Daniel Pipes: Why Iraqis Rebel. . . And what Coalition forces have to do about it.

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | April 13, 2004 | Daniel Pipes

[SJackson]

The current insurrection in Iraq was discernable a year ago, as I already noted in April 2003: “Thousands of Iraqi Shi’ites chanted ‘No to America, No to Saddam, Yes to Islam’ a few days ago, during pilgrimage rites at the holy city of Karbala. Increasing numbers of Iraqis appear to agree with these sentiments. They have ominous implications for the coalition forces.”

The recent wave of violence makes those implications fully apparent.

Two factors in particular made me expect Iraqi resistance. First, the quick war of 2003 focused on overturning a hated tyrant so that, when it was over, Iraqis felt liberated, not defeated. Accordingly, the common assumption that Iraq resembled the Germany and Japan of 1945 was wrong. Those two countries had been destroyed through years of all-out carnage, leading them to acquiesce to the post-war overhaul of their societies and cultures. Iraq, in contrast, emerged almost without damage from brief hostilities and Iraqis do not feel they must accept guidance from the occupation forces. Rather, they immediately showed a determination to shape their country’s future.

Second, as a predominantly Muslim people, Iraqis share in the powerful Muslim reluctance to being ruled by non-Muslims. This reluctance results from the very nature of Islam, the most public and political of religions.

To live a fully Muslim life requires living in accord with the many laws of Islam, called the Shari‘a. The Shari‘a includes difficult-to-implement precepts pertaining to taxation, the judicial system, and warfare. Its complete implementation can occur only when the ruler himself is a pious Muslim (though an impious Muslim is much preferable to a non-Muslim). For Muslims, rule by non-Muslims is an abomination, a blasphemous inversion of God’s dispensation.

This explains why one finds a consistently strong resistance to rule by non-Muslims through fourteen centuries of Muslim history. Europeans recognized this resistance and in their post-crusades global expansion stayed largely away from majority-Muslim territories, knowing these would awesomely resist their control.

The pattern is striking: for over four centuries, 1400-1830, Europeans expanded around the world, trading, ruling, and settling – but distinctly in places where Muslims were not, such as the Western Hemisphere, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and Australia. In a clear pattern of avoidance, the imperial powers (Britain, France, Holland, and Russia especially) took control of far-away territories, while carefully avoiding their Muslim neighbors in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

Only in 1830 did a European power (France) find the confidence frontally to confront a Muslim state (Algeria). Even then, the French needed seventeen years just to control the coastal region.

As Europeans rulers conquered Muslim lands, they found they could not crush the Islamic religion, nor win the population over culturally, nor stamp out political resistance. However suppressed, some embers of resistance remained; these often sparked a flame of anti-imperialism that finally drove the Europeans out. In Algeria, for example, a successful eight-year effort, 1954-62, expelled the French colonial authority.

Nor was the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq the first Western undertaking to unburden Muslims of tyrannical rule. Already in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte appeared in Egypt with an army and declared himself a friend of Islam who had come to relieve the oppressed Egyptians of their Mamluk rulers. His successor as commander in Egypt, J.F. Menou, actually converted to Islam. But these efforts to win Egyptian goodwill failed, as Egyptians rejected the invaders’ proclaimed good intentions and remained hostile to French rule.

The European-run “mandates” set up in the Middle East after World War I included similar lofty intentions and also found few Muslim takers.

This history suggests that the coalition’s grand aspirations for Iraq will not succeed. However constructive its intentions to build democracy, the coalition cannot win the confidence of Muslim Iraq nor win acceptance as its overlord. Even spending US$18 billion in one year on economic development does not improve matters.

I therefore counsel the occupying forces quickly to leave Iraqi cities and then, when feasible, to leave Iraq as a whole. They should seek out what I have been calling for since a year ago: a democratically-minded Iraqi strongman, someone who will work with the coalition forces, provide decent government, and move eventually toward a more open political system.

This sounds slow, dull, and unsatisfactory. But at least it will work – in contrast to the ambitious but failing current project.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Whatever we don't do now we will be back to do in ten years and from a less advantageous position.

[Coroner]

We should have gone to Iran and armed the huge resistance to the mullahs. Our hands would be cleaner and spillover for democracy would spread to iraq. Shoulda, coulda, woulda!!

[Valin]

Iraqi polls bring secular success

Jonathan Steele in Nassiriya
Monday April 5, 2004
The Guardian

Herded into lines by inexperienced police officers, hundreds of would-be Iraqi voters pushed into a sparsely equipped school at the weekend to cast their ballots for the local council of Tar.
Deep in the marshlands of the Euphrates, the town of 15,000 people was the first to rise against Saddam Hussein in the abortive intifada of 1991. Now it was holding the first genuine election in its history.

