December 10, 2002
WHY WE FIGHT:
-INTERVIEW: What Went Wrong: Bernard Lewis discusses the past, present, and future of the Middle East (Princeton Alumni Weekly, 9/11/02)Q: Did Osama bin Laden expect the U.S. to respond as it did to the attacks?A: No. Bin Laden’s very clear — from his various writings and broadcasts, it’s not so much hatred as contempt. The message that comes again and again from him and others is that Americans have gone soft. They are pampered. They can’t take casualties. Hit them and they will run. And then they use the same litany: Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia. The swift response to September 11 brought some reconsideration.
What I’m afraid of is that subsequent statements and actions may have brought them back to their earlier evaluation.
Q: To what do you refer?
A: The immediate reaction to September 11 really scared them. I was at a joint meeting of the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Istanbul in February, and the impact was palpable. But then came the postures and gestures of hesitation and propitiation; the anxious concern not to give offense and the talk about the need to keep on good terms with our Arab friends — friends being understood in a very special way; the anxious tours asking for help and advice. This has exactly the opposite effect, and might lead bin Laden to think, We were right after all.
That would be the strongest incitement to continue the campaign of terror. We must avoid even the appearance of rewarding terror.
Q: How does bin Laden see himself and his cause in terms of Islamic history?
A: Bin Laden has an intensely historical view of the world. He frequently refers to his enemy as “crusaders.” The Crusaders, it may be recalled, were neither Americans nor Jews. His general vision comes through fairly clear: He sees this as an ongoing struggle for more than 14 centuries between the two rival world religions. For a long time Christians were in retreat, Muslims were advancing. Then came the series of bitter defeats: the loss of Spain, the invasion of the Muslim lands by European Christian imperialists, and what he calls the final humiliation, the defeat in 1918 of the last of the great Muslim states, the Ottoman Empire. Its ruler was captured, its territory partitioned. And he sees himself engaged in the great counterattack, of which phase one is to oust the unbelievers from the lands of Islam and thus prepare the stage for the next and final stage: the battle for world religious leadership and, with it, domination.
Professor Lewis, as always, offers calm and compelling insights. One thing that emerges: we can grant the unfairness of the situation to those who prefer peace, but must still face the fact that it is necessary at this moment in time for the West to win several significant victories in the Islamic world, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that the "counterattack" is a complete failure and that terrorism provides no rewards. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 10, 2002 7:39 AM
Always nice to see Professor Lewis agreeing with me,
although I cannot square your comment here with recent comments below.
Somebody needs to hang a sign in the Oval Office: It's the religion, stupid.
The problem is not that bin Laden is the leader but that
it is so easy for him to find followers.
Lewis, like others, is woefully underestimating Bin Laden. Whether or not our response was the one he wanted, he certainly anticipated it, as can be evidenced by his escape and continuing activity abroad. Another error Lewis seems to make is his confusion of Bin Laden's audience with the man himself. Bin Laden makes references to the Crusaders, and to Andalusia, because he knows it reverberates in the Arab World. He believes his guff, to be sure, like any good salesman would, but he also knows how to use it. As an essentially guerrilla warrior he has to get maximum usage out of minimal effort. Considering that he threw our entire society in a paranoid craze, tanked our economy and has led our "security" agencies on a merry chase 'round the globe, I'd say he's done rather well--unfortunately.
One last thing, Bin Laden's reference wasn't to 1918; it was 1920, when the British and the French screwed their Arab allies, who helped overthrow the secular Ottoman Empire.
Derek:
Tanked our economy? It will grow by a couple % this year.
Escaped? He's dead.
Done rather well? The Taliban is gone. Pakistan is democratizing. Palestine is democratizing. Iran is becoming pro-Western. Iraq is about to become a U.S. client-state. Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, Morroco, Turkey, etc., are openly allied with the U.S. He's on a winning streak like the Washington Generals.
Derek, there is no evidence for your claims. You say he anticipated our response because he escaped? Then why didn't he leave Afghanistan before we attacked, or even before Sept. 11th? And you also imply that he doesn't believe what he says, that it is some sort of sales pitch. Bulls**t. He got kicked out of Saudi Arabia because he thought they were too moderate! He thought the Taliban was the ideal form of human government! You sound like so many on the left who think OBL is fighting for Kyoto, or he's upset about Central American death squads.
Posted by: scott h. at December 10, 2002 7:29 PMOn the other hand, he and his buddies have done terrible damage to Kenya and Indonesia. Our economy is fine; theirs is not.
We'll see about the list of advancing Koran Belt nations. I see no reason to be optimistic about a single one on
Orrin's list. Least of all Turkey, now.
Scott, he didn't leave Afghanistan because (1) he didn't know for sure what we would do and (2) it wouldn't look very good. Anticipation is not the equivalent of prediction.
As to his references to the Crusades, it has nothing to do with Kyoto or any of that other crap. He's simply trying to drum up support among those he feels are sympathetic to him, and it isn't the Saudi government. And actually, I did say he believes it, but he can still make distinctions between his analogies and reality. This is a much cagier guy than you're giving him credit for.
OJ, We're recovering now, but only after a recession that was deepened by 9/11, and that recovery is really rather aneamic. The government's you mention have always been nominally in our favor, and I wouldn't get too excited over democratic reform in Pakistan as it led to election of Islamists.
I'm sorry if all this upsets you boys and girls, but remember, the same people telling you we're "winning" are also the same group of idiots who let 9/11 happen. I think a bit of skepticism of the government might be in order.