They NEED to portray Ahmadinejad as the Evil One [View All]

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Neo-conservatism is more than simply a set of ideas - it is a kind of political theology. Its major political principles derive from a critique of modern liberal and secular society. Deeply influenced by the fall of Germany's Weimar Republic, Leo Strauss (a German who emigrated to the US) critiqued Weimar's leaders as being insufficiently ruthless in suppressing the Nazis; they played by the rules and were defeated.

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In emphasizing the flaws of the Weimar Republic, Strauss struck at what he identified as the three pillars of modern liberal thought: "moral relativism", "multiculturalism" and "utilitarianism". Of the three, moral relativism (Strauss wrote) constitutes the greatest threat to the strength of Western society. If all views are held to be equally legitimate and all views have equal value, Strauss believed, then no person's view can be an expression of the "truth". German National Socialism was not just another point of view, it was an absolute evil. ... Gulled by their liberal secular beliefs, by the bankrupt notion that all ideas are equally credible, and yearning for the rewards of a sleep-inducing materialist society, the leaders of Weimar passed out of office - and into the camps.

"Moral relativism", Strauss believed, would lead inevitably to the eclipse of idealism in the West, undermining the sense of national sacrifice that motivates any society. The atomization of social life through the adoption of "multiculturalism" and the softening of social strength by providing the greatest good for the greatest number would allow people to retreat into their own consumerist bubble.

Bereft of beliefs, adrift in a sea of multiple cultures, fed on the hedonism that followed from the accumulation of material goods, the West would implode. Inevitably "moral relativism", "multiculturalism" and "utilitarianism" will so undermine any society, Strauss argued, that a government's first and only priority would be economic management. The danger of "moral relativism" is that it inevitably leads to political acquiescence. ... Strauss was convinced he was right, and for good reason. He looked on aghast as Weimar's intellectual inheritors (Neville Chamberlain, Charles Lindbergh, the Bund and others) transformed their moral relativism into political appeasement - which led to the deaths of untold millions.

Strauss's answer was that modern societies must shun moral relativism. By implication, Strauss seemed to be saying, the only way for secular and democratic societies to stimulate idealism and national sacrifice is for political leaders to cast national goals in terms of good and evil. Because tyrannies do not hold the same values as republics, the tyrants are always wrong, we are always right, and there can be no excuse, no justification, and no reason behind a tyranny's actions. ... The enemies of those with values are those who have none. Only by understanding this threat - and insisting that the response to it be uncompromising - can evil hope to be defeated.

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There is little subtlety in the West's presentation of Islam as a religion of barbarians: Christian evangelical programs have regularly described Islam as a "religion of violence" that "rejects our value system". Franklin Graham, the son of the popular American preacher Billy Graham (and a regular visitor to the Bush White House), was outspoken in condemning Islam in the wake of the September 11 attacks, conflating the faith of the attackers with Islam in general: "We did not attack Islam, but Islam attacked us. The god of Islam is not the same god. He's not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different god, and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion," he said.

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Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry are the co-directors of Conflicts Forum, a London-based group dedicated to providing an opening to political Islam. Crooke is the former Middle East adviser to European Union High Representative Javier Solana and served as a staff member of the Mitchell Commission investigating the causes of the second intifada. Perry is a Washington, DC-based political consultant, author of six books on US history, and a former personal adviser to Yasser Arafat.

How to lose the 'war on terror'


By Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke

(March '06, ongoing)

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PART 1: Talking with the 'terrorists'
Apart from Israel, there are five political movements and governments in the Middle East of undeniable importance: Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The governments of the West don't talk to any of them, being unable, or unwilling, to distinguish between legitimate Islamist political groups and terrorists. The result is fatal ignorance about the realities of the Middle East, and policies that drive Muslim moderates into the arms of the radicals. Here is what Hamas and Hezbollah have to say.

PART 2: Handing victory to the extremists
The takfiris - those who view all Westerners as infidels and condemn moderate Muslims who talk with the West - have their counterparts in the West: those who fail to distinguish between terrorists and nationalists, between al-Qaeda and legitimate Islamists. With this "they're all the same" attitude, the takfiris in both camps undermine their own causes.

PART 3: An exchange of narratives
After five years of "war on terror" and a staggering expenditure of lives and money, there remains in the West an indefinable yet definite sense of anxiety that somehow the war has gone terribly wrong. Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke explore the intellectual foundations of the confrontation in order to address this anxiety.

PART 4: Acts of faith
The genius of neo-conservatism in the US is that its adherents have an unshakable faith that they are right. Thus opposing views to their vision of a secular Middle East based on Turkey's model are dismissed as "babbling". The voices of Islam, though, while they may be exiled from the halls of government, cannot be banished from the street or the mosque.

PART 5: The politics of indignation
The architects of the West's response to September 11, 2001, are feeling angst because it is slowly dawning on them that they got the "war on terrorism" all wrong, misled, perhaps, by mistaken analogies to the collapse of Soviet communism. So far they have not absorbed what Islamic revivalists are saying.