Violences islamiques: C’est le principe du cheval fort, imbécile! (When weakness becomes provocative)

Vous avez appris qu’il a été dit: oeil pour oeil, et dent pour dent. Mais moi, je vous dis de ne pas résister au méchant. Si quelqu’un te frappe sur la joue droite, présente-lui aussi l’autre. (…) Vous avez appris qu’il a été dit: Tu aimeras ton prochain, et tu haïras ton ennemi. Mais moi, je vous dis: Aimez vos ennemis, bénissez ceux qui vous maudissent, faites du bien à ceux qui vous haïssent, et priez pour ceux qui vous maltraitent et qui vous persécutent, afin que vous soyez fils de votre Père qui est dans les cieux; car il fait lever son soleil sur les méchants et sur les bons, et il fait pleuvoir sur les justes et sur les injustes. Jésus

Ne croyez pas que je sois venu apporter la paix sur la terre; je ne suis pas venu apporter la paix, mais l’épée. Car je suis venu mettre la division entre l’homme et son père, entre la fille et sa mère, entre la belle-fille et sa belle-mère; et l’homme aura pour ennemis les gens de sa maison. Jésus

C’est une règle générale de la nature humaine : les gens méprisent ceux qui les traitent bien et regardent vers ceux qui ne leur font pas de concessions.

Le fort fait ce qu’il peut faire et le faible subit ce qu’il doit subir.

Il est dans la nature de l’homme d’opprimer ceux qui cèdent et de respecter ceux qui résistent.  Thucydide (Ve siècle avant JC)

Quand les gens voient un cheval fort et un cheval faible, par nature, ils aimeront le cheval fort. Osama Ben Laden (2001 après JC)

Tous les efforts de la violence ne peuvent affaiblir la vérité, et ne servent qu’à la relever davantage. Toutes les lumières de la vérité ne peuvent rien pour arrêter la violence, et ne font que l’irriter encore plus. Pascal

L’individu a été si bien pris au sérieux, si bien posé comme un absolu par le christianisme, qu’on ne pouvait plus le sacrifier : mais l’espèce ne survit que grâce aux sacrifices humains… La véritable philanthropie exige le sacrifice pour le bien de l’espèce – elle est dure, elle oblige à se dominer soi-même, parce qu’elle a besoin du sacrifice humain. Et cette pseudo-humanité qui s’institue christianisme, veut précisément imposer que personne ne soit sacrifié. Nietzsche

Le christianisme est une rébellion contre la loi naturelle, une protestation contre la nature. Poussé à sa logique extrême, le christianisme signifierait la culture systématique de l’échec humain. Hitler

Nous ne savons pas si Hitler est sur le point de fonder un nouvel islam. Il est d’ores et déjà sur la voie; il ressemble à Mahomet. L’émotion en Allemagne est islamique, guerrière et islamique. Ils sont tous ivres d’un dieu farouche. Jung (1939)

Mein Kampf (…) Tel était le nouveau Coran de la foi et de la guerre: emphatique, fastidieux, sans forme, mais empli de son propre message. Churchill

Tout que je peux dire, c’est que si l’histoire a enseigné quelque chose, c’est que la faiblesse est provocatrice. Elle incite les gens à faire des choses qu’ils ne feraient pas autrement. Le plan d’action qui dit: « Ne faites rien pour  mécontenter ou irriter Saddam Hussein parce qu’il pourrait faire quelque chose » est un peu comme nourrir un alligator en espérant qu’il ne vous mange pas après. Donald Rumsfeld (2002)

We live in an age of inversely proportional deterrence, the more militarily powerful a western cicvilised nation is, the less its enemies have to feel the full force of that power ever being unleashed. Mark Steyn

L’ancien Premier ministre britannique Margaret Thatcher avait été informée des dangers de réduire la flotte britannique un an avant l’invasion en avril 1982 des îles Malouines par l’Argentine, selon des documents secrets déclassifiés vendredi. Son ministre des affaires étrangères de l’époque Lord Peter Carrington avait également mis en garde le ministre de la défense de l’époque John Nott contre le fait qu’une réduction de la flotte britannique n’enverrait que des mauvais signaux sur la volonté de Londres de défendre les Malouines. Selon ces documents des archives nationales britannique rendus publics 30 ans plus tard, l’Etat major de la Royal Navy avait alors exprimé son vif mécontentement au sujet des projets de réductions de la défense navale. Le Figaro

La politique d’apaisement vis-à-vis de l’Iran d’Ahmadinejad est fondée sur la même incompréhension que celle qui fut menée face à Hitler à la fin des années 1930, par l’Angleterre et la France. Ce prétendu réalisme, au nom duquel il faut faire des concessions et pratiquer l’ouverture, procède certes d’un réflexe très humain. Mais il témoigne d’une méconnaissance profonde de l’adversaire. On est en face, dans les deux cas, d’une machine de guerre très habile et très bien organisée, qui connaît et qui exploite fort bien les faiblesses de l’Occident démocratique. Il faut laisser Obama tendre la main à l’Iran, mais il comprendra vite – s’il est intelligent, et je crois qu’il l’est -, à qui il a affaire. Simon Epstein

