But this is all academic. As long as the US depends on middle eastern (and especially Saudi) oil to maintain its economy and to safeguard Americans’ standard of living, there’s no way that any regime in Washington would think for one minute of turning its back on the Saudis and telling them to get on with it. That’s not how sovereign (and especially how powerful) states behave in their relations with other countries, and I’m not convinced that any alternative approach would be better. Leaving the Saudis under their present government to sort out their affairs without any peaceful pressures from the US and other interested countries to move towards democracy would serve al-Qa’ida aims very nicely. A highly moral, purist approach, even if one could imagine such a thing being adopted by a country with other options, could easily do more harm than good for the Saudi people as well as the rest of us.

Brian
(Blown about by the French Mistral)
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

The cornerstone of American policy for the Middle East is the understanding reached between President Franklin Roosevelt and King Ibn Sa’ud on the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal in February 1945. … Roosevelt’s implicit extension of a security guarantee to the Saudi monarchy, in return for preferred access to Saudi oil, was to be reaffirmed by every successive administration to the present day.

Propping up an undemocratic, authoritarian Government is not the same thing as an invasion. But it is unwarranted interference in another country’s affairs.

What I think should stick in the gullet is the argument whose subtext is: the London bombers were protesting against British policy and actions in Iraq; British policy and actions in Iraq were wrong and reprehensible; therefore the bombers had right on their side; Blair was warned that helping to attack Iraq would increase the risk of terrorism in the UK; terrorists duly attacked London; therefore Blair is responsible for the London bombings. As some Professor writes cogently in today’s Guardian, this kind of woolly thinking, conflating opposition to Blair’s Iraq policy with a supposed duty to adjust policy so as to reduce, not increase, the risk of terrorism at home, is contemptible. Needless to say, I don’t suggest for a moment that any of the contributors to this debate on this blog are guilty of that kind of sloppiness. But it does seem worth knocking it vigorously on the head. And I at least, if not others, would simultaneously assert the right and duty of governments to use all legitimate means to promote and defend their interests (whether these include secure oil supplies or the ability to win lucrative contracts in competition on a level playing-field) anywhere in the world, whether al-Qa’ida approves of it or not.

I doubt if we’re really that far apart. Presence doesn’t equal invasion, occupation or intereference. If it does, then it can’t properly be defended.

Ta-ra
Brian
Over-heated in Provence
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

I agree that we have an important economic interest in oil from the middle east. But I am not sure what you mean by a “legitimate” interest. If something is important to our economy, does that give us the right to interfere in the affairs of another country to ensure that we have reliable and affordable access to it?

Many African countries have an important economic interest in resources that we have in abundance, including food and money. Would they have the right to invade us if their access to those resources is jeopardised?

…”People of Islam should join forces and support each other to get rid of the main Kufr that is controlling the countries of the Islamic world, even to bear the lesser damage to get rid of the major one, i.e., the great Kufr”.

If there is more than one duty to be carried out, then the most important one should receive priority. Clearly after Belief (Imaan) there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land. No other priority, except Belief, could be considered before it; the people of knowledge, as Ibn Taymiyyah said, stated: “To fight in defence of religion and Belief is a collective duty; there is no other duty after Belief than fighting the enemy who is corrupting the life and the religion. There is no precondition for this duty and the enemy should be fought with one’s best abilities.”

It seems that OBL’s main motivation is the removal of Western troops from ‘the land’ by promoting terrorism at home & abroad. However, I do believe that there are legitimate Western interests in the Middle East, namely oil.

Thanks: this text seems to support the point I was making, which is that the objective of the fanatics is to “to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam”. Their complaint is not with democracy or freedom in America: what they object to is the western occupation of Muslim countries.

I (obviously) abhor violence and profoundly disagree with the fanatics, but I can’t help thinking that if a foreign power invaded our country, or one of our neighbours and allies, that we might think that it was legitimate to commit acts of aggression against the home territory of the occupying country.

On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”

This is in addition to the words of Almighty God “And why should ye not fight in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated and oppressed—women and children, whose cry is ‘Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!’”