The poll was the latest in a series which this overwhelmingly Shia province has held in the past six weeks, and the results have been surprising. Seventeen towns have voted, and in almost every case secular independents and representatives of non-religious parties did better than the Islamists.

This week sees the biggest event in the Shia calendar, the annual pilgrimage to the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, and thousands of people were making the 10-day walk along the main road west through Nassiriya and its surrounding province of Dhi Qar. But in the march to the polling booths the secular democrats were showing the greater strength.

"This is a free election," said Jawad Khadum, a teacher in Tar. "We want more of them, for example in our teachers' union and for the mayor."

Like many professionals, he was worried by the way some religious parties had been throwing their weight around, trying to close shops which sell alcohol and pressing every woman to wear a veil. He saw the vote as a chance to stop this, he said.

The results will have delighted him. Neither of the two Islamist candidates was among the 10 elected. A woman teacher got in, the first female councillor in the province. Other winners included an agricultural engineer and three businessmen.

In Shatra, a town of 250,000, the Communist party won four seats and independents seven. Partly because of their popularity for stopping the looting which followed the overthrow of the old regime, the Islamists had a majority in the former council which was appointed last summer. After the election they were cut back to four seats out of 15.

"It was not a surprise," said Jalil Abed Jafar, a doctor, in the Communist party's upstairs offices along the waterfront. Shatra is where the party was founded 70 years ago, and the offices were still full of posters celebrating that event, along with photographs of dozens of members executed by the former regime.

No other province has held as many elections as Dhi Qar.

They have been organised largely by Tobin Bradley, an Arabic-speaking US state department official attached to the occupation authority in Nassiriya. Although the American government insisted that national elections could not be held in Iraq before the transfer of sovereignty on June 30, in Dhi Qar they went ahead using the ration card system - a method which could have been used nationally, according to many Iraqis.

The system of cheap basic rations still operates, and every Iraqi family received new cards this year, listing address and family size. In the Dhi Qar elections the card allowed a husband and wife to vote if they also brought their identity documents. The ration card was stamped in red or blue for each gender, making it possible for a wife to come earlier or later than her husband.

"It's not universal suffrage," said Mr Bradley, as he watched local judges check voters' identities inside the school entrance in Tar. "The polling places are only in the town centre. Some families are larger than others and they all get two votes. But it's free and fair to a certain degree."

Direct elections are not being held for the provincial council, but Mr Bradley has organised partial contests. A certain number of seats is set aside for various groups, which then elect people to fill them.

The province has 22 Islamic parties, which will get six seats. The 15 secular parties get four. Seats are reserved for women, professional associations and trade unions. Seven seats are for 54 tribal leaders. The "refreshed council", as it is called, is claimed to be more democratic than the one appointed by the occupation authorities.

"We chose people not very transparently before," Mr Bradley said. "This time we said, 'you provide the names'."

The change cannot come soon enough, in the view of Sheikh Sabri Hamid al-Rumidh, Dhi Qar's governor, who has been battling to control the religious parties, particularly the half-dozen which have militias.

Like the voters in the province's unprecedented elections, Mr Rumidh hopes the tide which flowed in favour of the religious parties in 2003 has begun to turn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1185792,00.html

[GoLightly]

Interesting theory, but the conclusions it draws lack merit. Cousin marriage was very prevalent in America through the colonial period, at the time of the American revolution & beyond. I'm not just talking about the hills in Kentucky either. Do a genalogical study in America if you don't believe me. I notice how they didn't go back further than the 1940's when looking at the US. There is a good reason for that, cuz if they had gone back any further the theory begins to break down.

[GoLightly]

Sounds as though you advocate throwing off the Christian reformation as the only possible response.

[dennisw]

I'm sure what you said is accurate. We were able to overcome the cousin marriage drag on creating democracy. Perhaps due to having a dynamic frontier to conquer. Islam plus cousin marriage makes nation building very difficult.

[philosofy123]

Pipes knows exactly what he is talking about. Bush should fire Powell, and replace him with Mr. Pipes! The problem that the US has is it attempts to convince Moslem Arabs in Iraq who were subjected to hatred towards the US by Saddam media for more than twelve years that we care about them.