Dans toute guerre entre le colonisateur et le colonisé, soutenez l’oppressé. Soutenez le droit des Palestiniens au retour. Rejetez le racisme. Autocollant propalestinien (San Francisco)

Dans toute guerre entre l’homme civilisé et le sauvage, soutenez l’homme civilisé. Soutenez Israël. Rejetez le djihad. Autocollant de l’association American Freedom Defense Initiative (l’Initiative pour la défense de la liberté américaine)

Je ne céderai pas devant l’intimidation, je ne vais pas arrêter de dire la vérité parce que c’est dangereux. La liberté doit être vigoureusement défendue. (…) Si quelqu’un commet un acte de violence, c’est sa responsabilité, ce n’est la responsabilité de personne d’autre. Pam Geller

Je suis islamophobe, et phobie veut dire peur. Donc oui, peut-être oui, probablement, je suis islamophobe comme beaucoup de Français. J’ai peur de l’islam comme on a peur d’une chose que l’on ne connaît pas. (…) L’islam est dangereux pour la démocratie et en fait la démonstration tous les jours. (…) Il est temps que les Français de toutes confessions se lèvent ensemble contre l’intégrisme. (…) J’ai lu le Coran. Je n’ai pas été plus rassurée. Ce que l’on voit autour de nous fait que la phobie existe car on voit des choses qui font peur (…) Pourquoi on veut nier les choses ? Ce n’est par parce que j’ai peur que je déteste. (…) J’ai lu que 53 pays musumlans voulaient inclure la charia dans les Droits de l’Homme (…) J’aurais été ‘christianophobe’ au temps de l’Inquisition. (…) Je suis en France, pays de liberté (…) J’ai autant droit de m’exprimer que tout ceux qui s’expriment. Véronique Genest

Civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity—

enough to provide a little leisure. But far more, it requires confidence: 

confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. (…) Vigour, energy, vitality: all the civilisations—or civilising epochs—have had a weight of energy behind them. People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversations and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilisation, but they are not what make a civilisation, and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid. Kenneth Clark

In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it’s because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.

Here’s what else we learned this week about the emerging liberal consensus: That it’s okay to denounce a movie you haven’t seen, which is like trashing a book you haven’t read. That it’s okay to give perp-walk treatment to the alleged—and no doubt terrified—maker of the film on legally flimsy and politically motivated grounds of parole violation. That it’s okay for the federal government publicly to call on Google to pull the video clip from YouTube in an attempt to mollify rampaging Islamists. That it’s okay to concede the fundamentalist premise that religious belief ought to be entitled to the highest possible degree of social deference—except when Mormons and sundry Christian rubes are concerned. (…) Finally, it need be said that the whole purpose of free speech is to protect unpopular, heretical, vulgar and stupid views. So far, the Obama administration’s approach to free speech is that it’s fine so long as it’s cheap and exacts no political price. This is free speech as pizza. President Obama came to office promising that he would start a new conversation with the Muslim world, one that lectured less and listened more. After nearly four years of listening, we can now hear more clearly where the U.S. stands in the estimation of that world: equally despised but considerably less feared. Just imagine what four more years of instinctive deference will do. On the bright side, dear liberals, you’ll still be able to mock Mormons. They tend not to punch back, which is part of what makes so many of them so successful in life. Bret Stephens

Thomas Cahill, in his riveting book « The Gifts of the Jews, » underscores the point: « For the ancients, nothing new ever did happen, except for the occasional monstrosity. Life on Earth followed the course of the stars. And what had been would, in due course, come around again. . . . The future was always to be a replay of the past, as the past was simply an earthly replay of the drama of the heavens. » Perhaps the most profound gift of the Jews is that they broke down this fatalistic notion of the world, in which people were trapped on a great spinning wheel, with no future or past. In this way, the ancient Jews invented the concept of history in which the future was not an endless cycle but could be steered by our actions in the present. They inserted the individual, and individual responsibility and justice, into the equation. This ancient Jewish view was a massive shift in how people viewed mankind’s relationship to a deity—and it put responsibility squarely on the shoulders of men and women for their own destiny. This was the end of predetermination and the beginning of personal choice, justice and the quest for liberty. (…) Democracy, Mr. Cahill says, « grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals—subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique and personal destiny. Eric Rosenberg