We — with God’s help — call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

For similar reasons, it seems to me simply unrealistic to contemplate a withdrawal of the whole western presence and all western influence from the middle east and other mainly Muslim countries simply because a section of fundamentalist Muslim opinion demands it. That presence and influence are essential for the protection of our national and international interests and it would be a rank betrayal to abandon that responsibility. On a wider view, the consequences for the whole world of abandoning great swaths of the Muslim world to Taliban-type fascist theocracy are too dreadful to contemplate. It’s in virtually everyone’s interests that this should not be allowed to happen, including those of millions of Muslims whose voices can’t be heard under current dispensations.

None of the above applies, of course, to the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. I believe that should happen forthwith, since their presence makes the bad situation there worse, and its early termination is in the interests of both Britain and Iraq. Having helped to create the tragic situation in Iraq, we should certainly do everything possible to help the Iraqis to resolve their many problems, but there can’t be a role in that for British or American soldiers.

A lutta continua!

Brian (still in France)
http://www.barder.com

Owen adds:
I don’t think our dependance on natural resources justifies interfering in the sovereign business of other countries. If they have oil that we want, that’s our tough luck. The colonial era was all about occupying other countries in order to obtain natural resources cheaply. Those days are, or should be, behind us.

Owen

I don’t believe that the target of the criminal fanatics is western *policies*: it seems that the target is rather the western presence in the Arab and other Muslim countries and the effects of western culture and influence on the practice of Islam in those countries

This is an important distinction. I think you are right that it is western presence in the Middle East that is the particular policy that is the target of the anger of the fanatics (I regard “being there” as just one aspect of our policies.)

And the solution to this is to withdraw. As you have argued yourself, we have no business interfering in other people’s arrangements for governing themselves (at least, not without an explicit Security Council resolution).

I think we should be very sheepish indeed about saying that our policy in the middle east is protecting our oil supplies.

I agree with almost everything you say in your admirable post on the bombings, including your demolition of the foolish allegation about the fundamentalist Islamists “hating our democracy and hating our freedoms” (P. Bush, passim). And I’m grateful for your approving reference, towards the end, to the point I have been making in my own blog about it being preposteropus to blame Blair, or even Bush, for the London bombings. But I have a (pedantic?) reservation about part of one passage, where you write that:

We need to keep clearly in mind that the target of the hatred of the criminal fanatics is not western democracy but western policies in the middle east. Many Muslims believe that Western governments have become one of the most important barriers to freedom and self determination, supporting authoritarian regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Pakistan (as well as Sadaam Hussein, who was installed in Iraq by western powers). Fanatics are exploiting that dissatisfaction with western policies to provide support for their murderous activities.

I don’t believe that the target of the criminal fanatics is western *policies*: it seems that the target is rather the western presence in the Arab and other Muslim countries and the effects of western culture and influence on the practice of Islam in those countries, including especially the prospects for the installation in them of fundamentalist Muslim régimes on Taliban or Ayatollah Khomenei lines. The distinction is important. If it were only western policies that the fundamentalists were fighting against, there could be a basis for dialogue, even negotiation (although as I have argued at length on my own blog, I don’t think that any government should change its policies, if they are otherwise sound and likely to be effective, in order to appease terrorists or to reduce the danger of further terrorist attacks: and if the policies are not sound and effective, they should be changed to policies that are, for the sake of good policies, not to appease terrorists). If however it’s the incompatibility of western culture, values, and influence with the spread of fundamentalist Islamic regimes in Muslim countries that are the real target of the fundamentalists, as I believe to be the case, then there is nothing we can do to satisfy them. We can’t change our own culture – secular, libertarian, sexually and racially and religiously tolerant and egalitarian, separating church and state – and we can’t prevent our culture from being attractive to many young and other people throughout the middle east and north Africa, much of Asia, etc. Nor can we adapt our culture and values in those areas so that they don’t collide head-on with Shari’a law and the form of government that it demands. Even if, which it clearly isn’t, appeasing terrorists was a valid reason for changing our Iraq and Palestine policies, or for withdrawing support from authoritarian regimes in the middle east (even where the encouragement of democracy is likely to lead to Taliban-type despotic Islamist regimes in their place?), we shouldn’t delude ourselves that such policy changes would cause the murderous fundamentalists to call off their suicide bombers.

