Over the past nine years,
Britain has pursued a
markedly different foreign
policy, justifying
our actions at least as
much by reference to values as to
interests. The defining characteristic of
today's world is its interdependence.
Whereas the economics
of globalization
are well
matured, the politics
of globalization are
not. Unless we articulate
a common
global policy based
on common values,
we risk chaos threatening
our stability,
economic and political,
through letting
extremism, conflict
or injustice go unchecked.
The consequence
of this thesis is a policy
of engagement, not isolation; and
one that is active, not reactive.
Confusingly, its proponents and
opponents come from all sides of the
political spectrum. So it is apparently
a "neoconservative" or right wing
view to be ardently in favor of
spreading democracy around the
world. Others on the right take the
view that this is dangerous and
deluded -- the only thing that matters
is an immediate view of national
interest. Some progressives see intervention
as humanitarian and necessary;
others take the view that, provided
dictators don't threaten our citizens
directly, what they do with
their own is up to
them.
The debate on
world trade has
thrown all sides into
an orgy of political
cross-dressing. Protectionist
sentiment
is rife on the left. On
the right, there are
calls for "economic
patriotism." Meanwhile
some voices,
left and right, are
making the case for
free trade not just on
grounds of commerce
but of justice.
The true division in foreign policy
today is between those who want the
shop "open" and those who want it
"closed;" between those who believe
that the long-term interests of a country
lie in it being engaged -- and those
who think the short-term pain of such
a policy and its decisions is too great.
This division has strong echoes in
debates not just over foreign policy
and trade but also over immigration.
Progressives are stronger on the
challenges of poverty, climate
change, and trade justice. It is impossible
to gain support for our values
unless the demand for justice is as
strong as the demand for freedom;
and the willingness to work in partnership
with others is an avowed
preference to going it alone, even if
that may sometimes be necessary.
We will not ever get real support for
the tough action that may well be
essential to safeguard our way of life
unless we also attack global poverty
and environmental degradation or
injustice with equal vigor.
Neither in defending this interventionist
policy do I pretend that mistakes
have not been made or that
major problems do not confront us.
I also acknowledge that the standoff
between Israel and Palestine
remains a genuine source of anger in
the Arab and Muslim world that goes
far beyond usual anti-Western feeling.
Yet it is in confronting global terrorism
today that the sharpest debate and
disagreement is found. Nowhere is the
supposed "folly" of the interventionist
case so loudly trumpeted as in this
case. Here, so it is said, as the third
anniversary of the Iraq conflict took
place, is the wreckage of such a world
view. Under Saddam Iraq was "stable."
Now its stability is in the balance.
Ergo, it should never have been done.
This is the conventional view of
foreign policy since the fall of the
Berlin Wall. Countries should manage
their affairs and relationships according
to their narrow national interests.
The basic posture represented by this
view is not to provoke, to keep all as
settled as it can be, and to cause no
tectonic plates to move. It has its soft
face in dealing with issues like global
warming or Africa and reserves its
hard face only if directly attacked by
another state, which is unlikely. It is a
view which sees the world as not without
challenge but basically calm, with
a few nasty things lurking in deep
waters, which it is best to avoid. It
believes the storms have been largely
self-created.
This is the majority view of a large
part of Western opinion, certainly in
Europe. According to this opinion, the
policy of America since 9/11 has been
a gross overreaction; George Bush is as
much if not more of a threat to world
peace as Osama bin Laden; and what
is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, or
anywhere else in the Middle East is an
entirely understandable consequence
of U.S./U.K. imperialism or worse, of
just plain stupidity. Leave it all alone
or at least treat it with sensitivity and
it would all resolve itself in time; "it"
never quite being defined, but just
generally felt as anything that causes
disruption.
This world view -- which I would
characterize as a doctrine of benign
inactivity -- sits in the commentator's
seat, almost as a matter of principle. It
has imposed a paradigm on world
events that is extraordinary in its attraction
and its scope. The effect of this
paradigm is to see each setback in Iraq
or Afghanistan, each revolting terrorist
barbarity, each reverse for the forces of
democracy or advance for the forces of
tyranny as merely an illustration of the
foolishness of our ever being there; as a
reason why Saddam should have been
left in place or the Taliban free to continue
their alliance with al Qaeda.
Those who still justify the interventions
are treated with scorn.