Il y a deux grandes attitudes à mon avis dans l’histoire humaine, il y a celle de la mythologie qui s’efforce de dissimuler la violence, car, en dernière analyse, c’est sur la violence injuste que les communautés humaines reposent. (…) Cette attitude est trop universelle pour être condamnée. C’est l’attitude d’ailleurs des plus grands philosophes grecs et en particulier de Platon, qui condamne Homère et tous les poètes parce qu’ils se permettent de décrire dans leurs oeuvres les violences attribuées par les mythes aux dieux de la cité. Le grand philosophe voit dans cette audacieuse révélation une source de désordre, un péril majeur pour toute la société. Cette attitude est certainement l’attitude religieuse la plus répandue, la plus normale, la plus naturelle à l’homme et, de nos jours, elle est plus universelle que jamais, car les croyants modernisés, aussi bien les chrétiens que les juifs, l’ont au moins partiellement adoptée. L’autre attitude est beaucoup plus rare et elle est même unique au monde. Elle est réservée tout entière aux grands moments de l’inspiration biblique et chrétienne. Elle consiste non pas à pudiquement dissimuler mais, au contraire, à révéler la violence dans toute son injustice et son mensonge, partout où il est possible de la repérer. C’est l’attitude du Livre de Job et c’est l’attitude des Evangiles. C’est la plus audacieuse des deux et, à mon avis, c’est la plus grande. C’est l’attitude qui nous a permis de découvrir l’innocence de la plupart des victimes que même les hommes les plus religieux, au cours de leur histoire, n’ont jamais cessé de massacrer et de persécuter. C’est là qu’est l’inspiration commune au judaïsme et au christianisme, et c’est la clef, il faut l’espérer, de leur réconciliation future. C’est la tendance héroïque à mettre la vérité au-dessus même de l’ordre social. René Girard

Notre monde est de plus en plus imprégné par cette vérité évangélique de l’innocence des victimes. L’attention qu’on porte aux victimes a commencé au Moyen Age, avec l’invention de l’hôpital. L’Hôtel-Dieu, comme on disait, accueillait toutes les victimes, indépendamment de leur origine. Les sociétés primitives n’étaient pas inhumaines, mais elles n’avaient d’attention que pour leurs membres. Le monde moderne a inventé la “victime inconnue”, comme on dirait aujourd’hui le “soldat inconnu”. Le christianisme peut maintenant continuer à s’étendre même sans la loi, car ses grandes percées intellectuelles et morales, notre souci des victimes et notre attention à ne pas nous fabriquer de boucs émissaires, ont fait de nous des chrétiens qui s’ignorent. René Girard

Dans la foi musulmane, il y a un aspect simple, brut, pratique qui a facilité sa diffusion et transformé la vie d’un grand nombre de peuples à l’état tribal en les ouvrant au monothéisme juif modifié par le christianisme. Mais il lui manque l’essentiel du christianisme : la croix. Comme le christianisme, l’islam réhabilite la victime innocente, mais il le fait de manière guerrière. La croix, c’est le contraire, c’est la fin des mythes violents et archaïques. René Girard

C’est le principe du cheval fort, imbécile!

Alors que se multiplient les preuves de l’origine clairement jihadiste des nouvelles violences qui secouent actuellement le monde musulman suite à la mise en ligne délibérée (les caricatures de Charlie Hebdo n’étant que la cerise sur le gâteau) de la bande annonce d’un jusque-là obscur navet anti-islam concocté un an plus tôt et dans l’indifférence qu’il méritait par un encore plus obscur escroc égypto-américain …

Comment ne pas s’étonner, sans parler du toujours plus criant fiasco de la Doctrine Obama, de l’incroyable contresens du choeur des pleureuses occidentales, politiques comme médiatiques, qui, fidèle à lui-même, a repris comme un seul homme le discours de l’autoflagellation et, jusqu’à Marine Le Pen, de l’équivalence morale?

Oubliant, comme l’avait pourtant rappelé il y a deux ans le correspondant au Moyen-Orient pour le Weekly Standard Lee Smith (« The Strong Horse : Power, Politics and the Clash of Arab Civilizations/Le cheval fort : le pouvoir, la politique et le choc des civilisations arabes ») et confirmé entre temps l’ancien ambassadeur américain au Pakistan Husain Haqqani et le chercheur libano-américain Fouad Ajami …

Le fameux et vieux comme le monde « principe élémentaire et quasi-universel » de Thucydide, repris par Osama lui-même au lendemain de son forfait du 11/9, tant du respect de la seule force que, corollairement, de la dimension provocatrice de la faiblesse, sans lesquels on ne peut comprendre nombre des réactions actuelles des masses fanatisées d’un monde islamique …

Qui, entre culte de la mort, crimes d’honneur, attaques terroristes et guerres, se voit durablement embourbé dans le pire sous-développement par son incapacité – nul doute entretenue par ses propres despotes inquiets à juste titre pour leur pouvoir-, à faire sien à son tour la formidable et corrosive radicalité du souci judéo-chrétien de l’autre et du plus faible …

Au Moyen-Orient, on mise sur le cheval fort

(In Mideast, Bet on a Strong Horse)

Daniel Pipes

National Review Online

16 février 2010

Adaptation française: Johan Bourlard

La violence et la cruauté des Arabes troublent souvent les Occidentaux.

Ce n’est pas seulement le leader du Hezbollah qui proclame « Nous aimons la mort », mais également, pour ne prendre qu’un exemple, un homme de 24 ans qui, le mois dernier, hurlait « Nous aimons la mort plus que vous n’aimez la vie » quand il a percuté avec sa voiture le Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, un pont de New York. Quand, dans la ville de Saint-Louis, deux parents ont commis un crime d’honneur sur leur fille adolescente en la poignardant à treize reprises au moyen d’un couteau de boucher, le père palestinien criait : « Meurs ! Meurs vite ! Meurs vite !… Silence, petite ! Meurs, ma fille, meurs ! » et la communauté arabe locale de le soutenir ensuite face aux accusations d’assassinat. Récemment, un prince d’Abu Dhabi a torturé un marchand de grain qu’il accusait de fraude ; en dépit de la vidéo atroce diffusée sur les chaînes de télévision du monde entier, le prince a été acquitté tandis que ses accusateurs ont été condamnés.

