Toward a truce with the Muslim
world By Mark LeVine
It is
time for the United States to declare a truce with the
Muslim world, and radical Islam in particular.
This may sound like a naive, even defeatist
statement in the context of the 9-11 Commission Report's
reminder that the United States remains very much at war
with "Islamist terrorism" and the ideas behind it. Yet a
truce (Arabic hudna) rather than an increasingly
dangerous "clash of civilizations" is the only way to
avoid a long, ultimately catastrophic conflict. And it's
up to Europe to be the good broker.
Indeed,
there is no chance for a halt in the "war on terror", or
any fundamental change in US foreign policy as long as
George W Bush is president. Even if John Kerry wins the
presidential election this November, the possibility
that he might initiate such a transformation is slim.
However, there is one major difference - at least
rhetorically - between the two possible presidencies:
Kerry has made a point of saying that he would "listen"
to European allies and strive to build a common approach
to combating terrorism.
European leaders face
the threat of an increasingly bloody conflict with
Muslim extremists thanks to the continent's imperial
past in the region and, more important today, their
perceived support for US policies in Israel/Palestine,
Afghanistan, and Iraq. They would be wise to suggest
that president Kerry call a truce so that the United
States, the European Union, and more broadly the "West"
can have the time collectively and publicly to explore
the root causes of the violence against them that
emanates from the Muslim world - something the 9-11
Commission should have, but did not, do. At least
there's a chance Kerry might listen, especially if the
war in Iraq continues to spiral out of America's
control.
There are many kinds of truces, most
not relevant to the situation facing the United States
today. Some of the earliest truces, such as the
(aborted) Thirty Years' Treaty during the Peloponnesian
War of the 5th century BCE, were made only out of
tactical necessity and collapsed as soon as the balance
of forces changed. Such a truce - during which both
sides would attempt to gain an advantage before
reigniting hostilities - would surely be a disaster in
our world.
Other truces, such as those that
ended the Korean War in 1953 or the 1973 Arab-Israeli
war, became by default unsatisfactory political
resolutions to otherwise insoluble conflicts. A truce
like this almost certainly will end in renewed violence
because the roots of the war on terror go to the core
values underlying US/Western policies in the Middle
East. Decades ago, the US began an affair with a
sociopathic form of Wahhabi Islam, ultimately giving
birth to the bastard child of "Islamist terrorism" that
now, as in most lurid, made-for-TV dramas, wants to kill
its parents.
Clearly, a different kind of truce
is needed; one that signals the first step in a genuine
reappraisal of US (and to a lesser extent European) core
positions and interests as well as those of Muslims, so
that genuine peace and reconciliation become
conceivable. There is some historical precedent for this
kind of truce in Islam. The Prophet Mohammed agreed to
the first Muslim truce in 628. Known as the Treaty of
Hudaybiyah, it was between the nascent Muslim community
and the Meccan pagans, and lasted for two years before
the Meccans broke it by attacking Muslim Bedouin tribes.
During the truce, however, the Muslims respected its
terms, even though many of them felt it to be unfair.
More important, during the past three decades an
increasingly permanent Muslim presence in Europe
gradually led most Muslims to consider that region not
dar al-harb (the Abode of War, the traditional
Muslim categorization of all non-Muslim lands), but
dar al-hudna - a land of truce between Muslims
and non-Muslims - or even dar al-Islam, a land of
peace where Muslims can feel at home.
Indeed,
however dangerous the presence of a few thousand
extremists out of a European Muslim population more than
10 million strong, the reality is that Muslims
increasingly think of Europe as a terre de
mediation (land of mediation) between Muslims and
the larger world. A European-initiated hudna
might be the first step in allowing Muslims to feel the
United States has the potential to play a similar role -
but only if major European governments pressed for it,
leading the way by reappraising and transforming their
own policies toward Muslim lands.
From the US
and European side, a meaningful hudna with Islam
would include (but not be limited to) the following
steps:
First, just as most every mainstream
Muslim personality has condemned Muslim extremism, the
next US president must be prodded by his European
counterparts to take the important psychological step of
admitting US responsibility for the harm decades of
support for dictatorship, corruption and war have caused
ordinary Muslims, especially in the Middle East.