I would like to pose one simple point for discussion here. The US has proved that social engineering works. From our experience in social engineering, I would submit some observations. We managed to essentially castrate the American male through our media campaigns. We managed to impose acceptance of American blacks by the reluctant white majority. We managed to practically eliminate most of the white supremacy groups like the KKK, and we discredited all anti-Semitic movements. We invented a statement called SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, and made the public understand it to mean no god or religion in anything to do with the government. These achievements were only possible by an orchestrated campaign to change the mind of the American public. We must ask ourselves, how much money did the US and the European spend in the past fifty years to change the minds of the Moslems? Zero! Ask yourselves another question, how much money did radical Islam (Saudi Arabia, Iran) spent in the past 30 years to change the minds of Moslems, and to capture footings in Christian lands? The answer is BILLIONS OF DOLLARS! Now, how do you expect to win the "hearts and the minds" of the Iraqis? We are simply dreaming! I propose orchestrating a comprehensive program to penetrate, buy, and influence the Arab intellectuals, writers, media, schools, leaders, even the f—ing clerics. You know that the Moslem clerics are paid by the government salaries, and the media is controlled by the government also. Hence it would be easy to influence them through their leaders.

[GoLightly]

Not to get into a chicken or egg argument, but the conclusion I drew after discovering I had a lot fewer branches in my family tree than I had assumed, lack of resources & mobility had a lot to do with it. The industrial revolution probably played the biggest role in ending it.

My ancestors involved in agriculture stayed with it the longest. "Keeping resources in the family" were the clearly stated reason for it in some of the materials I found about my family. I'm pretty much of a "mutt" & I found it in all of my lines, which are mostly German, Norweigian, Swedish & English. Their religious affiliations were all over the map, so that could not account for it either.

I found a whole lot of patriots in my English lines, including a couple of the signers of the DoI & there's a coat-tail relationship to Benjamin Franklin, so I dug into his genealogy to see if I could find a direct connection. There was not a loyalist in the bunch.

I swear, in small town America most people are inter-related to this very day.

[GoLightly]

No doubt about it. Convert them, at the point of a sword if necessary. Tell yourself as you are doing it, it was necessary because their religion is based on evil.

"Moderate" Islam preaches jihad as internal struggle. Getting more of them to be struggling internally would work for me. Recognizing all of the contridictions & conflicts within their faith would be a good thing, IMO. Radical Islam sees moderate Islam as even more dangerous than us. What do they fear & why do they fear it?

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

You cannot play with a mad dog.

The key to separation of church and state in predominately Christian lands was invented by Jesus Himself when he said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's" and "My kingdom is not of this Earth". Therefore it was possible to remove the power of people who had set themselves in the place of God without conflicting with religion.

Islam at its core is an ideology of government with some religious trappings. Islam does not exist apart from government. That is, even when Islam exists side by side with other religions in a democratic secular society, Islam is a top-down heirarchical structure unto itself within the larger society, with the ultimate goal of taking it over like a cancer. And woebetide it if Islam reaches 51%.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Exactly.

[philosofy123]

Islam of today, after billions of dollars of effort to radicalize it is bad indeed. Islam, as a religion in and of itself is a bad bunch of nonsensical theology. However, if you reflect back before Saudi Arabia, and Iran infused billions on pushing the fanatical aspect of Islam, you would realize that many Moslem nations had liberal population. Moslem women in miniskirts were all over Arab capitals in the sixties! Thinkers and observers who really know what they are talking about like Mr. Pipes, and myself (at the risk of sounding conceded) can attest to that wave of fanaticism/radicalization as a fairly recent phenomenon. It is reversible only if we put our minds, determination, and money to do it. Today with wall to wall coverage of the Islamic terrorism there is hardly one single observer/reporter who brings up the history of Islamic radicalization of late, and ties up to the Iranian revolution funding, and the sudden petrodollars windfall in Saudi Arabia after the oil embargo.

The "war on terror" is a failure if we do not use orchestrated ideological war. The military will win a battle, but as they say how you going to win the peace. Or as Mr. Freedman of the N.Y. Times said it before our invasion: "I am sure that we will win over Saddam, but then after we occupy Iraq, how are we going to deal with its population"? He also said: it is similar to a dog running after a car, when he catches up with the car, what is he going to do about it?

[GoLightly]

Empower the women. There is justification for it in the teachings.

[nonomous]

>Thinkers and observers who really know what they
>are talking about like Mr. Pipes, and myself (at
>the risk of sounding conceded) can attest to that
>wave of fanaticism/radicalization as a fairly
>recent phenomenon.

Wahhabism is over 200 years old. The new feature is not fanaticism, but the mullahs getting their hands on the petro-dollars.

>The military will win a battle, but as they say how
>you going to win the peace.

The implicit belief here is 'objective distance'. There isn't any distance. The battle field is global. The front is your door step. The 'peace' is a delusion engendered by our enemies.