Sur une échelle plus large, on a dénombré 15 000 attaques terroristes depuis le 11 Septembre. Dans l’ensemble du monde arabophone, les gouvernements s’appuient davantage sur la brutalité que sur l’autorité de la loi. Le désir ardent d’éliminer Israël persiste encore et toujours même quand sévissent les insurrections, dont la dernière en date a éclaté au Yémen.

À propos de la pathologie qui touche la politique arabe, il existe plusieurs excellents essais d’explication dont certains ont ma préférence : les études réalisées par David Pryce-Jones et Philip Salzman auxquelles il faut désormais ajouter The Strong Horse : Power, Politics and the Clash of Arab Civilizations (Le cheval fort : le pouvoir, la politique et le choc des civilisations arabes), une analyse captivante et néanmoins fouillée et remarquable de Lee Smith, correspondant au Moyen-Orient pour le Weekly Standard.

Smith s’inspire d’une parole prononcée par Oussama Ben Laden en 2001 : « Quand les gens voient un cheval fort et un cheval faible, par nature, ils aimeront le cheval fort. » Ce que Smith appelle le principe du cheval fort consiste en deux éléments simples : la prise du pouvoir et la conservation de celui-ci. Ce principe est prédominant car, dans le monde arabe, la vie publique n’a « aucun mécanisme de transition pacifique ni de partage du pouvoir, raison pour laquelle les conflits politiques sont vus comme un combat à mort entre des chevaux forts ». La violence, constate Smith, est « au cœur de la vie politique, sociale et culturelle du Moyen-Orient arabophone ». Plus subtilement cela implique de garder un œil vigilant sur le prochain cheval fort par rapport auquel il faut se positionner et peser le pour et le contre.

Selon Smith, c’est ce principe du cheval fort, et non l’impérialisme occidental ou le sionisme, « qui a déterminé le caractère fondamental du Moyen-Orient arabophone ». La religion islamique elle-même s’est coulée dans le moule ancien de l’autoritarisme, celui du cheval fort, qu’elle a promu. Mahomet, le prophète de l’islam, était un homme fort en plus d’être une personnalité religieuse. Les musulmans sunnites ont régné pendant des siècles « par la violence, la répression et la contrainte ». La célèbre théorie de l’histoire formulée par Ibn Khaldun se résume à un cycle de violence dans lequel les chevaux forts remplacent les chevaux faibles. L’humiliation subie par les dhimmis rappelle chaque jour aux non-musulmans que ce n’est pas eux qui font la loi.

L’angle d’approche adopté par Smith donne des éclairages sur l’histoire moderne du Moyen-Orient. Il présente d’une part le nationalisme panarabe comme un effort de transformation des petits chevaux constitués par les États nationaux en un seul grand cheval et d’autre part l’islamisme comme un effort destiné à faire retrouver aux musulmans leur puissance. Quant à Israël, il fait office de « cheval fort par procuration » à la fois pour les États-Unis et le bloc égypto-saoudien dans le bras de fer, véritable guerre froide, qui oppose ce dernier au bloc iranien. Dans un univers marqué par le principe du cheval fort, la loi des armes séduit davantage que celle des urnes. Dépourvus de cheval fort, les Arabes libéraux avancent peu. En tant qu’État non arabe et non musulman le plus puissant, les Etats-Unis rendent l’anti-américanisme à la fois inévitable et endémique.

Ceci nous amène aux politiques menées par les pays non arabes : ceux-ci, malgré leur puissance et leur réelle endurance, échouent, souligne Smith. Être gentil – c’est-à-dire, se retirer unilatéralement du Sud-Liban et de Gaza – conduit inévitablement à l’échec. L’administration de George W. Bush a lancé, à juste titre, un projet de démocratisation porteur de grands espoirs, pour ensuite trahir les Arabes libéraux en ne menant pas ce projet à bien. En Irak, l’administration a négligé la recommandation d’installer au pouvoir un homme fort favorable à la démocratie.

Le Druze Walid Joumblatt, chef politique libanais, avance l’idée d’attaques américaines à la voiture piégée à Damas.

Plus largement, quand le gouvernement américain recule, d’autres (par exemple les dirigeants iraniens) ont l’opportunité « d’imposer leur loi dans la région ». Walid Joumblatt, un leader politique libanais, a suggéré, plus ou moins sérieusement, que Washington « fasse sauter des voitures piégées à Damas » de façon à faire passer son message et à montrer que l’Amérique a compris comment les Arabes s’y prennent.

Le principe élémentaire et quasi-universel formulé par Smith constitue un outil pour comprendre bien des aspects du monde arabe, notamment le culte de la mort, les crimes d’honneur, les attaques terroristes, le despotisme, la guerre… Tout en admettant que le principe du cheval fort peut choquer les Occidentaux et leur apparaître comme terriblement cruel, Smith insiste très justement sur l’existence de cette froide réalité que ceux qui ne sont pas avertis doivent reconnaître, prendre en compte et face à laquelle ils doivent réagir.