In other words, I don’t think the fundamentalists see western *governments* as among “the most important barriers to freedom and self determination” as you suggest: their culture and influence etc. are the most important barriers to the very opposite of freedom, namely self-determination leading to fascist theocracy. Look at what self-determination and democracy would have led to in Algeria and what they would very likely lead to now in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia!

Moreover we in the west should not be sheepish about declaring that we have important national interests at stake in the middle east and in other Muslim areas, including most importantly the security of our and our allies’ oil supplies, anyway in the short to medium term, and that we are determined to defend them, although preferably not by using force if they can be protected by other means.

Of course the implications of this interpretation are grim. But it’s better to be realistic than to act on false premisses about the scope for an ccommodation with the fanatics in the way that the more glib and superficial columnists and commentators in the Guardian have been doing since 7/7.

Brian
Cadenet, Vaucluse

O: if we want to bring an end to these acts of violence, we have to move outside the convenient metaphor of “war” and understand the causes of the conflict.

It’s good that you’re using different words – ‘reason’ and ’causes’ – because you’re actually talking about two different things. Yes (J), these people are murderous nutters who need to be stopped; their reasons for doing what they do are incompatible with any political change we could stomach. But (as Billmon recently pointed out) it’s not as if someone’s developed a batch of murderous nutters and unleashed them on the world, and all we’ve got to do is round them all up. All organisations have personnel turnover – people pack it in (or get arrested or killed), people join up. To neutralise a terrorist group – let alone a loose network like Al Qaeda – you have to stop people joining it; which means you have to stop people wanting to join it. Which in turn, I believe, means that you need to take a couple of steps back from the language of reasons and ask about social tendencies and causal mechanisms. Assuming, for the sake of a starting-point, that someone who sets out to kill other people and himself is alienated from his society and discontented with his life, what are the kind of factors which tend to make young Muslim men alienated and discontented – and what can we do about those factors? You can apply similar arguments more globally. If there weren’t any American bases in Saudi Arabia, I’m sure Bin Laden would find something else to rant about – but he wouldn’t be able to attract the kind of people who don’t like American bases in Saudi Arabia. If Israel were living in peace and harmony with a Palestinian state, there would still be people who said the Zionist entity should be destroyed – but far fewer people would listen to them.

Look after the causes and the reasons will look after themselves. It’s not the nutters you’ve got to worry about – it’s the sane people who listen to them.

“Those who say that Islamic Jihaad was merely for the defense of the ‘homeland of Islam’ diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life and consider it less important than their ‘homeland’. This is not the Islamic point of view, and their view is a creation of the modern age and is completely alien to Islamic consciousness.”

And… Reclamation of al-Andalus (like they’re gonna get that?). Not US and UK policies towards Israel, but its very existence (non-Islamic power is not permitted on the Arabian peninsula). Countless fatwas on the primacy of shariah over man-made (i.e. democratic) law. And so on. (Note: they are at war against Muslims who don’t buy this shit, too.)

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a foaming-at-the-mouth, “they’re all out to kill us” Islamophobe. The number in Europe who believe this crap is very small indeed. But these people want a Caliphate, not equal oportunities to participate in elections in Saudi Arabia.

Our non-evenhandedness in parts of the ME aren’t helping. But that’s not the reason for their war.

I don’t buy that, Owen. Western policies, plenty of them completely misguided, in the ME area are just the recruiting tool. The jihadis are not prepared to accept democracy at home (or why not stand in the Iraqi elections?) and they don’t even accept that democracy is compatible with Islam. Fortunately, as you say, most Muslims don’t share that sentiment. Interesting thing from that survey you cited was the improvement in views of the US from Lebanon – I wonder why that could be…? These people are nihilists who are at war with us – why else bang on about the ‘return’ of Andalusia, the destruction of Israel, shariah in Europe, all of which have been demanded at various times? Nobody’s ever going to give them that, any of it. The only long-term solution is democracy in the Middle East, but for that to work these people and their apologists have to be beaten (first, in Iraq). It is a war, and they are losing.