The German philosopher Georg Hegel wrote in 1837 about Muslim states: "In its spread Mahometanism founded many kingdoms and dynasties. On this boundless sea there is a continual onward movement, nothing abides firm."[1] This emphasis on the volatility of Muslim politics is as true for the twenty-first century as it was in the seventh or the nineteenth. Indeed, at present, Hegel's perception of "continual onward movement" has become the preoccupation of world politics – and at the central concern of the roughly hundred essays that follow.
Those essays represent a crossover: I have a Ph.D. on the medieval history of Islam, yet much of my writing in recent years takes the shape of a weekly column that appears in newspapers and on websites. I endeavor to bring my specialized knowledge to bear to a general audience via miniature research essays; thus the name of this volume.
This undertaking is made possible by the acute interest in the topics I cover; indeed, no single region of the world has quite dominated American and Western public discourse as does the Middle East today. This results mainly but not exclusively from the attacks of September 11 and the ensuing war on terrorism. Other prominent topics include militant Islam, Muslims in the West, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the price of oil and gas, and intra-Western debates over these issues.
Miniatures' sections closely reflect those themes.
________________________
Part I covers the war on terror. I argue (in chapter 1) that terror's war against Americans began not with the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 but with the double assault on U.S. embassies in November 1979. Many of the pre-9/11 essays manifest my frustration that so few Westerners recognized the state of war that existed. Over this twenty-two-year period, from November 1979 to September 2001, my writings leveled four main criticisms at U.S. government policy: its insistence that militant Islamic attacks on Americans were criminal incidents, not war; its unwillingness to destroy the enemy forces; its ignoring the ideology of militant Islam that motivated these attacks; and its reluctance to make the policy changes required to win the war.
After 9/11 (chapter 2), I gave the Bush administration mixed grades, praising it for addressing the first two mistakes and protesting against the continuation of the latter two. On the positive side, Washington did instantly shunt aside the criminal paradigm in favor of the military one ("war on terrorism"); the expeditionary force to Afghanistan, plus troops in such locations as the Philippines, Georgia, and Yemen, evidenced an intent to root out enemy forces.[2] On the negative side, with a few exceptions, officials continued to ignore the militant Islamic ideology that motivates the attacks ("war on terrorism"). And while some policy changes did occur (for example, in the areas of immigration, airline security, and police surveillance of places of worship), I found these inadequate. Two out of four is not good enough; I worry that unless politicians summon the courage to make all the necessary changes, there will be a heavy price to pay.
The politically correct interpretation of the Muslim world by the U.S. government, leading media, and academic specialists holds that militant Islamic violence is a "fringe form of Islamic extremism" repudiated by the overwhelmingly moderate Muslim majority; or even that it has nothing to do with Islam at all ("killers whose only faith is hate" was how the president described those behind a series of murderous attacks in Riyadh in May 2003).[3] In Chapter 3, I report on developments in the Muslim world after 9/11 – joy at the death of thousands of Americans, wide Muslim support for bin Laden and dismay at the fall of the Taliban regime, a Taliban-like movement growing in Saudi Arabia, the spread of militant Islam to areas far beyond the Middle East – by way of demonstrating that the establishment position offers political bromides, not serious analysis.
________________________
Shifting focus, part II looks at some general issues concerning Islam and Muslims. I begin (in chapter 4) with a basic point, that today's international crisis concerns not Islam the religion but militant Islam the ideology. This argument has three happy implications:
- This is not a religious war between Christendom and the umma (community of Muslims);
- Moderate Muslims have a vital role in the fight against militant Islam; and
- It is possible to devise policy goals to defeat and marginalize militant Islam.
I then focus on some details of militant Islam, noting the moral failings of Islamists, establishing the terrible reality of jihad, and noting the near-absence of religious freedom in the Middle East.
In addition to the traditional regions of Muslim habitation, Islam has, in the past four decades, developed a presence in the West. These immigrants, converts, and their descendants have vast implications for both sides, the Muslim and the Western (chapter 5). I take up various questions about American Islam – the number of American Muslims, their division into moderates and militants, and the acute tensions between those two groups that come out most evidently when atheistic or even secular Muslims express themselves. Looking further away, I note some major developments in Australia and Denmark.
The growth of militant Islamic institutions in the United States and their bullying into the public square (chapter 6) is a particular concern of mine. The Islamists demand special consideration in everything from school textbooks to university commencement speeches to government-subsidized television – and often they get it. These organizations do so well in large part because they succeed at presenting themselves as moderates, letting their true views come out only behind closed doors or by implication. I show some aspects of their real, extremist nature.
________________________
Part III looks at various political conflicts in the Middle East, especially the Arab war against Israel. Chapters 7 and 8 look at the eras of "Oslo Diplomacy" (1993-2000) and "Oslo War" (2000-03). The reader can see the evolution of my writing, from a mild concern in the early years to an ever-increasing agitation that peaks in late 2000 and then, as the folly of the Oslo presumptions become more widely recognized, a return to relative calm.