Then, when terrorists strike in the
nations like Britain or Spain, who supported
such action, there is a
groundswell of opinion formers keen
to say, in effect, that it's hardly surprising
-- after all, if we do this to "their"
countries, is it any wonder they do it
to "ours"?
So the statement that Iraq or
Afghanistan or Palestine or indeed
Chechnya, Kashmir, or half a dozen
other troublespots is seen by extremists
as fertile ground for their recruiting
-- a statement of the obvious -- is
elided with the notion that we have
"caused" such recruitment or made
terrorism worse, a notion that, on any
sane analysis, has the most profound
implications for democracy.
The easiest line for any politician
seeking office in the West today is to
attack American policy. Earlier this
year, as I was addressing young Slovak
students, one got up, denouncing
U.S./U.K. policy in Iraq, fully bought
in to the demonization of the United
States, utterly oblivious to the fact that
without the U.S. and the liberation of
his country, he would have been
unable to ask such a question, let alone
get an answer to it.
I recall the video footage of
Mohammed Sadiq Khan, the man
who was the ringleader of the 7/7
bombers in London. There he was,
complaining about the suppression of
Muslims, the wickedness of America
and Britain, calling on all fellow
Muslims to fight us. And I thought:
here is someone, brought up in this
country, free to practice his religion,
free to speak out, free to vote, with a
good standard of living and every
chance to raise a family in a decent
way of life, talking about "us," the
British, when his whole experience of
"us" has been the very opposite of the
message he is preaching.
There was something tragic but
also ridiculous about such a diatribe.
He may have been born here. But his
ideology wasn't. And that is why it has
to be taken on, everywhere.
This terrorism will not be defeated
until its ideas, the poison that warps
the minds of its adherents, are confronted,
head-on, in their essence, at
their core. By this I don't mean telling
them terrorism is wrong. I mean
telling them their attitude to America
is absurd; their concept of governance
pre-feudal; their positions on women
and other faiths, reactionary and
regressive; and then since only by
Muslims can this be done: standing up
for and supporting those within Islam
who will tell them all of this but more,
namely that the extremist view of
Islam is not just theologically backward
but completely contrary to the
spirit and teaching of the Koran.
But in order to do this, we must
reject the thought that somehow we
are the authors of our own distress;
that if only we altered this decision or
that, the extremism would fade away.
The only way to win is to recognize
this phenomenon is a global ideology;
to see all areas in which it operates as
linked; and to defeat it by values and
ideas set in opposition to those of the
terrorists.
A reforming book. The roots of global
terrorism and extremism are indeed
deep. They reach right down through
decades of alienation, victimhood, and
political oppression in the Arab and
Muslim world. Yet this is not and
never has been inevitable. The most
remarkable thing about reading the
Koran is to understand how progressive
it is. I speak with great diffidence
and humility as a member of another
faith. I am not qualified to make any
judgments. But as an outsider, the
Koran strikes me as a reforming book,
trying to return Judaism and
Christianity to their origins, rather as
reformers attempted with the
Christian Church centuries later. It is
inclusive. It extols science and knowledge
and abhors superstition. It is
practical and way ahead of its time in
attitudes to marriage, women, and
governance.
Under its guidance, the spread of
Islam and its dominance over previously
Christian or pagan lands was
breathtaking. Over centuries it founded
an empire, leading the world in discovery,
art, and culture. The standard
bearers of tolerance in the early
Middle Ages were far more likely to be
found in Muslim lands than in
Christian.
But by the early 20th century, after
renaissance, reformation, and enlightenment
had swept over the Western
world, the Muslim and Arab world
was uncertain, insecure, and on the
defensive. Muslims began to see the
sorry state of Muslim countries as
symptomatic of the sorry state of
Islam. Political radicals became religious
radicals and vice versa. Those in
power tried to accommodate the
resurgent Islamic radicalism by incorporating
some of its leaders and some
of its ideology. The result was nearly
always disastrous. The religious radicalism
was made respectable, the political
radicalism suppressed, and so in
the minds of many, the cause of the
two came together to symbolize the
need for change. So many came to
believe that the way of restoring the
confidence and stability of Islam was
the combination of religious extremism
and populist politics.
The extremism may have started
through religious doctrine and
thought. But soon, in offshoots of the
Muslim brotherhood, supported by
Wahabi extremists and taught in some
of the madrassas of the Middle East
and Asia, an ideology was born and
exported around the world.
