Friday, November 18, 2005
Worshippers and reporters, and credibility
Terrorists in Iraq -- in this case, at least, the word "insurgent" is utterly inapplicable -- murdered 52 Shiites today while they were at prayer. Terrorists also went after journalists again, attacking the wall around the Hama hotel in Baghdad with two suicide bombers. Both these attacks strike me as strategically silly. The former, because the Sunnis in Iraq cannot win a civil war against the Shiites and the Kurds even if the defeatists in the United States win the political struggle and force a retreat. The latter, because the international journalists are fueling the domestic opposition to the war.
We will not defeat Islamic jihadism until we discredit it, or it discredits itself. This is not the same thing as popularity. Rather, it requires that Muslims regard jihadism as an ideological dead end. In forcing them to wage their war in the heart of the Arab world, they are -- by dint of their utter disregard for anything that ordinary people hold dear -- destroying their own credibility. This can happen even if anti-Americanism increases, just as we helped along the ultimate failure of Communism's credibility even as anti-Americanism rose throughout the Cold War.
We will not defeat Islamic jihadism until we discredit it, or it discredits itself. This is not the same thing as popularity. Rather, it requires that Muslims regard jihadism as an ideological dead end. In forcing them to wage their war in the heart of the Arab world, they are -- by dint of their utter disregard for anything that ordinary people hold dear -- destroying their own credibility. This can happen even if anti-Americanism increases, just as we helped along the ultimate failure of Communism's credibility even as anti-Americanism rose throughout the Cold War.
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