The Otherworldly Realism of T-Paw

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is stuck in the second tier of Republican hopefuls despite a strenuous effort to break to daylight.  He has already taken a definite stand on matters economic with strong support from the media and no palpable result in the public polling.  Now he is trying to do the same in the area of foreign affairs, putting distance between himself and the neo-isolationists of the GOP on the one hand and the neocons of the George W. Bush days on the other.

T-paw's essay in self-definition came yesterday n a speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations.  While represented as a tour of the horizon, the candidate focused on the Mideast, Israel, and Obama's failures of policy in the region.

There is little doubt but the Obama approach to affairs in the Mideast specifically and the world generally have been marked by far more failure than success.  The primary reason for this is to be found in the world view of the Nice Young Man From Chicago with its blame-America-first core.  Being a perfect academic, Mr Obama is given to avoiding action in favor of words whenever possible.  Then as a matter of personality, the Clueless Guy in the Oval resembles a Pearson's Puppeteer.

(For those of you who do not read science fiction, the Pearson Puppeteer was an alien species created by the fertile mind of Larry Niven.  The species is characterized by a degree of caution which surpasses the merely cowardly.  The "leader" of the Puppeteers is called the Hindmost--which rather resembles in concept the idea of "leading from behind" offered recently by a member of the administration in admiring tribute to Obama's presumed statesmanship in the Libyan Affair.)

The characterization of Mr Obama's approach(es) to the "Arab Spring" and the Israeli-Palestinian Question offered by Governor Pawlenty are unexceptional.  So also is his emphasis on the importance of Israel to US national interests.

Where T-paw misses the cliched bus is in his fervently expressed belief in the ability of the US to act effectively in the creation of freedom and democracy in the Mideast in the wake of the recent and ongoing tumult.  He is of the view that authentic democracy, genuine freedom, real Western style government with full fledged protections of minorities including women and non-Muslims can be created and maintained over time with the assistance and support of the US.

It would be very nice if the Pawlenty vision was accurate.  It is not.  Whether dealing with the environment of post-authoritarian Egypt or Tunisia, or contemplating how "reforms" might be facilitated by American efforts in kingdoms such as Jordan, Morocco or, most importantly of all, Saudi Arabia, Mr Pawlenty discounts the force and universality of Islam, particularly the form of Islam embraced and promoted by Salifists and Wahhibists.

The well-meaning Pawlenty (or his advisers and speechwriters) ignore the fundamental realities of Islamic thought which focus upon the deity as the source of all legitimate law.  Also overlooked is the oft-repeated meme that neither democracy nor liberty as understood in the West is compatible with the dictates of the deity contained in the sacred literature as interpreted by generations of scholars of Islamic jurisprudence.  The Pawlenty stance also overlooks the fundamental orientation of Islam on the duties of the believer.  Not to put an inaccurately fine point on the matter, Islam elevates duty, duty to the deity over any and all personal rights. In short there is no concept of individual rights which equates in any way with the prevalent definitions of rights and responsibilities in the US or the West generally.

The failure to comprehend accurately the impact of faith and its all-inclusive nature constitutes the rock on which Mr Pawlenty's ideas of constructive engagement with the new forces of the Arab states must founder.  While the people oriented toward secular concerns and world view dominated and continue to dominate the media coverage of events in the Arab states, these folk are a minority, even an endangered species.  Many of the more secular minded are quite aware of this aspect of the post-authoritarian dynamic as is seen with the repeated calls in Egypt for a delay in the elections so as to allow the secularists to organize well enough to take on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist political groups.

Mr Pawlenty's call for the next president to motivate the Saudi royal house to take the path of reform is also quite otherworldly.  The House of Saud exists today because of the bargain made generations ago to link its fortunes with those of the Wahhibists.  There is no way on this Earth that the austere world view of Wahhibism would continence let alone participate in any sort of reform such as mentioned by T-paw.  There is no chance that the Wahhibist theology is about to go along with extending any rights to non-Muslims or see the error of Mohammad's ways regarding the status of women.

In his remarks Mr Pawlenty warns against the elections which produce results antithetical to genuine democracy, authentic freedom.  He may have had Iran in mind when he said this as there is no better example of a people committing political suicide at the ballot box than that.  It will take far more than support for the "reform" movement of 2009 for the verdict of self-destruction by vote to be reversed.  The Iranians willingly and to the later regret of some surrendered all vestiges of political autonomy to the dictates of theology.  The same may happen in at least some of the Arab states celebrated as having sounded the tocsin of freedom by Mr Pawlenty.

A central point made by the presidential aspirant deserved more emphasis.  The reality of political Islam, particularly violent political Islam will be with us for many, many years to come.  As long as that reality existss the US will be the major target of its hate and violence.  This status will not be removed even if the US were to unilaterally withdraw from every last member state of the Organization of the Islamic Conference--or even if the US were to vote for the dissolution of Israel.

The necessary conclusion is the US must not retreat to some sort of Fortress America.  Surrender to violent political Islam is not an option simply because surrender will not work.  It will not immunize the US against future attacks, future terror, future war.  Nothing short of every last American--all 312 million of us--facing east and banging our foreheads on the floor would grant immunity from the hatred of the groups dedicated to violent political Islam.

The US may have, as Mr Pawlenty suggested, one political party which argues for American decline, withdrawal, disengagement and isolation.  He thinks that there is no need for a second.  He is right.  He would have been even more on target had he said that one such party is one too many.