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February 10, 2012
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
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Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
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Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
July 11, 2005
/4 Tamuz 5765
We Are the World
By
Efraim Karsh
The London bombings had little to do with Iraq — and everything to do with the radical Muslim agenda to make Islam the world's reigning religion. We ignore that fact at our own peril
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Together, Tony Blair and George Bush were the driving forces behind the Iraq war. So it was hardly surprising that the obscure European-based Al Qaeda cell that claimed responsibility for attacks specifically linked the operation to Iraq — and warned Italy and Demark to pull their forces out or face the same threat of terror. As a result, many will interpret this bombing as a response to British involvement in Iraq — just as many, including Spanish leaders themselves, interpreted the Madrid bombings of last year as a response to that country's role in the Iraq war.
In fact, the 7/7 bombings had little to do with Britain's international behavior or Middle Eastern policies. Rather, the attacks had everything to do with America's position as the preeminent world power, one which blocks radical Muslim aspirations. As such, the United States and its allies — Britain chief among them — are a natural target for aggression. Osama bin Laden's war is not against America per se but is instead a manifestation of the radical Muslim agenda to make Islam the world's reigning religion.
This Islamic imperial ambition did not disappear with the destruction of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. To this very day Muslims and Arabs unabashedly pine for the restoration of Muslim Spain (or Andalusia as it was commonly known) and consider their 1492 expulsion from the country a grave historical injustice — as if Spain's Muslim rulers were its rightful owners and not colonial occupiers living thousands of miles from their ancestral homeland. After September 11, bin Laden specifically noted "the tragedy of Andalusia," while in March 2004, the perpetrators of the Madrid bombings mentioned revenge for the loss of Spain as one of the atrocities' "root causes."
Indeed, even countries that have never been under Islam's imperial rule have become legitimate targets. As Europe's Muslim population grew rapidly in the late twentieth century through immigration, higher child birth, and conversion, prophesies of Islam's dominance in the West have become commonplace. In the late '80s various Islamist movements in France, notably the Union de Organizations Islamiques de France (UOIF), began to view the growing number of French Muslims as a sign that the country had become part of the House of Islam. This message has been echoed by the extensive network of mosques, schools, and charities established by the Muslim Brotherhood across Europe over the past fifty years.
Even such quintessentially moderate Islamic scholars as Zaki Badawi, longtime director of the Islamic Cultural Center in London, a hub of interfaith dialogue, have acknowledged the persistence of Islam's imperial dream, albeit in far more tempered language. "Islam endeavors to expand in Britain," he said. "Islam is a universal religion. It aims to bring its message to all corners of the earth. It hopes that one day the whole of humanity will be one Muslim community."
If this message sounds familiar, it should: Christianity's universal vision is also sweeping. But by the eighteenth century, Christian Europe had lost its religious messianism. It lost its imperial ambitions by the mid-twentieth century. By contrast, factions within Islam retain their imperial ambitions to this day.
This vision is by no means confined to a disillusioned and obscurantist fringe of Islam. In the historical imagination of some Muslims, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of Saladin, the legendary warrior who destroyed the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. According to this view, the war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest and is far from over. In the words of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the avowedly imperialist regime in Iran:
The Iranian revolution is not exclusively that of Iran, because Islam does not belong to any particular people. ... We will export our revolution throughout the world because it is an Islamic revolution. The struggle will continue until the calls "there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah" are echoed all over the world.
Within this grand scheme, the Iraq war, or for that matter the Palestine question, is but a single element, and one whose supposed centrality looms far greater in Western than in Islamic eyes.
Tony Blair is unlikely to give any ground in Iraq. But he may well endeavor, as he has before, to insert himself in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This would be an assured recipe for disaster. Radical Islamists view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as simply one part of the larger holy war to establish the House of Islam. Should Blair's eagerness to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, without insisting on the dismantling of terror networks as required by the Oslo accords and the roadmap, be seen as a response to the London bombings, it will send the wrong message: that terrorism works.
In any event, none of this will address the underlying problems raised by the 7/7 attacks. Only when radical Islamists reconcile themselves to the reality of state nationalism and forswear their expansionist ambitions will Osama bin Laden and other aspiring Saladins finally lose their momentum and their influence. When that day comes, Muslims will at last be able to look forward to a better future.
In steering America through September 11, President Bush famously drew courage and inspiration from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. One can only hope that Tony Blair will now show the same resolve. He can start by acknowledging the obvious: This attack was about bigger things than just Iraq.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Efraim Karsh is the head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, University of London. He wrote this piece for The New Republic. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, The New Republic
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