Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Is Allah Winning?
Is Allah winning? He certainly seems to be doing so. The Islamic State has captured, among other areas, strategic towns in both Iraq and Syria: in Iraq, Ramadi, in Syria, Palmyra. This means that the Islamic State controls a large area of Iraq and Syria.
The Daily Mail on Friday, May 22, carries an article showing how the Islamic State has doubled the area it holds in Syria. The Atlantic shows this map of Syria and Iraq. Observe how close Ramadi is to Baghdad and Palmyra to Damascus. People in Baghdad and Damascus must be considerably concerned with how the war is going. The Worldwide Caliphate is apparently well on the way to achieving its declared objective.
The leader of the religious believers, Caliph Abu Bakr ai-Baghdadi, seems on his way to fulfilling his declared ambitions. He aims at establishing the House of Peace throughout the world. A descendant of Muhammad, he is using the handbook Muhammad left behind to do that, and is following his example. His followers have also learned well, following the instructions to the letter. The Islamist Jihadists seem to be proving that their god, Allah, is as Supreme as they claim.
Many people believe al-Baghdadi is the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam, who will appear at the same time as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Together, they will fight against the false Messiah, or the Antichrist. This belief is another example of the genius of Muhammad in tying the belief systems of Islam into those of Judaism and Christianity, to claim and supersede them. So far, no one seems to be claiming to be the returned Jesus Christ of the Second Coming. But the Mahdi is well underway with military successes that seem to back up his claims. Every victory means more Jihadists will be joining him to fight for Allah and his last and greatest Prophet, Muhammad. A religious war seems to appeal to many.
According to AlMonitor, the Senate Armed Services Panel has just held a hearing on the subject of the strategy to be followed against the Islamic State. It was stated that it would appear that now is the time to engage in combat. If the United States doesn’t lead, no one else steps up either. Panel Chairman, John McCain (R-Ariz.) called for a complete overhaul of US strategy.
According to an article in the Military Times, in the opinion of retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who was executive officer to retired Army General David Petraeus, in 2011 when the U.S. withdrew its troops from Iraq, they had just about defeated al Qaeda. The withdrawal led to the creation of the Islamic State. In his opinion, the only way to deal with the Islamic State is with “boots on the ground.”
What do you think about the present strategy of the U.S. against the Islamic State? Is the question about the Middle East for prospective candidates for the Presidency, “Did the withdrawal of troops from Iraq create the vacancy now filled by the Islamic State?” Ought the U.S. stay out of the Middle East?
Published in General
The South does have a mostly homogenous Shia population. I’m wondering if this is part of their calculations, because if I were them I’m not sure I’d want to take on responsibility for Ramadi. Yes, too close to Baghdad, but also no oil, let IS have it and alienate the population, and then hopefully turn their eyes to the KSA and become a common rather than mostly Iraqi problem.
(For eg, the KSA has more weapons than just about anybody else in the neighbourhood except for Israel – if I was Iraq I’d want the KSA finding it in their immediate interest to directly fight ISIS rather than leaving it to me. The KSA attacking Houthis down South does me zero good.)
The point is they may not see (or read) the Koran the way you do. Who’s to say that they’re wrong and you’re right?
As you may have noticed Islam is, in theory, completely theologically atomised.
It totally fits into the Marxist “base creates superstructure” pov rather than the other way round.
I can tell you that on the personal level of everyday life, the present day is much better than it was when the culture was based on the ideas of a few people, usually men.
The First and Second World Wars were both undertaken by nominally Christian societies. I can remember prayers in Church asking God to help “our” side. I have no doubt the Germans were doing the same as they worshiped the same God.
What do you think loosened the Church’s (Kirk’s?) vice like grip on Scotland and Scottish life? My feeling is science, but what would you say it was?
But are we envisioning it run by Baghdad? If so, are we envisioning cleansing the last of the Sunnis from Baghdad? Maybe you can show me what you mean on a map.
Well, we don’t even have to wonder, because we know many in the Basra region have been pushing for autonomy, and it seems like a completely reasonable idea. Except that the central government hasn’t wanted it. If it could be negotiated in some gradual and peaceful way, it seems the obvious way forward. This doesn’t seem the ideal moment for calm, thoughtful negotiations, though.
Wouldn’t you try to run through Jordan before turning your eyes to KSA?
Exactly, you have hit the nail right on the head. Muhammad was a genius in that he understood the need to have a uniting ideology if you want to keep people together and build a society. He gave his Arab people that in the form of Islam and their own Holy Book, the Qur’an. He had studied Judaism and Christianity, and it probably was obvious to him that they each had a uniting figure in Moses and Jesus Christ.
