would involve at least the tacit admission that Obama was wrong in opposing the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Jakarta? Indonesia is a democracy, and Obama’s own Indonesian background would help. But Indonesia wields virtually no influence in the broader world of Islam.
There is one other suitable place: Mecca. But non-Muslims aren’t allowed to set foot there. Obama could go—but only if he embraced his Islamic heritage and entered the city alone, leaving behind his “infidel” entourage.
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