The American ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three consular officials were murdered in Beghazi. The diplomats didn’t deserve their tragic fate. The country that sent them did.
The asinine efforts by the US to introduce ‘democracy’ in the Middle East and indulge in ‘nation building’ have been backfiring on American and British soldiers for 10 years. Now it’s the diplomats’ turn.
In any country at any time, the murder of ambassadors has been treated as an instant casus belli. Even Genghis Khan’s boys would usually spare the population of any town they captured – unless their envoys had been killed there. Because the Mongols regarded such an act as unforgivable treachery, they would then slaughter everybody within the town walls: men, women, children, even domestic animals. In a less remote and more Western example, the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo triggered the First World War.
This time the US administration, speaking through Hilary Clinton, hastened to declare that nothing of the sort is on the cards. ‘This was an attack by a small and savage group, not the people and government of Libya,’ she said. That may be true. But then Ferdinand too was only murdered by Gavrilo Princip, not the people and government of Bosnia.
Actually, though undoubtedly savage, the group wasn’t all that small. The attack succeeded thanks to a coordinated diversion created by a hundreds-strong mob, screaming Islamist slogans, trying to scale the embassy walls and set the building on fire. The well-rehearsed protesters acted as beaters on a shoot: they drew the embassy staff out. Led by Mr Stevens, they tried to seek safety outside the compound and walked straight into the terrorists’ guns and rockets.
In parallel, there was widespread, precisely timed mob action in Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt and in Palestine. Frenzied crowds burned US flags, screaming sweet endearments, such as ‘Obama, Obama, we are here for the triumph of Islam’ and ‘We are all Osama.’
There was a ring of truth to these statements, and yet it’s unlikely that the Obama administration will take the murderers’ accomplices at their word. The official line, enunciated by Mrs Clinton, is that they aren’t ‘all Osama’. They’re rather lamentably misguided persons who haven’t yet realised they’re all democrats at heart.
Acting in the capacity of psychoanalyst, America is there to help the wild-eyed fanatics get in touch with their inner pro-democracy selves. Hiding in the innermost crevices of the murderers’ souls, their gentle, feminine egos will then emerge out of their inflamed innards and go to work for the good of the world.
One has to admit, with sadness, that 9/11 scrambled what passes for the brains of those in charge of US foreign policy. They simply don’t have the mental wherewithal to put the events of the last decade into the context of the previous 1,400 years of history. This has been marked by Islam’s ever-present, unrelenting hostility to the West and everything it holds dear. What has changed from time to time is ways in which this hostility was manifested.
These have depended mainly on the relative strength of the two adversaries, and also on the amount of passion they could bring to bear on the historical moment. When the pendulum swung the Muslims’ way, they conquered the southern half of Europe. A swing to the other end brought about the Crusades. And so it went, back and forth, for almost a millennium and a half.
It’s only to obtuse ignorance that one can ascribe the urge to convert Islam to Western pluralism. And when ignorance is fortified by proselytising activism, a catastrophe beckons. These are impossible premises from which a sensible policy could be worked out.
The only sane way for the West to handle the Muslim threat is to acknowledge that it is indeed a threat. The very nature of Islam runs against the grain of our religion, culture, philosophy, politics, general aspirations.
Islam demands docile obedience and precludes free enquiry. If the Muslims were allowed the same latitude we have in the West, Islam would instantly collapse as a social and political force. The Muslims are perfectly aware of this, which is why their world can’t be reformed, transformed or even mollified. It should be left to its own vices and devices.
But there ought to be an important proviso: we’ll leave them alone only if they reciprocate. If they choose instead to act out their murderous anti-Western fantasies, they must be punished for it, pure and simple. And if the punishment is to have any deterrent value, it ought to be suitably apocalyptic.
Thus military force shouldn’t be used to build nations, introduce democracy and encourage the Muslims to think along the lines of mum and apple pie. It must be used for punitive and educational purposes only. Spare the Tomahawks and spoil the Muslims, should be the guiding principle.
Forget about encouraging the mythical moderate elements within the Islamic world. The only suitable response to the murder of the US ambassador is to unleash hell on the country in which this crime was committed. The two US carrier groups parked in the Gulf, along with other forces, possess every tactical means to, say, reduce Beghazi to rubble.
Then a message must be sent to the Muslim orbi et urbi: Any hostile action against Western lives and property, inside or outside the Middle East, will automatically lead to the destruction of the entire infrastructure of the country implicated, no matter how obliquely, in such action.
The US will then no longer have to police the Middle East – it’ll police itself. A few massive raids would encourage its own law enforcement to arab-spring into action. Moreover, any collateral damage would be negligible compared to the decade of war stupidly waged by Americans, and to the more decades certain to follow.
That’s how governments led by statesmen would act. But Obama won’t let such trivialities distract him from the presidential campaign. Romney will of course try to make political capital out of the incident, but, should he become president, he’ll immediately begin his own campaign for a second term. The foreign-policy part of it will be driven by the democracy-seekers and nation-builders in his entourage, so no clear understanding of the situation is likely to emerge.
Meanwhile, Americans and other Westerners, in or out of uniform, will continue to die. To quote Seneca, ‘None of it can be prevented; all of it can be despised.’