Syria (chapter 9) has been a specialty of mine since 1985, with an emphasis on several themes: (1) how the sense of truncation gives Syrian politics a deep-seated expansionist edge; (2) how Westerners tend to reduce Syria to its relations with Israel, thereby missing the many other internal and external facets of that country; and (3) how Hafez al-Assad, ruler of Syria from 1970 until 2000, never intended to sign a peace treaty with Israel. I have devoted entire books to the first two subjects; here I provide interpretations over a seven-year period of Assad's policy vis-à-vis Israel, followed by a couple of posthumous reviews. I can claim to be the only analyst who predicted in January-March 2000 that Assad would not sign an agreement with Israel.
Iraq (chapter 10) has been a major problem since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, but a problem many that Americans preferred to ignore after their victory of early 1991. I offer one provocation (arguing for Washington to pull back until asked by others to take on the Iraqi dictator) but otherwise support the view that the U.S. government has no choice but to take on this foul aggressor, and the sooner the better. I strongly supported the campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein when it finally came in March-April 2003.
________________________
Part IV deals with the American interpretation of the Middle East, concentrating on government and scholars. The section on policy (chapter 11) takes a running start by reviewing the nearly two-century-history of the Arabists who have so deeply affected the U.S. government attitudes, then looks at such specifics as the rationale for the U.S. subvention of Israel, the fact that Republicans support Israel more consistently than Democrats, strange moments in U.S. relations with Israel and with Egypt, and the case for holding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accountable for 9/11. (The two articles urging the victims and victims' families to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had a key role in inspiring the $1 trillion case against Riyadh currently in preparation to go to trial.)
The final chapter (12) reports on scholarship, with an emphasis on revisionism. I report on the scholars who are turning early Islamic history upside down by throwing out the standard sources; on a historian who reverses the accepted understanding of the Ottoman Empire as a passive force; and an analyst (admittedly French, not American) who bucks all evidence to declare militant Islam a dying movement. The book rounds out with a review of the ironic role of nineteenth-century Jewish scholars and a remarkable study of contemporary Arab thought.
________________________
As these writings imply, I believe it useful for a specialist like myself to peer ahead, going on the record with predictions, and warning of dangers. In the past I took three stands that were then controversial and now widely accepted: warning of militant Islam's assault on the West, predicting Hafez al-Assad would not sign an peace treaty with Israel, and anticipating that the Oslo process would end in disaster.
I continue to make such statements, two in particular: the "war on terror" can be won only when militant Islam, not terrorism, is recognized as the enemy; and the Arab-Israeli conflict will wind down only after the Palestinians accept the existence of Israel.
Making such statements has rewards and costs. On the positive side, there is the after-the-fact recognition that comes with getting it right. Two days after 9/11, for example, the Boston Globe said I "saw what lay ahead and tried to sound the alarm"[4] and the National Post of Canada observed in 2002 that "If the world had acted on [my] warnings, Sept. 11 might never have happened."[5] The experience of predicting is less pleasant, however, before vindication arrives, when one finds oneself the object of hostile opeds and editorials, insults on national television, and websites detailing one's alleged phobias and unsavory motivations. It can, in short, be painful to foresee developments, and then endure the waiting period for the world to catch up.
________________________
I thank Irving Louis Horowitz, editorial chairman and president emeritus of Transaction Books, for suggesting that I bring together in book form what I consider my best and most enduring short essays of recent years. I likewise thank those others on the Transaction staff – Mary Curtis especially – for turning this idea into the reality of cloth, paper, and ink.
I was not a columnist born, and I wish to thank those individuals who helped me become one. David Makovsky gave me my start as columnist in 1999, during his tenure as editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, when he came to me with the unexpected and slightly intoxicating invitation to write a column every two weeks. Thomas A. Rose, publisher and CEO of The Jerusalem Post, then urged me to take the column weekly, which I did in mid-2001. Robert McManus and Mark Cunningham invited me to write for the New York Post shortly after 9/11. I would also like to thank those editors at other papers – especially Natasha Hassan of the National Post, Steven Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times, Thomas Winter of Human Events, and N. Richard Greenfield of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger – who see fit to publish my columns with some frequency.
My columns benefit from the help of many others. My co-authors (Steven Emerson, Lars Hedegaard, Zachary Rentz, Jonathan Schanzer, Alexander T. Stillman, Mimi Stillman, Tonya Ugoretz) helped make the articles here worth reading. Cynthia Dachowitz provides fast, focused research that gives many of my columns a factual base they would otherwise lack. Patrick Chisholm capably handles the column's syndication. Grayson Levy spurred me in early 2001 to put together a personal website, www.DanielPipes.org, maintains it for me, and sends out my writings to the wide world. Jane Maestro and the staff at the Middle East Forum run the organization so well that I can play hooky each week long enough to write a column. The Forum's board and donors provide the perch from which I can opine. Nina Rosenwald took on a leadership role when the Forum was yet fledgling, helping us through some tough spots. And my family has graciously tolerated my absences since 9/11.
Daniel Pipes
Philadelphia
June 2003
[1] Georg W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, trans. J. Sibree as Philosophy of History (New York: Dover, 1956), p. 358.
[2] I do not include the overthrow of Saddam Hussein part of this undertaking, seeing his regime as basically unconnected to militant Islam.
[3] The Wall Street Journal, 14 May 2003.
[4] Jeff Jacoby, "Our Enemies Mean What They Say," The Boston Globe, 13 September 2001.
[5] Jonathan Kay, "Has Islamism Hit Its High-Water Mark?" The National Post, 31 December 2002.
