by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n H<\/span>ezbollah\u2019s black-clad legions goose-step and stiff-arm salute in parade, apparently eager to convey both the zeal and militarism of their religious fascism. Meanwhile, consider Hezbollah\u2019s \u201cspiritual\u201d head, Hassan Nasrallah \u2014 the current celebrity of an unhinged Western media that tried to reinvent the man\u2019s own self-confessed defeat as a victory. Long before he hid in the Iranian embassy Nasrallah was on record boasting: \u201cThe Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win because they love life and we love death.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trumps that Hitlerian nihilism by reassuring the poor, maltreated Germans that there was no real Holocaust. Perhaps he is concerned that greater credit might still go to Hitler for Round One than to the mullahs for their hoped-for Round Two, in which the promise is to \u201cwipe\u201d Israel off the map.<\/p>\n The only surprise about the edition of Hitler\u2019s\u00a0Mein<\/i>\u00a0Kampf\u00a0<\/i>that has become a best seller in Middle Eastern bookstores is its emboldened title translated as \u201cJihadi<\/i>\u201d \u2014 as in \u201cMy Jihad\u201d \u2014 confirming in ironic fashion the \u201cmoderate\u201d Islamic claim that \u201cjihad\u201d just means \u201cstruggle,\u201d as in an \u201cinner struggle\u201d \u2014 as in a\u00a0Kampf<\/i>\u00a0perhaps.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, we in the West who worry about all this are told to fret instead about being \u201cIslamophobes.\u201d Indeed, a debate rages over the very use of \u201cIslamic fascism\u201d to describe the creed of terrorist killers \u2014 as if those authoritarians who call for a return of the ancient caliphate, who wish to impose of 7th<\/sup>-century sharia law, promise death to the Western \u201ccrusader\u201d and \u201cJew,\u201d and long to retreat into a mythical alternate universe of religious purity and harsh discipline, untainted by a \u201cdecadent\u201d liberal West, are not fascists. It is almost as if Alfred Rosenberg has returned in a kaffiyeh to explain why Jews really are apes and pigs, and why we must recapture the spirit of our primitive ancestors.<\/p>\n Next, in the manner that Hitler was to be understood as victimized by the Versailles Treaty, so too we hear the litany of perceived grievances against the Islamic fascists \u2014 George Bush, the West Bank, Gaza, or now Lebanon. But does anyone remember that bin Laden quip,\u00a0four years before<\/i>\u00a09\/11<\/i>, when Mr. Bush was still governor of Texas: \u201cMentioning the name of Clinton or the American government provokes disgust and revulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n E<\/span>ven as we split hairs over whether terrorists flocked to, or were created by, Iraq, the jihadists make no such distinctions between their theaters of operation. Listen to al Qaeda\u2019s Aymin al-Zawahiri: \u201cThe Jihad movement is growing and rising. It reached its peak with the two blessed raids on New York and Washington. And now it is waging a great heroic battle in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even within the Crusaders\u2019 own homes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven within the Crusaders\u2019 own homes\u201d would include, I think, the planned attacks against\u00a0opponents<\/i>\u00a0of the Iraq war, such as Canada and Germany. Their often shrill, and sometimes blatantly anti-American, antagonism to the 2003 war still earned them no exemption from efforts to chop off the head of the Canadian prime minister or to blow up hundreds of Germans on passenger trains.<\/p>\n Here at home we witness \u201cal-Qaedism\u201d \u2014 fanatics shooting Jews in Seattle, murder at the Los Angeles airport, an SUV running over innocent pedestrians in San Francisco or driving over students in North Carolina, sniping in Maryland. And we shrug them all off. Surely such incidents can be explained, are not connected, occur at random \u2014 anything other than the truth that the constant harangues of the Islamic fascists really do filter down, even if randomly and spontaneously, to a number of angry and alienated young Muslim males in the West.<\/p>\n Some cling to the notion that Islamic rage is not the manifestation of an elemental hatred, but is merely about land. That\u2019s about what bin Laden said in 1998 when he urged all Muslims to murder all the Americans: \u201cto kill the Americans and their allies \u2014 civilians and military \u2014 is an obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country \u2014 this until the Asqa Mosque (Jerusalem) and the Holy Mosque (Mecca) are liberated from their grip.