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April 17, 2006
On Defining Our Enemy: It's Jihadism With A Capital 'J'
Topics: Understanding IslamWriting in National Journal on April 14, Jonathan Rauch says that while speaking to reporters last week, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, made a striking admission. Biden said that the Bush administration defines the threat that the country now faces "too broadly and inaccurately." But the president, continued Biden, is in good company. "I have never been able to define the threat, and my party hasn't been able to define the threat, either."
And so it has been with all politicians in the West and therein lies the crux of the centeral problem in this war - we have yet to adequately defined the face of our enemy. That is, until now, when along comes powerful arguments for saying that our enemy is Jihadism, that we are indeed fighting a war against jihadism, a religious ideology associated with a single religion - Islam:
"I think defining who the enemy is is a real problem in this war," says Mary Habeck, a military historian at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. "If you can't define who's a real threat and who's just exercising free speech, it's a problem." As it happens, Habeck is the author of one of three new books that, taken together, suggest the time is right to name the battle. It is a war on jihadism.Jihadism is not a tactic, like terrorism, or a temperament, like radicalism or extremism. It is not a political pathology like Stalinism, a mental pathology like paranoia, or a social pathology like poverty. Rather, it is a religious ideology, and the religion it is associated with is Islam.
But it is by no means synonymous with Islam, which is much larger and contains many competing elements. Islam can be, and usually is, moderate; Jihadism, with a capital J, is inherently radical. If the Western and secular world's nearer-term war aim is to stymie the jihadists, its long-term aim must be to discredit Jihadism in the Muslim world.
No single definition prevails, but here is a good one: Jihadism engages in or supports the use of force to expand the rule of Islamic law. In other words, it is violent Islamic imperialism. It stands, as one scholar put it 90 years ago, for "the extension by force of arms of the authority of the Muslim state."Read all of it, and learn that our war is a in fact a war on Jihadism, not terror, and that Jihadism is a religious ideology, and yes - the religion it is associated with is Islam.In her new book, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, Habeck sets out to map the ideological contours of Jihadism. The story begins, but does not end, with religion. "Western scholars have generally failed to take religion seriously," she writes.
"Secularists, whether liberals or socialists, grant true explanatory power to political, social, or economic factors but discount the plain sense of religious statements made by the jihadis themselves." Pretending that Islam is incidental, she notes, is not just incorrect, it is patronizing.
Jihadists, she writes, are not merely angry about U.S. policies. They believe that America is the biggest obstacle to the global rule of an Islamic superstate. Ultimately, in the Jihadist view, "Islam must expand to fill the entire world or else falsehood in its many guises will do so." Violence is by no means mandated, but it is assuredly authorized.
And always has been. The point that Bush, Blair, and others understandably finesse is that the ideology of Jihadism traces its lineage to the very beginning of the religion of Islam. It has "roots in discussions about Islamic law and theology that began soon after the death of Muhammad and that are supported by important segments of the clergy (ulama) today,"
As Rauch points out in his article, no single definition prevails, but "Jihadism" is a good one - it engages in or supports the use of force to expand the rule of Islamic law, it is violent Islamic imperialism, and as one scholar put it 90 years ago, stands for "the extension by force of arms of the authority of the Muslim state."
And that is exactly what our enemy, the Jihadists, are determined to accomplish - if we allow it!
As suggested by Jack Tymann, retired president of Westinghouse International, founder of Homeland Security Partners, and chairman of the Clinton-Mubarak Presidents' Council for the Middle East from 1993 to 2001 - we are in for some tough sledding in the years ahead. Jihadism is an unbending, global, delusional and outrageous ideology, and must be fought with every method and means at the disposal of the free world. It must be defeated, for it threatens the entire world order.
Hat tip - Tim
Posted by Richard at April 17, 2006 10:24 PM
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- On Defining Our Enemy: It's Jihadism With A Capital 'J' - Apr 17, 2006