Voir aussi:

Manipulated Outrage and Misplaced Fury

Husain Haq

The WSJ

September 17, 2012

The attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions last week—beginning in Egypt and Libya, and moving to Yemen and other Muslim countries—came under cover of riots against an obscure online video insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. But the mob violence and assaults should be seen for what they really are: an effort by Islamists to garner support and mobilize their base by exacerbating anti-Western sentiments.

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to calm Muslims Thursday by denouncing the video, she was unwittingly playing along with the ruse the radicals set up. The United States would have been better off focusing on the only outrage that was of legitimate interest to the American government: the lack of respect—shown by a complaisant Egyptian government and other Islamists—for U.S. diplomatic missions.

Protests orchestrated on the pretext of slights and offenses against Islam have been part of Islamist strategy for decades. Iran’s ayatollahs built an entire revolution around anti-Americanism. While the Iranian revolution was underway in 1979, Pakistan’s Islamists whipped up crowds by spreading rumors that the Americans had forcibly occupied Islam’s most sacred site, the Ka’aba or the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Pakistani protesters burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

Violent demonstrations in many parts of the Muslim world after the 1989 fatwa—or religious condemnation—of a novel by Salman Rushdie, or after the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, also did not represent spontaneous outrage. In each case, the insult to Islam or its prophet was first publicized by Islamists themselves so they could use it as justification for planned violence.

Once mourning over the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and others subsides, we will hear familiar arguments in the West. Some will rightly say that Islamist sensibilities cannot and should not lead to self- censorship here. Others will point out that freedom of expression should not be equated with a freedom to offend. They will say: Just as a non-Jew, out of respect for other religious beliefs, does not exercise his freedom to desecrate a Torah scroll, similar respect should be extended to Muslims and what they deem sacred.

But this debate, as thoughtful as it may be, is a distraction from what is really going on. It ignores the political intent of Islamists for whom every perceived affront to Islam is an opportunity to exploit a wedge issue for their own empowerment.

As for affronts, the Western mainstream is, by and large, quite respectful toward Muslims, millions of whom have adopted Europe and North America as their home and enjoy all the freedoms the West has to offer, including the freedom to worship. Insignificant or unnoticed videos and publications would have no impact on anyone, anywhere, if the Islamists did not choose to publicize them for radical effect.

And insults, real or hyped, are not the problem. At the heart of Muslim street violence is the frustration of the world’s Muslims over their steady decline for three centuries, a decline that has coincided with the rise and spread of the West’s military, economic and intellectual prowess.

During the 800 years of Muslim ascendancy beginning in the eighth century—in Southern Europe, North Africa and much of Western Asia—Muslims did not riot to protest non-Muslim insults against Islam or its prophet. There is no historic record of random attacks against non-Muslim targets in retaliation for a non-Muslim insulting Prophet Muhammad, though there are many books derogatory toward Islam’s prophet that were written in the era of Islam’s great empires. Muslims under Turkey’s Ottomans, for example, did not attack non-Muslim envoys (the medieval equivalent of today’s embassies) or churches upon hearing of real or rumored European sacrilege against their religion.

Clearly, then, violent responses to perceived injury are not integral to Islam. A religion is what its followers make it, and Muslims opting for violence have chosen to paint their faith as one that is prone to anger. Frustration with their inability to succeed in the competition between nations also has led some Muslims to seek symbolic victories.

Yet the momentary triumph of burning another country’s flag or setting on fire a Western business or embassy building is a poor but widespread substitute for global success that eludes the modern world’s 1.5 billion Muslims. Violent protest represents the lower rung of the ladder of rage; terrorism is its higher form.

Islamists almost by definition have a vested interest in continuously fanning the flames of Muslim victimhood. For Islamists, wrath against the West is the basis for their claim to the support of Muslim masses, taking attention away from societal political and economic failures. For example, the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference account for one-fifth of the world’s population but their combined gross domestic product is less than 7% of global output—a harsh reality for which Islamists offer no solution.

Even after recent developments that were labeled the Arab Spring, few Muslim-majority countries either fulfill— or look likely to—the criteria for freedom set by the independent group Freedom House. Mainstream discourse among Muslims blames everyone but themselves for this situation. The image of an ascendant West belittling Islam with the view to eliminate it serves as a convenient explanation for Muslim weakness.

Once the Muslim world embraces freedom of expression, it will be able to recognize the value of that freedom even for those who offend Muslim sensibilities. More important: Only in a free democratic environment will the world’s Muslims be able to debate the causes of their powerlessness, which stirs in them greater anger than any specific action on the part of Islam’s Western detractors.

Until then, the U.S. would do well to remember Osama bin Laden’s comment not long after the Sept. 11 attacks: « When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse. » America should do nothing that enables Islamists to portray the nation as the weak horse.

Mr. Haqqani is professor of international relations at Boston University and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. in 2008-11.

 Voir également:

The Strong Horse

A journalist argues that inter-Arab conflict is the central crisis of the Middle East.