\u201d<\/p>\n But the long overdue withdrawal of soldiers from Saudi Arabia (who were out in a godforsaken desert and nowhere near the \u201cHoly Mosque\u201d) had no more effect on al Qaeda than did the Israeli departure from Gaza and Lebanon on Hamas and Hezbollah. As in the case of Hitler\u2019s serial demands for return of the \u201cstolen\u201d German Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia, land was never the real issue. Perceived loss of pride and status, hatred of the Jews, and unbridled contempt for a liberal West were.<\/p>\n T<\/span>he truth is that we are in a pause, a lull in a great storm that broke upon us five years ago on September 11. We are waiting to see when and where and how \u2014 not really if \u2014 the Iranians test their envisioned bomb. \u201cAnother 9\/11\u201d is now part of the lexicon, suggesting that most Americans accept that an amorphous enemy that tries to knock down the Sears Tower, to blow up the Holland tunnel, to explode airliners over the Atlantic, and to slaughter commuters from London to Madrid to the Rhine may finally get lucky once \u2014 and that once could be a death warrant for thousands of Westerners.<\/p>\n After 9\/11 we were at war with a fascist creed that had trumped any damage to the homeland wrought by all earlier enemies, whether Germans, Italians, Japanese, or Russians. But now, five years later, we are in a holding pattern, waiting in a classic\u00a0bellum interruptum<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 whether in exhaustion from this long war in Afghanistan and Iraq, or complacent due to our very success hitherto in preventing jihadists from enacting mass murder in the United States.<\/p>\n So we are in limbo \u2014 a sort of war, a sort of peace. Lulls of this nature are not such rare things in history. The Athenians and the Spartans between 421-415, or the Western Europeans between October 1939 and May 1940, likewise thought the squall had passed \u2014 the respite a sign that the enemy was satiated, or was occupied elsewhere, or had had a change of heart, or that times of transient calm might mean permanent peace<\/p>\n We all wish it were so, but in private also fear that the worst \u2014 whether from al Qaeda, Iran, or their epigones \u2014 is to come.<\/p>\n Our pundits and experts scoff at all this concern over Islamic fascism \u2014 as crude propaganda, neo-conservative war mongering, a veiled agenda to do Israel\u2019s bidding, conspiracies to finish turning America from a republic into an empire, or just old-fashioned paranoia.<\/p>\n Their argument for thinking the danger is slight is that either we have already won, or we don\u2019t really have a credible enemy to defeat other than a few thugs better left to the FBI and federal attorneys: the jihadists may sound like Nazis; but they lack a nation-state and thus the means to harm the West to any great degree. Intent is irrelevant, if the means are absent. Sure, there is a\u00a0Mein Kampf<\/i>, but no\u00a0Wehrmacht<\/i>\u00a0in the Middle East.<\/p>\n T<\/span>here are three rejoinders to this notion that the Islamic fascists are hardly serious enemies, and cannot be compared to the old-time fascists who once started a war that led to 50 million deaths.<\/p>\n First, Islamic fascism is already the creed of the government of an oil-rich and soon to be nuclear Iran. Secular authoritarians like Pakistan\u2019s Pervez Musharraf could easily fall, and the nation\u2019s nuclear arsenal with him, into the hands of the madrassa Islamists. It is not inconceivable to envision several nuclear bombs among one or more theocratic governments in the years to come.<\/p>\n Second, in an age of weapons of mass destruction, global terrorism, and culpable deniability, authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes can, without being traced, subsidize and sanction killers, who in turn, with the right weapons, can kill and maim tens of thousands.<\/p>\n Third, in an interconnected and often fragile world, the mere attempt to blow up trains, jets, and iconic buildings results anyway in millions of dollars in damage to the West: ever more expensive airline security, cancelled flights, and money-losing delays and interruptions in a general climate of fear.<\/p>\n Each time Mr. Ahmadinejad opens his mouth, or Mr. Nasrallah shoots off a primitive rocket, the global stock market can dip, and the price of petroleum spikes. A good dissertation is needed to ascertain how many billions of dollars Ahmadinejad has conned for his theocracy by means of his creepy rhetoric alone, through price hikes on the daily export of his oil. Since this war has progressed, oil has gone up from $25 a barrel to over $70, now adding an additional $500 billion per annum to the coffers of Middle East dictatorships.<\/p>\n Given Iraq, Afghanistan, and the acrimony at home \u2014 so similar to the debate right before Pearl Harbor over the earlier discounted fascist threat to the United States \u2014 we apparently are waiting for the enemy to strike again, before renewing the offensive.