Iraqi guerrilla strikes against American forces have escalated sharply in recent weeks, especially since the rocket attack on the Rashid Hotel where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, increasing both the body-bags and the political costs of war for President George Bush Jr. That there will be little respite from violence as Ramzan proceeds is evident from reports that angry young Muslim men from several European and West Asian countries, inspired if not actually organized by Al-Qaeda, are hot-footing to Iraq for jihad against America.
Much of this is understandable to people and governments who could not find merit in Washington’s case for war against the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussain. Many point out that the Iraqis are a proud people, heir to a seven thousand year old history, who are resisting the oil-greedy Americans out of national pride, not loyalty to the brutal Saddam Hussain. I do not know the strength of Iraqi nationalism, but I agree that hatred of the occupying Americans drives the suicide squads of Baghdad, just as it attracts non-Iraqi Muslim youth to that city.
Discerning Americans are beginning to realize that Islam is a force they will have to engage with, sooner rather than later. They are fearful when they learn that Islamic fundamentalists are teaching potential recruits that America is the “Great Satan,” and hence a fitting object of holy war. They also know in their hearts that they belong to a soft State – one that can mindlessly bomb a nation into the Stone Age, as in the case of Afghanistan – but also one that is unwilling to pay the costs of controlling the ground, as in the case of Iraq.
Washington’s increasingly obvious failure in Afghanistan, where Taliban are regrouping and warlordism is rampant; its pussy-footing with Saudi sponsors of Wahabi fundamentalism; and its weak-kneed capitulation to the likes of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, have convinced Islamic militants that America is unworthy of either fear or respect. This is why US officials are beginning to fear that the Twin Towers tragedy can revisit them, and incidents of the kind that India grapples with daily can become a reality in their own back-lanes. The Americans, of course, have no solutions for their fears, because courage is not a commodity that can be bought off the shelf in a supermarket. They will just have to go through their karma.
My own concern is with the larger, hitherto unrecognized, significance of Iraq as a stage for the eventual meltdown of the two great monotheisms that have so tormented the world (not to mention their own people) since their inception. Here I would like to warn readers not to fall for callow slogans like Samuel Huntington’s so-called clash of civilizations. To begin with, the two conflicting entities do not meet traditional Indian standards of civilization, but more fundamentally, the crises gnawing at their insides are internal and not external. Thus, what appears on the surface to be a physical war on the streets of Baghdad is on another plane two separate wars restricted to the adherents of these exclusivist faiths.
The crisis in the white western world, centred round the Christian ethos despite lip service to pluralism, is too obvious to be seriously denied. The liberating material quest unleashed by the Renaissance has long exhausted itself, and even though the relentless drive for higher profits continues unabated, the limits of growth without general welfare are beginning to manifest themselves in poverty, starvation and growing unemployment in cities whose streets are supposed to be paved with gold. Far worse for the West is its complete spiritual vacuum, which has left whole societies bereft of moral anchorage. This is best exemplified in the sexual scandals ripping apart parish after parish across the globe, which cannot be overcome merely by financially compensating the victims of abuse.
Christian leaders may recall that the total degeneration of the Roman State made it possible for their faith to strike root, after which they perpetuated themselves by the sword. Today, when American generals and writers try to invoke the Bible against the Koran, and posit Iraq as a form of the Crusades, they would do well to realize that well-exposed sex scandals and rumours of financial malpractices have made a mockery of the Church’s moral pretensions. Such an exposed entity does not inspire heroism or devotion. Nor can the White House invoke ordinary nationalism, because Americans never perceived a threat from Saddam Hussain. President Bush, therefore, will have to explain to his people why he forced them to war. And the European nations that sided with the war, and even those that opposed it, will alike have to face the issue of whether Christianity can be posited as a viable moral and spiritual force against Islam. Or will they admit that God, like Marx, is dead?
Islam, notwithstanding its apparent vigour, faces serious problems. Perceptive Western scholars have observed that Islam has been on the retreat in the political and economic spheres for over four centuries, since Europeans overcame Arab domination of the high seas. Islam since then has sought to recover its former glory, not by equipping itself for the contemporary world, but by seeking retreat into a pristine past when faith and power were united in the person of the Prophet and the Pious Caliphs. This dominant revivalist impulse has caused the failure of all reformist movements in Muslim societies all over the world.
The Iraq crisis, however, is of an entirely different genre. In the backdrop of Vietnam it may not be unreasonable to presume that the US may withdraw from the country if the costs of war prove too high. The Muslim world will then have to face the fact that the old Iraq cannot be put together again. Unlike Iran, which was a cohesive ethnic-religious society that could invite Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow Shah Reza Pahlavi, Iraq is a Shia majority nation that was ruled by a Sunni oligarchy. But its tallest Shia leader (who was by no means accepted by all Shia clerics) was murdered soon after his return to the country, making it unlikely that faith and power can be united in Iraq in the foreseeable future.
Sunnis may also not easily accept the loss of power accompanying the fall of Saddam Hussain. With no eminent secular leader to unite the two sects, the so-called Iraqi nationalism may soon come apart. Wishful thinking alone cannot guarantee the cohabitation of a people bent upon divorce. The ethnic Kurds, on their part, will not miss an opportunity to strike a blow for freedom.
In Iraq, the Muslim world will have to acknowledge that Islam cannot transcend sectarian differences and serve as the basis of a viable polity. It will have to accept that faith and power must remain separate realms if a coherent society is to be built upon the remains of America’s failed imperialism. Islam will also have to answer questions regarding its social objectives, particularly the meaning of law, justice and order in the Islamic worldview, especially in the context of women. And as it strives to reinvent a proud ancient people, Islam will have to decide if its scorn for national boundaries is compatible with the sovereignty of the modern nation-state.
The Pioneer, 4 November 2003