Jackson Holahan

The Christian Science Monitor

January 27, 2010

With fists raised and mouths agape in apparent discontent, the several men gathering outside a mosque compose just a fraction of the unruly mass mobbing the local streets. Are they protesting or rejoicing? Either way their strained looks and fist-pumping fervor do not bode well for the photographer snapping this image only a few feet away.

This scene is the cover photo of Lee Smith’s The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations. After eight-plus years of United States military involvement in the Middle East, this snapshot might seem accurate enough to the casual book browser. Disgruntled demonstrators nestled below minarets, protesting some injustice unbeknownst to the viewer, may seem to standard fare to some American readers, many of whom are tired of hearing about soldiers from Kentucky, Vermont, Texas, and California being bloodied and maimed on the other side of the world.

But just pages into the introduction, Smith, who is the Middle East correspondent for the Weekly Standard, shatters the stereotype evoked in the jacket’s photograph by stating that, “I give no credence to the idea that the Arab-Israeli crisis is the [Middle East’s] central issue.” Just one of a number of provocative assertions, Smith wastes little time in introducing a reexamination of Middle Eastern history that calls into question even the most conventional of American and Western beliefs.

To begin with, he argues that 9/11 was not an attack on America but rather the extension of an inter-Arab fight exported to the new battleground of lower Manhattan. “Bin Ladenism is not drawn from the extremist fringe but represents the political and social norm [of the Arabic-speaking Middle East].” Smith explains these two conclusions, as he does the Middle East’s political philosophy writ large, using the “strong horse” principle.

Borrowed from an Osama bin Laden quote, Smith’s strong horse theory is grounded upon the conviction that, “[V]iolence is central to the politics, society and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East.” The strong horse is the person, tribe, country, or nation that is best able to impose its will upon others, the weaker horses, through the use of force.

Smith’s conclusion here is hardly novel. It is a reapplication of Thucydides’ famous aphorism from “The History of the Peloponnesian War”: “The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.” However, Smith’s use of this age-old doctrine to better understand US-Arab relations is far from conventional.

In a climate increasingly attuned to avoid offense, Smith’s strident declarations are bound to attract significant criticism. Despite this, Smith never wavers in his bold thesis that the Arab world has long been at war with itself and is currently on a path toward certain self-destruction.

“The Strong Horse” is both succinct and accessible. Smith’s conclusions are introduced early, restated often, and buttressed by both history and the author’s personal encounters during his travels throughout the region. His willingness to venture into the provocative sometimes has the effect of making his suppositions less sound. After rightly calling the rising epidemic of suicide bombing what it is – a death cult – he concludes that the Arabs as a people are, “losing their will to live.” His induction here is overblown, as no sweeping conclusion can accurately describe the mental state of hundreds of millions of the world’s people.

Intermittent inaccuracies aside, “The Strong Horse” is an important read for anyone interested in the Middle East, and particularly in the involvement of the United States in the region since 2001. Some will cast Smith’s zealous diagnosis of the cradle of civilization’s ills as ethnocentric jingoism. As harsh as his conclusions may be, they certainly are not unfair.

Smith is equally critical of a US foreign policy that has been shortsighted, inconsistent, and ill-informed. He is rightly wary of US alliances with regimes that at best pay lip service to our antiterror aims and at worst overtly support the very groups and individuals we are trying to target. Just as the American experiment with democracy in Iraq was an endeavor rich in optimism and egregious in miscalculation, so too, Smith argues, are US alliances with certain countries in the Middle East.

Smith advocates a US diplomatic and military approach to the Middle East that mirrors the nuance and complexity characteristic of the region’s numerous ethnicities, languages, histories, and competing claims to power. It is clear the US will need a large measure of Smith’s willingness to call the shortcomings, successes, and lies of the Middle East what they actually are if anything beneficial is to result from our activities in the region.

Jackson Holahan is a freelance writer in East Haddam, Ct.

Voir encore:

Muslim Rage and the Obama Retreat

We can’t declare a unilateral end to our troubles, or avert our gaze from the disorder that afflicts the societies of the Greater Middle East.

Fouad Ajami

The WSJ

September 20, 2012

This is not a Jimmy Carter moment—a U.S. Embassy and its staff seized and held hostage for 444 days, America’s enemies taking stock of its weakness, its allies running for cover. But the anti-American protests that broke upon 20 nations this past week must be reckoned a grand personal failure for Barack Obama, and a case of hubris undone.

No American president before this one had proclaimed such intimacy with a world that stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. From the start of his administration, Mr. Obama put forth his own biography as a bridge to those aggrieved nations. He would be a « different president, » he promised, and the years he lived among Muslims would acquit him—and thus America itself. He was the un-Bush.

And so, in June 2009, Mr. Obama descended on Cairo. He had opposed the Iraq war, he had Muslim relatives, and he would offer Egyptians, and by extension other Arabs, the promise of a « new beginning. » They told their history as a tale of victimization at the hands of outsiders, and he empathized with that narrative.

He spoke of « colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim -majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. »

Without knowing it, he had broken a time-honored maxim of that world: Never speak ill of your own people when in the company of strangers. There was too little recognition of the malignant trilogy—anti-Americanism, anti- Semitism and anti-modernism—that had poisoned the life of Egypt and much of the region.

