Hello World, Goodbye Clausewitz

Excellent editorial appearing in Opinion Journal (via Policy Review) this week by Lee Harris providing a differing interpretation of the motives of Al Queda and radical Islam in general. The strength of the essay is in pointing out how our culture (and all cultures throughout history) tend to analyze the actions and motivations of foreign cultures assuming they have the same base motivations and rational approach to situations as we do. The problem is that cultural context alone can lead to widely divergent motivations and strategies of action. This is especially true when a particular culture has developed in a manner inconsistent with reality.

Harris's comparison of Montezuma's reaction to the arrival of Cortez to our reaction to Arab terrorism is apt. Whereas the Aztec culture conditioned Montezuma to interpret the arrival of exotic, white skinned strangers as fulfillment of religious prophecy, our western, rationalist, Clausewitzian culture conditions us to interpret the hostile acts of another culture as their use of force to achieve a political end. This naturally leads us to attempt to figure out what this political end is (which culminates in the pathetic question asked by the Left and the media--"Why do they hate us?" and it's implied follow-up, "What should we do to change?")

I won't try to summarize the entirety of the Harris editorial (even though it's a long read, it's time well spent). But his point about the proponents of radical Islam is that they're not trying to achieve any political end via the use of force. Rather, their culture has developed a sense of historical victimhood which has led to the creation of a "fantasy ideology." As Harris says:

"There must first be a pre-existing collective need for this fantasy; this need comes from a conflict between a set of collective aspirations and desires on one hand, and the stern dictates of brutal reality on the other--a conflict in which lack of realism is gradually transformed into a penchant for fantasy."

In other words, the relative decline of Islamic culture compared to the West, and the inability of Arab cultures to match Western culture in terms of political, scientific, and material achievement does not match the aspirations of the "Arab street" (and it hasn't for centuries). But rather than rationally analyze the causes of this inequity and change behavior accordingly, they choose to create and live within a fantasy reality, whereby they consider themselves the only true believers and the West as inherently evil, temporarily prospering only because of its deceit and wickedness.

Furthermore, the acts of terrorism are not intended to change our behavior--or even to create terror among the victims. Instead, the act of committing suicide while in the act of fighting evil is the point, and end to itself. We and our buildings are merely props within their internal drama. More broadly, while it is inconceivable that a campaign of terrorism (no matter how heinous) could actually bring an end to Western culture, their fantasy ideology propels them to continue, with the thought that their god's will is supreme and if they are acting in that spirit, anything is possible (despite all empirical evidence to the contrary).

Harris posits that the remedy to a threat posed by a fantasy ideology is to treat it as a disease. I quote "You try to outwit them, to vanquish them, to kill them. You behave with them in the same manner that you would deal with a fatal epidemic--you try to wipe it out."

Given this, a strike at Iraq in the initial stages of a war on terrorism does seem preemptory. If Harris is right, and the current threat to our interests is not due to the political aspirations of another political entity, Iraq can wait. Saddam is fundamentally a secularist (his war time rhetoric not withstanding). His behavior and aspirations are dangerous and remedial action should be considered. But in terms of priority, the source of this disease of radical Islam seems to be those that preach and fund the preaching of this fantasy ideology. That of course included the Taliban (may they rest in peace from their personal fantasies rude interruption). But the prime carrier and spreader of this disease is a certain corrupt and brutal kingdom just South of Iraq. The real patient zero, the Saudis, should be target number one. And hell, it's on the way to Iraq anyway, as long we're in the neighborhood.