THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 113, June 3, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TWENTY YEARS OF ILLUSION ABOUT ISLAMISM
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
AMERICAN FOREIGN & NATIONAL-SECURITY POLICY VIS-A-VIS THE ISLAMIC WORLD: THE U.S.A. & THE MIDDLE EAST IN A CHANGING WORLD -- THE
BROAD LINES OF U.S. GOVERNMENT POLICY TOWARD ISLAM & THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT WHICH WERE LAID DOWN TWENTY YEARS AGO &, SINCE THAT TIME,
HAVE BEEN ADHERED TO WITH REMARKABLE CONSISTENCY -- A FUNDAMENTALLY FAULTY ASSUMPTION AS THE ABIDING HOPE OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF STATE & NEARLY THE WHOLE ESTABLISHMENT: BELIEF THAT ISLAMISTS CAN BE AGENTS TO "BROADEN POLITICAL PARTICIPATION" -- THE
REALITY: A DEEPLY ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL & ANTI-DEMOCRATIC IDEOLOGY SUCH AS ISLAMISM CANNOT BRING ON DEMOCRATIZATION. SUCH AN
IDEOLOGY SUPPORTS DICTATORSHIP, NOT CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY.
FULL STORY:
The broad lines of U.S. government, other government, and generally establishment policy toward Islamism were laid down on June 2, 1992, when Assistant Secretary
of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Edward P. Djerejian, delivered a major speech, "The U.S. and the Middle East In a Changing World," at Meridian
House International, in Washington, D.C. After some throat clearing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kuwait War and the Arab-Israeli conflict, Djerejian
gave what has been called "the first major U.S. government statement on fundamentalist Islam" and, in just over 400 words, sketched out a policy that has been held
to with remarkable consistency over the subsequent 20 years.
Djerejian started by noting that "the role of religion [in the Middle East] has become more manifest, and much attention is being paid to a phenomenon variously
labeled political Islam, the Islamic revival, or Islamic fundamentalism." He praised Islam "as one of the world's great faiths," while noting that its cultural legacy "is a
rich one in the sciences, arts, and culture and in tolerance of Judaism and Christianity." Djerejian then analyzed the Islamist movement:
"In countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa, we
… see groups or movements seeking to reform their societies in
keeping with Islamic ideals. There is considerable diversity in
how these ideals are expressed. We detect no monolithic or
coordinated international effort behind these movements.
That diversity is fine, he went on, so long as there is
". . . real political dialogue between government, on the one
hand, and the people and parties and other institutions, on
the other. Those who are prepared to take specific steps
toward free elections, creating independent judiciaries,
promoting the rule of law, reducing restrictions on the press,
respecting the rights of minorities, and guaranteeing
individual rights will find us ready to recognize and support
their efforts, just as those moving in the opposite direction
will find us ready to speak candidly and act accordingly. …
Those who seek to broaden political participation in the
Middle East will, therefore, find us supportive, as we have
been elsewhere in the world."
Indeed, Washington ". . . has good, productive relations with countries and peoples of all religions throughout the world, including many whose systems of
government are firmly grounded in Islamic principles." But the U.S. government is "suspect of those who would use the democratic process to come to power,
only to destroy that very process in order to retain power and political dominance. While we believe in the principle of 'one person, one vote,' we do not
support 'one person, one vote, one time'."
Djerejian then adduced the general rule, that the concern is political, not religious. In his words:
". . . religion is not a determinant -- positive or negative --
in the nature or quality of our relations with other countries.
Our quarrel is with extremism and the violence, denial,
intolerance, intimidation, coercion, and terror which too
often accompany it."
Which leads to the take-away quote of the speech:
". . . the U.S. government does not view Islam as the next
'ism' confronting the West or threatening world peace.
That is an overly simplistic response to a complex reality.
The Cold War is not being replaced with a new
competition between Islam and the West."
Comment: Djerejian makes a fundamentally faulty assumption here, namely, that Islamists can be agents to "broaden political participation." That illusion remains,
two decades later, the abiding hope of the U.S. State Department and nearly the whole of the establishment. No, simply put, a deeply anti-constitutional and
anti-democratic ideology cannot bring on democratization. Islamists have picked up on this hope and, invariably, including right now in the campaign for the run-off
presidential elections in Egypt, present themselves as constitutional democrats.
But they never are.
© Daniel Pipes 2012
Originally Published inNational Review Online, June 2, 2012
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the DanielPipes.org, June 3, 2012
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/06/twenty-years-of-illusion-about-islamism
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
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
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and President of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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