The crowd took in what this stranger had to say, and some were flattered by his embrace of their culture. But ever since its encounter with the guns and ideas of the West in the opening years of the 19th century, the region had seen conquerors come and go. Its people have an unfailing eye for the promises and predilections of outsiders.

I t didn’t take long for this new American leader to come down to earth. In the summer of 2009, Iran erupted in rebellion against its theocratic rulers. That upheaval exposed the contradictions at the heart of the Obama approach. At his core, he was a hyper- realist: The call of freedom did not tug at him. He was certain that the theocracy would respond to his outreach, resulting in a diplomatic breakthrough. But Iran’s clerical rulers had no interest in a breakthrough. We are the Great Satan, and they need their foreign demons to maintain their grip on power.

The embattled « liberals » in the region were awakened to the truth of Mr. Obama. He was a man of the status quo, with a superficial knowledge of lands beyond. In Cairo, he had described himself as a « student of history. » But in his first foreign television interview, he declared his intention to restore U.S. relations with the Islamic world to « the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago. »

This coincided, almost to the day, with the 30th anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power in Iran. That « golden age » he sought to restore covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, deadly attacks on our embassies, the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and more. A trail of terror had shadowed the American presence.

Yet here was a president who would end this history, who would withdraw from both the « good war » in Afghanistan and the bad one in Iraq. Here was a president who would target America’s real enemy—al Qaeda. « Osama bin Laden is dead, » we’ve been told time and again, and good riddance to him. But those attacking our embassies last week had a disturbing rebuttal: « Obama, we are Osama! » they chanted, some brandishing al Qaeda flags.

Until last Tuesday’s deadly attack on our consulate in Benghazi, it was the fashion of Mr. Obama and his lieutenants to proclaim that the tide of war is receding. But we can’t declare a unilateral end to our troubles, nor can we avert our gaze from the disorder that afflicts the societies of the Greater Middle East.

A Muslim world that can take to the streets, as far away as Jakarta, in protest against a vulgar film depiction of the Prophet Muhammad—yet barely call up a crowd on behalf of a Syrian population that has endured unspeakable hell at the hands of the dictator Bashar al-Assad—is in need of self-criticism and repair. We do these societies no favor if we leave them to the illusion that they can pass through the gates of the modern world carrying those ruinous ideas.

Yet the word in Washington is that we must pull back from those troubled Arab and Muslim lands. The grand expectations that Mr. Obama had for Afghanistan have largely been forgotten. The Taliban are content to wait us out, secure in the knowledge that, come 2014, we and our allies will have quit the place. And neighboring Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country with 170 million people, is written off as a hotbed of extremism.

Meanwhile, Syria burns and calls for help, but the call goes unanswered. The civil war there has become a great Sunni-Shiite schism. Lebanon teeters on the edge. More important, trouble has spilled into Turkey. The Turks have come to resent the American abdication and the heavy burden the Syrian struggle has imposed on them. In contrast, the mullahs in Iran have read the landscape well and are determined to sustain the Assad dictatorship.

Our foreign policy has been altered, as never before, to fit one man’s electoral needs. We hear from the presidential handlers only what they want us to believe about the temper of distant lands. It was only yesterday that our leader, we are told, had solved the riddle of our position in the world.

Give him your warrant, the palace guard intone, at least until the next election. In tales of charismatic, chosen leaders, it is always, and only, about the man at the helm.

Mr. Ajami is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and the author most recently of « The Syrian Rebellion » (Hoover Press, 2012).

Voir de même:

Muslims, Mormons and Liberals

Why is it OK to mock one religion but not another?

Bret Stephens

September 19, 2012

‘Hasa Diga Eebowai » is the hit number in Broadway’s hit musical « The Book of Mormon, » which won nine Tony awards last year. What does the phrase mean? I can’t tell you, because it’s unprintable in a family newspaper.

On the other hand, if you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can’t tell you about that, either. Let’s just say it has New York City audiences roaring with laughter.

Why is it OK to mock one religion but not another? Columnist Bret Stephens joins Opinion Journal.

The « Book of Mormon »—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing « Innocence of Muslims. » This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet.

No matter. The film, the administration says, is « hateful and offensive » (Susan Rice), « reprehensible and disgusting » (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, « disgusting and reprehensible » (Hillary Clinton). Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya.

So let’s get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it’s because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.

Here’s what else we learned this week about the emerging liberal consensus: That it’s okay to denounce a movie you haven’t seen, which is like trashing a book you haven’t read. That it’s okay to give perp-walk treatment to the alleged—and no doubt terrified—maker of the film on legally flimsy and politically motivated grounds of parole violation. That it’s okay for the federal government publicly to call on Google to pull the video clip from YouTube in an attempt to mollify rampaging Islamists. That it’s okay to concede the fundamentalist premise that religious belief ought to be entitled to the highest possible degree of social deference—except when Mormons and sundry Christian rubes are concerned.

And, finally, this: That the most « progressive » administration in recent U.S. history will make no principled defense of free speech to a Muslim world that could stand hearing such a defense. After the debut of « The Book of Mormon » musical, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responded with this statement: « The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people’s lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ. »

That was it. The People’s Front for the Liberation of Provo will not be gunning for a theater near you. Is it asking too much of religious and political leaders in Muslim communities to adopt a similar attitude?