We have two choices, hide behind a wall or separate the mullahs from their petro-dollars. You seem to be suggesting the wall exists and is secure. I disagree. The world is global village. Walls will not protect us. We must un-fund the mullahs.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

You'll forgive me if I don't concede to your conceit ;-)

Radical Islam is hardly new but a recuring theme - Muhammad himself, the Khajarites of the 8th Century, the Fatimids of the 11th Century, the Mameluks of the 13th Century, the rise of the first wave of radical madrasas under the Ottomans and finally the Wahhabis of the last two centuries.

The problem is the Qur'an. It says (as one example):
[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
[9.30] And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!
[9.31] They have taken their doctors of law and their monks for lords besides Allah, and (also) the Messiah son of Marium and they were enjoined that they should serve one God only, there is no god but He; far from His glory be what they set up (with Him).
[9.32] They desire to put out the light of Allah with their mouths, and Allah will not consent save to perfect His light, though the unbelievers are averse.

Islamic scholars from time to time paper it over or sweeten it up, but there it is. The scholars get declared apostates and the cycle goes round again.

How to deal with the population?

Islam today is like a radioactive material. The material itself is not harmful. But the particles that shoot out of it are deadly. One of those particles took down the twin towers. There's ordinarily nothing you can do with radioactive material but smother it in lead or concrete until the radioactivity dies out. At that point it is no longer Islam.

[philosofy123]

Ok, both of you need to answer a couple of observations.

1) Did you know that Moslem women during the fifties, and sixties never covered their heads, and dressed in Western miniskirts. Explain how you go backward one thousand years within 30 years.

2) The practice of social engineering in the US was never implemented in the Moslem world by the West in the past 30 years, rather the fanatical Saudis/Iranians were allowed sole access to the Moslem population to turn them into radical chauvinist bunch.

I submit to you, as our nation's top political leaders are essentially ignorant of the subject, easily distracted by the politically correct crowds to respect other people faith, and rarely utilize the real experts recommendations. Hence we spent the past 30 years ignoring the obvious deterioration of the "Moslem Streets"! In the same time, we opened our gates widely and allowed these radical losers to immigrate in drove. That is a double whammy; letting this people boil in hate against us without making any effort, and allowing thousands or millions of these hateful people to make the West their home.

The difference between Pipes and me, and the rest of you is essentially many years of understanding the Moslems and their so called religion. Pipe, and me believe that with enough resources and determination the West can positively influence reformation of that religion, and help marginalize its radical fringes. Today unfortunately 99% of Moslems support those radical fringes for POLITICAL reasons.

[nonomous]

philosofy123,

>1) Did you know that Moslem women during the fifties,
>and sixties never covered their heads, and dressed
>in Western miniskirts. Explain how you go backward
>one thousand years within 30 years.

Two changes explain the rise in mullah power: Petro-dollars and communication technologies. First, the Saudi government funneled petro-dollars to fundamentalist mullahs. Next the fundamentalist mullahs got their own oil fields via the Iranian 'revolution'. Street media: cassette tapes and the internet allow the mullahs to go underneath 'state-controlled media' and mold the aspirations of the poorly educated.

>2) The practice of social engineering in the US
>was never implemented in the Moslem world by
>the West in the past 30 years, rather the
>fanatical Saudis/Iranians were allowed sole
>access to the Moslem population to turn them
>into radical chauvinist bunch.

And the point is?

>Pipes, and me believe that with enough resources
>and determination the West can positively influence
>reformation of that religion, and help marginalize
>its radical fringes.

Ok, where would the 'resources' would be spent? Where are the 'moderates' who can defend themselves from the assassins sent by petro-dollar mullahs?

>Today unfortunately 99% of Moslems support those
>radical fringes for POLITICAL reasons.

Major mistake. The distinction 'political' vs 'theological' isn't available to that 99%. One must get beyond a tribal world-view, first. And, a tribal world view may be that which is best suited for the internet-era.

[nonomous]

>Islam today is like a radioactive material.

How about viewing the 'Koran' as an early 'computer virus'. If 100 people read the book, 1 will become a self-justified assassin. If that 1 individual can intimidate the other 99, another 100 people read the book. The process continues.

If the 1 self-justified assassin cannot intimidate the other 99, the next hundred readers must rely upon 'chance' encounters. Think of the 'Alien' movie. The Koran is the egg.

Unlike your 'radioactive' metaphor, the Koran doesn't have a half life. As long as our genetic makeup remains the same, 1 reader in 100 becomes a self-justified assassin. The only solution is eradication of the virus.