THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 57, April 23, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DEFEATING RADICAL ISLAM: THE HERCULEAN STRATEGY
By Raymond Ibrahim
IN ORDER TO SUCCESSFULLY DEFEND OURSELVES AGAINST & DESTROY THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT THAT IS WAGING A
GLOBAL JIHAD AGAINST WESTERN CIVILIZATION & OTHER NON-MUSLIM CULTURES, WE MUST ELIMINATE THE ISLAMIST
IDEOLOGY WHICH CREATES ISLAMIST JIHADI IN THE FIRST PLACE. VICTORY OF AMERICA & THE WEST IN THE
FOURTH WORLD WAR REQUIRES ERADICATION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF ISLAMISM, THE ROOT CAUSE OF OUR DIFFICULTIES
WITH THE ISLAMIC WORLD.
FULL STORY:
Will the recent killings of al-Qa'ida leaders Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri have any tangible effects on
the "war on terror"? U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who referred to the slayings as "devastating blows to al-Qa'ida in
Iraq" certainly seems to think so.
The situation is reminiscent of when al-Qa'ida leader Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in early 2008. Then, U.S. Congressman
Peter Hoekstra issued a statement saying al-Libi's death "clearly will have an impact on the radical jihadist movement."
And who could forget all the hubbub surrounding the killing of that notorious decapitator, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Then, almost every major politician, including President George W. Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
exulted.
It is, of course, a good thing to eliminate terrorists. But will the deaths of individual Islamist leaders including Ayman
al-Zawahiri or Osama bin Laden himself eliminate the ideology that creates them in the first place?
History provides an answer:
Consider the progress of the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's largest and oldest Islamist organization. Founded in 1928
in Egypt by Tariq Ramadan's grandfather, Hasan al-Banna, it originally boasted only six members. In the following
decades, in part thanks to the radical writings of Sayyid Qutb whom al-Qa'ida quotes liberally in their many writings
the Brotherhood, though constantly clashing with Egypt's government, grew steadily.
As leaders, both Banna and Qutb were eventually targeted and killed by the Egyptian regime. Yet, the Brotherhood
continued thriving underground. Then, to the world's surprise, the partially-banned, constantly-suppressed
Brotherhood managed to win 88 out of 454 seats in Egypt's 2005 parliamentary elections making them the largest
opposition bloc in the government.
After two of its most prominent leaders were killed, after thousands of its members have been harassed, jailed or
otherwise eliminated, today the Brotherhood is stronger and more influential and secure than at any other time in its
history.
Palestinian Hamas, itself an offshoot of the Brotherhood, furnishes another example. Founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin, Hamas has since been labeled a terrorist organization by several governments (including that of the United
States) most notably for Hamas' suicide operations against Israel. Yassin was eventually assassinated in March, 2004.
The result? Far from fizzling away, Hamas, like the Brotherhood, went on to win a major landslide election in the January,
2006, Palestinian parliamentary elections, establishing it even more than previously.
Then, of course, there is the Ayatollah Khomeini the original poster-boy for radical Islam. Overthrowing Iran's secular
government in 1979, Khomeini transformed Iran into a theocratic state precisely what all Islamists yearn to see for the
rest of the world. From precipitating the American hostage crisis to issuing a fatwa condemning a novelist to death to
taunting the U.S.A. which he dubbed "the Great Satan" for one decade, Khomeini was the West's bane.
Today, over 20 years after his death, not much has changed in Iran: Sharia law still governs; Sharia-endorsed enmity
towards the West still thrives. In fact, the only real difference is that Iran's nuclear aspirations are nearly fulfilled.
There are numerous other historical examples, both past and present, where popular Islamist leaders were either killed
(or died naturally), only for their Islamist movements to grow and consolidate more power.
Ayman al-Zawahiri summarizes this phenomenon well. Asked once in an interview about the status of Osama bin Laden
and the Taliban's Mullah Omar, he confidently replied:
"Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual
or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and
Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and
those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and
Sheikh Osama bin Laden may Allah protect them
from all evil are merely two soldiers of Islam in the
journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth
[Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time
(The Al-Qa'ida Reader, p.182).
In short, Islamists whether Khomeini, Banna, Qutb, Yassin, bin Laden, Zawahiri, al-Baghdadi, or al-Masri are not
the cause of hostilities; they are symptoms of a much greater cause the "struggle between Truth and Falsehood
[that] transcends time." Individually killing them off which is nice only temporarily treats the symptom; it does not
permanently eliminate the cause that motivates them.
Thus the West would do well to take a lesson from Hercules' legendary encounter with the multi-headed Hydra-monster.
Every time the mythical strongman lopped off one of its serpentine heads, two new ones grew in its stead. To slay the
beast once and for all, Hercules had to cauterize the stumps with fire, thereby preventing any more heads from sprouting
out.
Similarly, while the West continues to lop off Islamist "monster-heads" most recently, al-Baghdadi and al-Masri to
achieve true and lasting victory, the Fascist ideologies that generate these monster-heads must first be cauterized.
In the meantime, believing that the deaths of individual terrorist leaders (who are seen as martyrs living in eternal bliss)
will somehow hamper the progress of radical Islam is no less erroneous than thinking the deaths of American leaders will
hamper the American way of life.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim is Associate Director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, and guest
lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in Pajamas Media, April 20, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-ΰ-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/2641/defeating-radical-islam-hercules)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
April 23, 2010
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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