Karl Marx and Lenin are the holy men of Communism, as is Mao of China.
Apparently the number of unaffiliated people in the United States is growing. Last number I saw quoted was 23%. As more and more people live in cities and feel no social pressure to attend church, numbers drop. As people pay taxes for social services administered by the government to help in difficult life crisis, there is less need for charity from churches of elsewhere. For instance, education, health services, unemployment insurance, help for the widows and orphans, all services the church used to provide.
In other words, as the culture of society changes, so too does the place of the church in people’s lives.
You are correct, Omega! I had assumed that the Shiites in Iraq were of mainly Persian decent, but I have checked now and find that the Iraqis are ethnically a mixture of Arabs, Persians, and a few others. This makes sense as Iraq lies between Arabia and Persia. The difference is between the Arab Iraqi Sunnis and the Arab Iraqi Shiites. And you are correct also in saying that the Sunnis have always ground down the Shia. Those old enmities do last a long time, don’t they.
Thank you, Claire, for the article, and for your comments. It is difficult to understand why the United States is standing back and letting what is happening in the Middle East continue. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world and carries a lot of clout. It’s like a parent standing back and letting teenagers destroy their rooms and each other.
It’s a huge responsibility on the US, and at present it is obvious the States are not accepting it. In fact, seem to be rejecting it.
Very good point! Especially considering that the borders of Iraq were imposed without consideration of the population divisions. It looks as if the different peoples of Iraq are redefining the borders themselves.
You are right, there are many ways of looking at the Qur’an. The Ahmadyidda Muslims have already had their Mahdi come and reform their idea of Islam. Islam has as many different interpretations as does Christianity. As do all religious systems, as a matter of fact.
I take the Qur’an literally when I read it. Muhammad is clear in his instructions. It seems to me that many of the people who have interpreted it, are kindly people trying to put a kindly spin on it. Which is good.
Up until the end of the Second World War, everyone was expected to go to church every Sunday. If they didn’t, they were frowned upon. After the war, life seemed to change radically, and church attendance fell away.
This didn’t mean that they were all believers. In fact, I strongly suspect that many weren’t. Many people seem to be able to compartmentalize their belief systems. Science one box, religious belief another.
Do they need it to be 100% Shia or do they need it to be Shia enough?
I don’t know how accurate this map is, but it seems to show a reasonable level of homogeneity in the South? There’s no neat line, and still some obvious areas of conflict (Samarra), but it might beat trying to hold onto Ramadi as well.
But something has changed – the central Govt seems to be a lot less committed to holding places like Anbar and Nineweh than it used to be. Mosul, Ramadi – it’s starting to look like a pattern. Either they’re cutting their losses, or they’re setting it up so that Iran can come in as a response to a catastrophe.
Saudi seems more vulnerable to me – more social divisions to exploit.
Also more valuable wrt loot.
As long as we have a “no boots on the ground” policy, ISIS will continue to win. This will be a catastrophe for the Middle East and will set up for a much bigger war in the future. A few months ago I thought we needed to put a Maneuver Division on the ground to win. I see nothing that tells me otherwise. We can’t do this with just bombing or Special Ops or both. We will rue the day we let this cancer metastasize.
Apropos of nothing, but the most populous Muslim-majority countries are still Indonesia and Malaysia, and as far as I know they haven’t contributed very much to the wars in the Middle East.
Islamic civilization is superior to modern Western civilization in many respects, especially in conviction: put a group of armed young men devoted to Allah up against a group of armed young men fighting for gay marriage, “progress”, and new iPhones. One side believes in the eternal, to the point where they will live and die at the command of their leaders, gladly, joyfully. The other side believes when you’re dead, you’re dust, has no commitment to anything really transcendent, and will keep asking when they can get back to their Xbox. I know which side I’d bet on in the long run.
Not yet, but those countries still take Islam very, very seriously. Malaysia is the only country that comedian Jeff Dunham was banned from doing his “Achmed the Dead Terrorist” routine. He put a beret on the puppet, and called him “Jeaquemed the French Terrorist”, a thinly veiled workaround.
The larger point being that Islamic countries are getting more Islamic, not less. See: Turkey and it’s not-so-secret support of ISIS. It’s probably inevitable that more of these populations will get into the Jihad game.
Not if you pay any attention to the fighting it doesn’t. The GoI fought hard in Ramadi for most of a year. They pulled back in the face of a devastating assault, but are preparing to retake it. Almost all of the fighting is taking place in Sunni areas.