It needn’t be. A principled defense of free speech could start by quoting the Quran: « And it has already come down to you in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah [recited], they are denied [by them] and ridiculed; so do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation. » In this light, the true test of religious conviction is indifference, not susceptibility, to mockery.

The defense could add that a great religion surely cannot be goaded into frenetic mob violence on the slimmest provocation. Yet to watch the images coming out of Benghazi, Cairo, Tunis and Sana’a is to witness some significant portion of a civilization being transformed into Travis Bickle, the character Robert De Niro made unforgettable in Taxi Driver. « You talkin’ to me? »

A defense would also point out that an Islamic world that insists on a measure of religious respect needs also to offer that respect in turn. When Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi—the closest thing Sunni Islam has to a pope—praises Hitler for exacting « divine punishment » on the Jews, that respect isn’t exactly apparent. Nor has it been especially apparent in the waves of Islamist-instigated pogroms that have swept Egypt’s Coptic community in recent years.

Finally, it need be said that the whole purpose of free speech is to protect unpopular, heretical, vulgar and stupid views. So far, the Obama administration’s approach to free speech is that it’s fine so long as it’s cheap and exacts no political price. This is free speech as pizza.

President Obama came to office promising that he would start a new conversation with the Muslim world, one that lectured less and listened more. After nearly four years of listening, we can now hear more clearly where the U.S. stands in the estimation of that world: equally despised but considerably less feared. Just imagine what four more years of instinctive deference will do.

On the bright side, dear liberals, you’ll still be able to mock Mormons. They tend not to punch back, which is part of what makes so many of them so successful in life.

Voir enfin:

The Whispers of Democracy in Ancient Judaism

The prayers of the High Holidays rest on personal responsibility—the basis of self-government.

Eric Rosenberg

September 20, 2012

Jews are in the midst of a period known as the Days of Awe, which began on Sunday night with Rosh Hashanah and culminates next Wednesday with Yom Kippur. It seems almost a misnomer to call them « holidays, » though the first marks the Jewish New Year. Rather, they are deeply personal events whose aim is self-reflection, self-improvement and repairing what is broken in daily relationships.

It’s striking how much this most important period on the Jewish calendar shares with that most essential exercise in American democracy. Walt Whitman wrote in the late 1800s that « a well-contested American national election » was « the triumphant result of faith in human kind. » This country’s unique sense of optimism—the view that the future is unwritten and full of possibility, that anything can be achieved—is also the sensibility underpinning the Days of Awe.

On a cosmic level, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the birth of the world. On an individual level, it marks the rebirth of the soul as Jews examine their faults and ask forgiveness from those they have wronged. At heart, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are deeply optimistic events. A major theme in the prayers Jews recite on the High Holidays is the striving to be a better person, with the understanding that we are in control of our future.

As moderns, we take for granted how fundamentally revolutionary the Jews were in arriving at this novel concept about time, destiny and personal responsibility. Until their call to monotheism nearly four millennia ago, the worldview in the Levant was very different. Life was an endless cycle devoted to agrarian pursuits and appeasing warring gods in aid of those pursuits.

Thomas Cahill, in his riveting book « The Gifts of the Jews, » underscores the point: « For the ancients, nothing new ever did happen, except for the occasional monstrosity. Life on Earth followed the course of the stars. And what had been would, in due course, come around again. . . . The future was always to be a replay of the past, as the past was simply an earthly replay of the drama of the heavens. »

Perhaps the most profound gift of the Jews is that they broke down this fatalistic notion of the world, in which people were trapped on a great spinning wheel, with no future or past. In this way, the ancient Jews invented the concept of history in which the future was not an endless cycle but could be steered by our actions in the present. They inserted the individual, and individual responsibility and justice, into the equation.

This ancient Jewish view was a massive shift in how people viewed mankind’s relationship to a deity—and it put responsibility squarely on the shoulders of men and women for their own destiny. This was the end of predetermination and the beginning of personal choice, justice and the quest for liberty. These themes, prevalent in the Jewish liturgy, are on display among the candidates competing for the White House, whatever the political party.

Democracy, Mr. Cahill says, « grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals—subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique and personal destiny. »

Similarly, the University of Chicago historian William F. Irwin lectured in the 1940s that it was the ancient Jewish prophets and their advocacy of freedom that would find an early expression in the Magna Carta and later in the American Bill of Rights. Perhaps that is partly because the ancient Jews had such terrible experiences with monarchs.

Before the Jews swapped their political system—one of a collection of judges—for a monarchy, to be like other Near Eastern governments, the prophet Samuel warned of the predilection of kings for tyranny and over-taxation. A people will buckle under a king, Samuel warned to no avail. « He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will tithe your crops and grape harvests to give to his officials and his servants. He will take your male and female slaves. . . . As for you, you will become his slaves. »

One can hear, without too much strain, the distant echoes of Samuel’s admonitions in Thomas Jefferson’s catalog against King George in the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Rosenberg, a former national correspondent for Hearst Newspapers, is a vice president for Ogilvy Washington.