CLARITY

In politics, the thing that is most to be cherished, in my view, is clarity. This is true for politics in all its forms. Recently, I have been blogging about the statements emanating from Teheran, primarily from the Iranian President. The reason I am so fascinated by this is that I believe, after many years of obfuscation and outright deceit, we are finally seeing the true face of the Islamist movement (at least, in its Shiite Iranian form). If only the leaders of the West can finally be brought to the realization that these statements, and the policies which derive from them, are to be taken literally, then, perhaps, we can begin to hope that Western Civilization has not finally slipped into its last stages of decay. It is a slim hope, I admit, but one I cling to for lack of anything else.

The reason to welcome this new-found clarity is something every adherent to a 12-step program understands. One cannot hope to solve a problem without first admitting that there is a problem. The problem internationally is that Western Civilization, which has been marching triumphally to world domination, at first by military means and, in the last fifty years or so, primarily through economic means, is now faced with a threat that cannot be crushed by armies (as the fascists were in 1945), or outlasted by economic growth (as the Soviets were in 1991). The threat, Islamist Fundamentalism, is as intensely ideological as either Fascism or Communism, but it has something much more powerful than either of those failed ideologies. At its core Islamist Fundamentalism is about faith in God (although twisted into something almost unrecognizable by most people of faith, including most Muslims). Human history records in chapter after chapter that it is faith in God that will drive men to the utmost extremes of good and evil.

The Fascist threat could be dealt with because its power eventually revolved around one man, Adolph Hitler. When he died in his Bunker in Berlin in 1945, his movement died with him. The Communist threat could be dealt with because eventually it revolved around one nation, the Soviet Union. When it died in 1991, the movement died with it. Unfortunately for the West, the death of any one Islamist leader will make little or no difference in the overall progress of the fight. Kill Bin Laden? Great, but so what? There are a million little Bin Ladens out there, maybe more. Even if President Ahmadinejad were to have, shall we say, an "accident" sometime in the next few months, it wouldn't alter the fact that the ideology which drives him lives on in thousands of people in his country, and millions across the Muslim world. The ideology he believes in may be different than that of Bin Laden, but the basic danger remains the same. Each man believes in the supremacy of his God, and they believe that supremacy must be realized here on Earth through violent means. Jihad is the center of the spiritual life of these people (which is why some analysts prefer to call them Jihadists, rather than Islamists). To them, fighting and dying in even an unwinnable war against the West is preferable to watching their societies become more like that of "The Great Satan".

This is clarity. In the Palestinian Territories, the Israelis are getting another dose of clarity with the fulminations of Hamas. For many in Israel, and in the West, it is the clarity of understanding that negotiations and engagement cannot work when tried with people whose God demands that their enemies be put to the sword. Here in the U.S., while for many of us 9/11 was that moment of clarity, perhaps it will require another similar demonstration from our enemies to provide that clarity for so many of my countrymen who chose to return to the world of September 10.