In praise of the caliphate

When these claims turned out to be false, to buy time the Bush administration invented new rationales: the imperative to overthrow the tyrant Saddam Hussein and the urgent necessity of planting the seeds of democracy in the Middle East. Those too have run their course and morphed into stale excuses. Additionally, it is now becoming increasingly difficult for the administration to hide from the public the fact that up to fourteen US military bases are being constructed in Iraq, which implies a permanent US military presence there.

With American death toll in Iraq nearing 2,200, Americans are getting angrier by the day, as illustrated by a letter published in The New York Times on December 9: "As much as I respect General (Wesley) Clark and appreciate his views on our situation in Iraq, I fear he's making the same mistake that's been made before by so many others: expounding thoughtful, complex answers to a non-existent question. We invaded Iraq on false pretences, and that gives us no authority or expertise to make things right there. We're certainly responsible for the damage and carnage in Iraq, and we are obligated to pay for it. But stabilizing and repairing Iraq will have to be done by someone else. We're the invaders, the occupiers, the problem -- we're not going to fix anything by remaining there. The country that we Americans need to make right is our own, because our disastrous invasion was based on cherry-picked intelligence, exaggerations, innuendo, relentless badgering and outright lies. General Clark looks toward Iraq for an answer to the war, but the truth lies within our own borders."

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According to The New York Times (December 12), the Bush administration has found one perfect word to scare the Americans once again: "caliphate." The Times adds that although policy hawks in the Pentagon have used the term "caliphate" internally since the planning stage of the war in Iraq, the administration's public use of the word has increased this summer and fall.

Referring to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Vice President Dick Cheney said in Lake Elmo: "They talk about wanting to re-establish what you could refer to as a seventh century caliphate" to be "governed by Shariah, the most rigid interpretation of the Koran." Added Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last Monday: "Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East, and which would threaten legitimate governments in Europe, Africa, and Asia."

The Times notes: "Specialists on Islam say the word ("caliphate") is a mysterious and ominous one for many Americans, and that the administration knows it. "They recognise that there is a lot of resonance when they use the term 'caliphate,'" said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst and now a scholar at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, said that the word had an "almost instinctive fearful impact." President Bush, who probably has difficulty pronouncing the word "caliphate," the Times adds, repeatedly describes the caliphate in his speeches, as he did in a speech last week when he said that the terrorists want to establish "a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain." Not surprisingly, Mr. Bush's approval rating shot up five percentage points last week to 42 percent.

It is unfortunate that as an antidote to falling poll numbers for the war in Iraq and for the President himself, the Bush administration has decided to once again resort to outlandish tactics to scare Americans into supporting its war in Iraq. President Bush's claim that the Al Qaeda terrorists are bent on establishing "a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain," stretches the bounds of absurdity. Yet, as the Times points out, from Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, key administration officials keep on repeating the message. The inclusion of Christian Spain, which was under Muslim rule in the Middle Ages and is now a member of the European Union, into the terrorists' "caliphate," is a deliberate attempt to tap into the reservoir of anti-Muslim bigotry that exists in the western world.

According to the Zogby International poll quoted in the Times, only 6 percent of people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates sympathise with Al Qaeda. If Osama Bin Laden is so popular in the Islamic world, why is he hiding in some remote area since 2001? The world of Islam is not monolithic. Muslim "East Pakistan" and "West Pakistan" could not remain as one nation, not more than 24 years. Osama Bin Laden, and Al Qaeda, which has little or no support in most Muslim countries, do not have the capability to whip a racially, culturally, and linguistically disparate Muslim world into an Islamic empire.

The bogey of a "totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain," is another cruel hoax the Bush administration is perpetrating on the American public to justify the war in Iraq. For the Bush administration to peddle the theory that this fringe Sunni Islamic group, Al Qaeda, with little popular support, can establish a "caliphate" or empire that includes Christian Spain, Shia Iran, Hindu India, Buddhist Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, is absurd. This is reminiscent of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's now infamous warning in the pages of The New York Times in 2002 that American vacillation on attacking Iraq could result in a "mushroom cloud" response from Iraq.

The Bush administration's doublespeak is undermining America's credibility in the world. On one hand it floats the idea of troop reduction in Iraq; on the other, it keeps on building American military bases at a furious pace, which guarantees a permanent US military presence in Iraq. On one hand it sends the President's personal emissary Karen Hughes to Muslim nations to improve America's image there; on the other, it attempts to scare the Americans by reminding them that the Muslims are out to re-establish the 7th century and 13th century caliphates.

This clumsy attempt could not have been more misguided. Islam had two Golden Ages: in the 7th and 13th centuries. Europe was in the Dark Ages in the 13th century. It was the Islamic world, with Baghdad at its centre, which spearheaded the world's thirst for knowledge. Intellectually starved Europeans made the hazardous trip to Baghdad in pursuit of knowledge. All that ended with the invasion of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258. The 13th century Islam was good for the world, Mr. President!

The 7th century Islam was even better. It was not only Islam's first golden age; it was the world's too. Europe at that time was oscillating between paganism and Christianity. As Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was revolutionising Arabia through the new religion of Islam, Europe was content with the legends of King Arthur. As Islam was granting hitherto unheard of rights to women, such as the right to inherit property and divorce their husbands, concepts unthinkable in Europe, Europeans were content to amuse themselves with monster epics such as "Beowulf." Ironically, what the Bush crowd do not seem to realise is that they should be praising, promoting, and begging the Muslims to emulate the 7th and the 13th centuries, not condemning them.