Our enemy in the Middle East and what to call it

The Paris Massacre and its aftermath got me thinking about our enemy in the Middle East and the inability of our national leaders to name it. President Obama still uses the nebulous phrase, “terrorism”, while Secretary of State John Kerry speaks of a war on “extremism”. I am far from the first to point out the fact that this reluctance smacks of cowardice. Not that this is a problem unique to Obama. His predecessor, George W Bush famously declared a “War on Terror”. At the time, a few pundits said that this was like FDR declaring a War on Aircraft Carriers.

There are many reasons to be more specific, avoiding the appearance of cowardice is but one reason (though it is an important one). Another is to frame the propaganda battle that must accompany the actual fighting. In politics, it is said that he who frames the debate wins the debate. What is true in domestic politics is also true in international struggle – as well as diplomacy.

One key goal in the diplomatic maneuvering surrounding a war is to ensure that your side has as many allies as possible while the other side is as isolated as possible. In the War on Terror, many of our key allies are Muslim. For this reason, a key goal of our diplomatic terminology and propaganda slogans must be to divide the Muslims we are at war with from the Muslims who we wish to have on our side. Unless of course we wish to go to war with 1.2 billion Muslims, which is both unnecessary and strategic folly of the highest order. I believe this consideration is what motivated George Bush to declare a more generic “War on Terror”.

A popular term for our Islamic enemies is ‘Islamic Fundamentalism’. This distinguishes them from the more moderate Muslim friends. The problem I have with it is that it makes it sound like our enemies are like our allies except more so – that they are like our friends, except with their religion cranked up to 11. Rather, what our diplomatic and military needs require is for us to draw a sharp a distinction as possible between our Muslim enemies and our Muslim friends.

A less popular term, but one that does draw a sharper distinction, is ‘Islamist’. It is better because it implies that while regular Muslims believe in Islam, our enemies believe in something else: a mutant, deviant form of Islam. As a point of fact, I think this is correct. What our Muslim enemies believe in is not really Islam, but a dialectic synthesis of 7^th Century Islam and 20^th Century Western Revolutionary terrorism – to understand the latter, think Anarchism, Bolshevism, and National Socialism. While a more accurate term because it draws a necessary distinction, it is still not ideal because its explanatory power depends on distinctions in English word construction that might not translate well into other languages, like say Arabic.

The better term, but one seldom used, is Islamofascism. What I like about it is that it is a portmanteau of two political concepts – one Eastern, one Western. The term fascism is sufficiently loaded politically that it won’t be lost in translation, and because it is freighted with negative connotations, most Muslims will think that it refers to somebody else – not them. Our stated enemies will know whom we are talking about, but that is exactly what we want.

This may seem like semantics, but in any war, the war of ideas is as important as the war on the ground. Our strategic need is to cleave as many Muslims as possible from our sworn enemies, to make them as isolated as possible in the Muslim world.

Comments

[WiseGuy]

It is also a good term because it connects them to the Nazi Fascists of the Second World War. A bad connection for our friends, but it is the sort of term the Islamofascists are likely accept for themselves, since they would not consider it an insult.

[Stephen Bloom]

I like your discussion but feel the use of the term fascists gives the leftist murderers of history a pass. Why must it be Islamofascists and not Islamocommunists? Or Islamomaoists or Islamotrotskyites? If it is merely to do with authoritarianism, then why not Islamoautocrats or some such?

[old white guy]

the problem was, is, and continues to be islam. not some radical form of islam, just islam. islam teaches just what the jihadis are doing. there is no ism here, just islam.

[Pootz]

Stephan - Fascism IS a leftist ideology. The greatest fraud perpetrated on the modern world is that the 5th column left have rewritten history with fascism as a right wing ideology.

Fascism and Communist/socialism are not opposites but 2 branches of a common ideology.

Hitler and Stalin were bosom compatriots on the national socialist values - control of capitalists by the state and restriction of the flow of people, products and ideologies over their national borders.

'I am a Socialist,' Hitler told Otto Strasser in 1930, 'and a very different kind of Socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow'.

[Autoguy]

Cincinnatus, I understand the thrust of your article; to differentiate so that our military can determine 'friends' and 'enemies' in this conflict. Maybe we NEED to do this, but unfortunately it is at least partially false.
A growing body of research shows that the difference between (to use your term) IslamoFascists and other Muslims is only one of method. Both support Sharia. Both require Islam to rule the world (Dar-el-Harb and all that). Both require what the Hadiths and the Koran require. The difference is only one of method.
Some Muslims do not believe in the need to make Islam the most powerful force in the world, true. But every study, every poll shows that these people are in the minority. Indeed, many of the sects that support this view are considered apostates by mainline Sunni and Shia. As soon as Islam is ascendant in the world, these types can bank on being put to death for apostacy, as the Koran demands.
We aren't really talking about just a military conflict here; we're talking about a clash of cultures. We aren't really fighting either - and we won't, until we are forced to honesty.

[Pootz]

It's best to know why you are fighting before who it is you must fight.

ISIS/al-Qa'ida are creations of western covert foreign policy come home to roost.

BTW Cinci, thanks for the link to Jeff Copper's commentaries,

[Autoguy]

Pootz, I strongly disagree. First off, you have zero proof. Second, creating a power vacuum (early exit from Iraq by Obama) does not create a murderous idealogy - the murderous idealogy takes advantage of a power vacuum. Third, al-Qaeda and ISIS tell us what motivates them - kill the infidel/religion. They tell us this every chance we get, and still people try to blame themselves.
That kind of thinking contributes to our inability to properly respond.