Second, the US, the EU and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization should halt all offensive military
actions in the Muslim world and outline a serious plan
for the removal of troops from Muslim countries,
including Afghanistan and Iraq. (These could be
replaced, where necessary, by robust United Nations
peacekeeping forces or UN-assisted transitional
administrations.) The hunt for Osama bin Laden,
al-Qaeda, and related terror networks would then be
transformed from a war of vengeance into what it always
should have been: a vigorous international effort led by
the US, the UN and, where relevant, European and other
governments to apprehend, prosecute and punish people
and groups involved in the September 11, 2001, assaults
and similar attacks.
Third, all military and
diplomatic agreements and aid to Middle Eastern
countries that aren't democratic or don't respect the
rights of the peoples under their control should be
suspended. Yes, this means for Israel as well as Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other "allies" and "partners".
This is crucial to stopping the regional arms race and
cycle of violence that make peace and democratic reform
impossible.
Finally, the hundreds of billions of
dollars that would have been devoted to the "war on
terror" should be redirected toward the kind of
infrastructural, educational and social projects the
9-11 Commission Report argues are key to winning the
"war on terror".
A truce does not equal
capitulation to terrorists or letting Muslims off the
hook for crimes committed in the name of their religion.
Certainly, European leaders were right to reject the
"truce offer" purportedly made by Osama bin Laden last
April on the condition that European countries remove
their troops from Muslim lands and refuse to support the
United States. Criminals can't offer truces, and bin
Laden and other groups that use terroristic violence are
indeed international criminals whom the world community
has an obligation to bring to justice.
Beyond
the criminal minority, the 9-11 report was right to
demand that Muslims worldwide confront the violent and
intolerant version of their religion that is poisoning
their societies and threatening the world at large.
Religious leaders and ordinary citizens alike must
engage in soul-searching about the toxic tendencies
within their own cultures similar to the one they demand
of Americans and the West more broadly.
States
as well as communities and cultures can make truces,
even if criminals can't. And the report should have
added specific policy prescriptions to enable such a
process to begin: for their part, Muslim political
leaders should begin a process of rapid development of
participatory civil societies and hold internationally
monitored elections within specified (short) time
periods or their regimes will face censure and sanctions
by the international community. This is the surest way
to build a foundation for defeating terrorism.
While it's hard to imagine the US drafting such
a policy, the EU, most of whose members don't have the
deep ties with either Israel or the oil princedoms of
the Persian Gulf that anchor the current system, could
lead the way. The need for such leadership is
illustrated by various recommendations of the 9-11
Commission that demonstrate that the US is
institutionally incapable of taking bold policy steps on
its own. As someone whose research was cited by the
report - page 466, note 16 - in a manner that completely
missed the point of my argument, I find it unsurprising
that the report would go on to position the US as an
innocent bystander to a "clash within a civilization"
whose solution "must come from within Muslim societies
themselves".
Fortunately, leading European
countries such as France, Germany, and now Spain, don't
have a powerful financial stake in the "heavy" or
militarized globalization that, since September 11,
increasingly skews US and British policymaking. In fact,
through the EU, they have created a "Euro-Med" area
whose viability depends on expansive economic and
political development, and so on increasing interchange
with the Muslim world. Let's only hope they will have
the courage to explain to president Kerry (or even Bush)
that, without both an acceptance of responsibility for
past policy and the transformation of future policy
toward the Islamic regions of our planet, there will be
no solution to terrorism, only continued violence and
war. No matter how "smarter and more effectively" the
next US president might hope to prosecute such a war, it
would be no more winnable than Vietnam or the war on
drugs, with far higher losses likely in the near future.
Mark LeVine is associate professor of modern
Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies at
the University of California, Irvine. He is the author
of the upcoming book Why They Don't Hate Us
(Forthcoming: Oxford: Oneworld Publications) and a
contributing editor at Tikkun magazine. This article is
used with permission ofTomdispatch.
