You Bet, Bucko, It's Going To Be A Very Long War

Recently, a friend sent the Geek a very useful review of the foundational literature on which the edifice of violent political Islam has been predicated.  It is more than simply a useful primer in the intellectual basis for the current and future conflicts between the US and other civilized states and the Trigger Pullers For Allah, it gives a strong measure of support for the contention that we are facing a global insurgency with the Bombers Of The One True Faith as the opponents.

An insurgency consists of the quest for political power by an identifiable group of politically disaffiliated people who use a mix of armed and peaceful means to acquire political power at the expense of the status quo authority.  It does not matter if the status quo authority represents the majority of any given population.  Nor does the absolute size of the disaffiliated group matter.

Historically, insurgencies have been frankly political in both nature and goal.   Whether the insurgency was of the offensive variety, (usually referred to as "revolutionary)," or defensive, ("wars of national liberation" or "wars of independence"), the stakes have been limited to political domination of a definable geographic area.  The motives have been rooted in a sense of political emasculation or, more uncommonly, economic exploitation.  The quest has been simply to redress the grievances, peacefully if possible, violently, if that was the only option.

Never before has the human race been confronted with an insurgency which has the political core so wrapped with religious ideology as is the case with the advocates of violent political Islam.  Never before in the entire bloody record of human conflict has there been an insurgency without geographic limits.  Due to the universalism resident in the ideology of Islam and the presence of Muslims in virtually every country on Earth, the developing insurgency by those who espouse political Islam is an absolutely new phenomenon.

As every student of insurgency knows well, such wars are promoted and waged by numerical minorities.  Even insurgencies with globe rocking outcomes (such as the French, Russian, or Chinese revolutions or the American War of Independence) are the creations of minorities too small to register on public opinion polls--had such existed at the time.  The first shots of the current insurgency were fired in Iran by a minority so small that the Shah's security services initially dismissed the advocates of Ayatollah Khomeini as being less than a nuisance.

Insurgencies are like avalanches.  The smallest dislodged stone results in catastrophe.  It is for this reason that the oft proclaimed position by the Obama administration and other apologists for Islam that only a tiny minority of extremists is responsible for the deaths and destruction which have plagued the world for decades now is false--fatally so.  The stone has been kicked--get a grip on it.

Even today, years into the "Global War on Terror," it is no doubt true that most Muslims do not actively support the insurgent efforts of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the others.  This does not matter.  The majority of the Russian population did not support the Bolsheviks--or even know Lenin existed.  Most colonials wanted only to be counted out of the war during the long years of the American War of Independence.  The same was true in Iran even though the Shah was widely and soundly despised.

However, the current insurgent dynamic resembles its smaller, more localized progenitors in other ways as well.  As has always been the case, the status quo authority has had the initiative--and misused it in ways which has driven the insurgency to spread and deepen.

For all too many years the US and other civilized states either ignored the signs of the coming insurgency or, worse, deprecated their meaning.  For example, the administration of Ronald Reagan ignored the evil synergy between the Islamization campaign of President Zia in Pakistan and turning over the endgame of the proxy war in Afghanistan to the Pakistanis.  Later, the Clinton administration totally misread the significance of the declaration of war against the US issued by Osama bin Laden as well as the several attacks on US interests and forces conducted by al-Qaeda.

False policy linkages between the rise of violent political Islam and the relations between Israel and the Palestinians did nothing to bring the emerging threat into clearer focus.  Rather, they did the opposite, encouraging American policy makers in the incorrect belief that peace between Israel and the Palestinians including the successful establishment of the "Two State Solution" would end the growing insurgency.

Another similarity between the Muslim insurgency and its smaller, localized precursors is the mix of violent and peaceful techniques.  The quest for special accommodations to Muslim sensitivities or religious practices by peaceful political, judicial, or public relations means constitutes an effective way of (to use the old Leninist term) "boring from within."  The overarching even if unstated goal of these efforts at "accommodation" is the slow sapping of political will in the US and other countries.  Without political will to continue the war against the Trigger Pullers of the Prophet, the war is lost regardless of what happens on the battlefield.

The presence within American political and public opinion molding elites of apologists for Islam--including the violent political sort--is another point of identity between the present insurgency and its historical progenitors.  The American Declaration of Independence was written with a firm eye on influencing elite opinion in Great Britain.  The existence of a pro-American faction in the British elite was well known in the colonies and the Declaration was a transparent effort to strengthen its potency in parliament.  Note well that the Continental Congress chartered a fast schooner to carry a copy directly to England in order that Edmund Burke and others of the county Whigs persuasion would get the best, latest ammunition.

Similarly, the Russian Revolution--the second one, the one which brought the Bolsheviks to power, had strong supporting voices in the US and Europe.  Lenin might have disparagingly called John Reed and his fellow travelers as "useful idiots," but the utility of these mouthpieces cannot be overestimated.  The Muslim insurgents are equally or better served by their apologists and exponents today.  And, they know it even in the mountains of the FATA.

The final point of coincidence between today's global insurgency and the earlier versions is the most important.  The ultimate test in an insurgency is the political will of the contestants.  The side which can absorb casualties and accept suffering, the side which can spend endless time in a war without milestones or phase lines without losing its political will to continue, is the side which will win.

In this most crucial of areas the present correlation of forces favors the Bombers of the Koran.  There are two major forces at work which move in opposite directions to the disadvantage of the US and other civilized states.

The combination of religion with local, national grievances and causes of political disaffiliation provide a powerful wellspring of political will to say nothing of recruitment.  The power of religious identity is also seen in the total absence of any popular demonstrations by Muslims anywhere against the actions of the advocates of violent political Islam--this means most Muslims either tacitly support the insurgency or have been cowed into silence.

In the US and the West generally there is an identity crisis within the elites.  There is also a sapping conflict between the views and beliefs of the common people and the self-defined elites.  The result is an uncertainty as to who we are and what we are all about which can do nothing but sap political will.  This sapping is exacerbated by the nature of Western culture today with an emphasis on the material and secular with a concomitant unwillingness to confront frankly the threat before our eyes.  Of course, the present and persistent economic decline of the US and Western Europe does no service in this area.

The dynamic hinted at by the present correlation of forces (the Geek loves that old Soviet term) is not favorable at all.  It implies the war will continue for a long, long time with the US and others losing, staying on the defensive for many of the years ahead.  In this way the future will resemble World War II on steroids--a long period of defeat, failure, retreat until the awesome potentials both physical and spiritual of the US and other civilized states is aroused, mobilized, and employed with full vigor.

Until and unless that day of turnaround comes, our future is one of greater constriction, greater fear, greater sense of futility.  The best that can be hoped for is that we will hit bottom quickly so that the rebound can occur before it is one day too late.