I mean, there’s a pattern; in an extensive war in a Sunni area, Iraq wins some fights and loses others. Thus, the losses are all in Sunni areas, but drawing animus is like claiming that inner city Cleveland doctors must be racist because all the patients that die under their care are from ethnic minorities.
The vast bulk of Muslims strongly agree with MJ.
You can argue about the killing being Islamic (I think that it’s incorrect, but although I don’t think that ISIS are justified, I do think that there are times when killing is justified by Islam; the criteria aren’t all that different from Christianity, which is not a coincidence). You can argue that when they set the jizya at levels where it’s unpayable and thus murder Christians en masse, that that’s complying with the letter of the Koran (or take the Atlantic’s apology for them and pretend that the few Christians remaining are much more meaningful than they are).
There’s nothing in the Koran, though, that justifies you burning your sex slave alive because she won’t engage in extreme sex acts. Even before ISIS, the 9/11 bombers going to strip clubs and such was a healthy reminder of the limits to their Islamic devotion, but ISIS have taken the reveling in obvious sin to new levels.
As you know, my church services refer to God as Allah in their Arabic speaking portions. We were doing so before Islam existed. Neither Allah, nor the specifically Muslim God wins when Muslims are murdered, their economies trashed, and society torn apart.
OK, I can already hear your eyes rolling from here, but, when I read about:
I picture a prequel to Armageddon.
(And, no, I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat.)
Emphasis on the “nominally.” The Christian influence was very weak in both Germany, France, and Russia before WWI. WWII was fundamentally a battle of monstrous, atheistic tyrannies — in Germany, the USSR, and Japan. The world is far, far worse due to the decline of Christianity.
Ah, yes, the wonders of Hindu India, with its Thuggee and Sati and “untouchables.” Not to mention its centuries of enslavement to Muslim conquerors, before the British came along.
No, thank you. Give me that ol’ time religion, it’s good enough for me.
I’m nothing more than an amateur observer of the Middle East and the broader “clash of civilizations” with the Muslim world, but I’m very troubled by the attitude (e.g. posts #6 & 7) that, to borrow a phrase, “the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.” I have grave concerns about Islam, and question the ability of modern Western civilization — whether of the secular or Christian flavor — to coexist peacefully with the Muslim world. But wiping out the Muslims is no answer.
If you haven’t yet, I urge you to watch Peter Robinson’s interview of Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis at Uncommon Knowledge. Mattis is an extraordinary warrior who repeatedly led Americans in combat in the Middle East. One of his comments that struck me was that every time he engaged in combat in the Middle East, he had Muslim Arab allies fighting at his side.
There are plenty of Muslim good guys, Arab and otherwise. We want them on our side, and we want them to know that they can look to us for help against the likes of ISIS and Iran. If there is going to be anything other than eternal conflict between Islam and the West, we need to support our friends in the Middle East.
Well, Muslims are people, and they can have differing opinions. Muslims are not robots programmed to follow the Koran and Hadith to the letter, and the interpretation of their texts can change. For example, the tribal leaders in al-Anbar thought Al Qaeda in Iraq was great – until AQI started demanding droit de seigneur with their daughters, and brutally enforcing Islamic law. They took another look at the Americans, who came off as honorable, and thus the Anbar Awakening occurred.
I refuse to believe ISIS propaganda saying that they are the only true Muslims.
I hope you’re right James, and I hope they’re wise enough to win the peace as well.
The root problem of trying to build an army out of any Arab nation is that Arabs are tribalists. Nobody trusts anyone who is not family, or at least the same tribe. Soldiers who do not trust their squad mates will run when things go wrong.
You can try to work around the problem by building tribally-based units. But one, they won’t cooperate well with units from other tribes (that trust thing, again), and two, they are sensitive to casualties, because heavy casualties could cripple the tribe. You will never, ever, see a tribally-based unit fight a Thermopylae, or even a Rorke’s Drift.
The only thing that has ever united Arabs is religion. And that advantage belongs to ISIS.
The Caliphate reminds me a bit of the Kingdom of Münster, an episode of the Reformation. While the Caliphate might last longer than a year, eventually its radicalism will stir up more ME countries against it.
If they were only killing each other, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, they also like to one-up each other by killing innocent people in our own and other countries.
Sure, Red, but you aren’t a Muslim. Why do you think that you are right to read it in this manner? Why do you think that people who do not read it literally are wrong?
For comparison: are the only real Christians the ones who believe that God literally created the earth in six days?