<\/p>\n So while we keep our defenses up at home, foster democracy in the heart of the Middle East in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope the globalized march of modernity undermines jihadism faster than it can disrupt the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century, we also wait \u2014 for the next blow that we know will come.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do we really need further convincing of the threat we face? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Hezbollah\u2019s black-clad legions goose-step and stiff-arm salute in parade, apparently eager to convey both the zeal and militarism of their religious fascism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[770],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-10T","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3915,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/worry-about-the-west-not-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":3899,"position":0},"title":"Worry About the West–Not Israel","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The reactions and media coverage coming out of the West regarding this latest war in the Middle East are as bewildering as they are instructive. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., for example, recently said, \"I don't take sides for or against Hezbollah or for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2006"","block_context":{"text":"August 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/august-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3921,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/no-just-land-middle-east-conflict-is-about-failed-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":3899,"position":1},"title":"No Just Land: Middle East Conflict Is About Failed Culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Despite the claims of terrorist organizations, Israel's current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from\u00a0Lebanonand\u00a0Gaza\u00a0well after\u00a0Israel\u00a0had withdrawn from both places. Indeed, if sacred Arab ground were the driving force of the Middle East crisis, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2006"","block_context":{"text":"August 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/august-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3889,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-fascism-and-its-islamic\/","url_meta":{"origin":3899,"position":2},"title":"It’s Fascism–and It’s Islamic","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services George Bush recently declared that we are at war with \"Islamic fascism.\" Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive. Critics of the term chosen by the president, however, should remember\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2006"","block_context":{"text":"September 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/september-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1553,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-wannabe-ottomans\/","url_meta":{"origin":3899,"position":3},"title":"The New Wannabe Ottomans","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services A\u00a0Turkish Islamic group \u2014 the \"Humanitarian Relief Foundation,\" often associated by Western intelligence agencies with terrorist sponsorship \u2014 orchestrated the recent Gaza flotilla. It was hoping for the sort of violent, well-publicized confrontation with the Israeli navy that later followed. Turkish Prime Minister\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2010"","block_context":{"text":"June 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/june-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3908,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-amid-despair\/","url_meta":{"origin":3899,"position":4},"title":"Hope Amid Despair?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A reluctant world begins to confront reality. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Pessimism is now the conventional wisdom about the wars in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0, and, indeed, it is hard to find any good news in the recent ceasefire. Syria\u00a0and\u00a0Iran\u00a0stage celebrations as news emerges from the ruins of southernLebanon\u00a0revealing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2006"","block_context":{"text":"August 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/august-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3784,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/do-we-have-a-strategy-in-the-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":3899,"position":5},"title":"Do We Have a Strategy in the War?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, and a multifaceted one, at that. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It is often said that the United States has neither a long-term strategy in this larger war against terror nor an immediate one in Iraq. Both are unfair charges, since we seem to have both. 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