The different aspects of this terrorism
are linked. The struggle against terrorism
in Madrid or London or Paris is
the same as the struggle against the
terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon
or the PIJ in Palestine, or rejectionist
groups in Iraq. The murder of the innocent
in Beslan is part of the same ideology
that takes innocent lives in Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, or Libya. And when
Iran gives support to such terrorism, it
becomes part of the same battle with the
same ideology at its heart.
Clash about civilization. Which
brings me to the fundamental point.
"We" is not the West. "We" are as
much Muslim as Christian or Jew or
Hindu. "We" are those who believe in
religious tolerance, openness to others,
to democracy, liberty, and
human rights administered
by secular courts.
This is not a clash
between civilizations. It
is a clash about civilization.
It is the age-old battle
between progress and reaction,
between those who embrace and see
opportunity in the modern world
and those who reject its existence;
between optimism and hope on the
one hand, and pessimism and fear on
the other. And in the era of globalization
where nations depend on each
other and where our security is held
in common or not at all, the outcome
of this clash between extremism
and progress is utterly determinative
of our future. We can no more
opt out of this struggle than we can
opt out of the climate changing
around us. Inaction, pushing the
responsibility on to America, deluding
ourselves that this terrorism is an
isolated series of individual incidents
rather than a global movement and
would go away if only we were more
sensitive to its pretensions; this too is
a policy. It is just that; it is a policy
that is profoundly, fundamentally
wrong.
And this is why the position of so
much opinion on how to defeat this
terrorism and on the continuing struggle
in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
Middle East is, in my judgment, so
mistaken.
It ignores the true significance of
the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fact is: Given the chance, the people
wanted democracy. OK, so they
voted on religious or regional lines.
That's not surprising, given the history.
But there's not much doubt what all the
main parties in both countries would
prefer, and it is neither theocratic nor
secular dictatorship. The people --
despite violence, intimidation, inexperience,
and often logistical nightmares --
voted. Not a few. But in numbers large
enough to shame many Western
democracies. They want government
decided by the people.
And who is trying to stop them? In
Iraq, a mixture of foreign jihadists, former
Saddamists, and rejectionist insurgents.
In Afghanistan, a combination of
drug barons, Taliban, and al Qaeda.
In each case, the United States, the
U.K., and the forces of many other
nations are there to help the indigenous
security forces grow, to support
the democratic process, and to provide
some clear bulwark against the terrorism
that threatens it.
Of course, and wholly wrongly,
there are abuses of human rights, mistakes
made, things done that should
not be done. There always were. But at
least this time, someone demands
redress; people are free to complain.
So here, in its most pure form, is a
struggle between democracy and violence.
People look back on the three
years since the Iraq conflict; they point
to the precarious nature of Iraq today
and to those who have died -- mainly
in terrorist acts -- and they say: How
can it have been worth it?
But there is a different question to
ask: Why is it so important to the
forces of reaction and violence to halt
Iraq in its democratic tracks and tip it
into sectarian war?
The answer is that the reactionary
elements know the importance of victory
or defeat in Iraq. Right from the
beginning, to them it was obvious. For
sure, errors were made on our side. It is
arguable that de-Baathification went too
quickly and was spread too indiscriminately,
especially amongst the armed
forces. Though in parenthesis, the real
worry back in 2003 was a humanitarian
crisis, which we avoided; and the pressure
was all to de-Baathify faster.
But the basic problem from the
murder of the United Nations staff in
August 2003 onwards was simple:
security. The reactionary elements
were trying to derail both reconstruction
and democracy by violence.
Power and electricity became problems
not through the indolence of
either Iraqis or the multinational
forces but through sabotage.
These were not random acts. They
were and are a strategy. When that strategy
failed to push the multinational
forces out of Iraq prematurely and failed
to stop the voting, they turned to sectarian
killing and outrage.
They know that if they can succeed
either in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere
else wanting to go the democratic
route, then the choice of a modern
democratic future for the Arab or
Muslim world is dealt a potentially
mortal blow. They play our own media
with a shrewdness that would be the
envy of many a political party. Every act
of carnage somehow serves to indicate
our responsibility for disorder, rather
than the act of wickedness that causes it.
What happens in Iraq or
Afghanistan today is not just crucial
for the people in those countries. In
their salvation lies our own security.
This is a battle of values and
progress; and therefore it is one we
must win.
