The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (18 page)

There was another, perhaps more important, factor driv-ing bin Ladin. In the past, Muslims fighting against the West could always turn to the enemies of the West for comfort, encouragement, and material and military help. Now, for the first time in centuries, there is no such useful enemy. Bin Ladin and his cohorts soon realized that, in the new configuration of world power, if they wished to fight America they had to do it themselves. In 1991, the same year that the Soviet Union ceased to exist, bin Ladin and his cohorts created Al-Qa‘ida, which included many veterans of the war in Afghanistan. Their task might have seemed daunting to anyone else, but they did not see it that way. In their view, they had already driven the Russians out of Afghanistan, in a defeat so overwhelming that it led directly to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having overcome the superpower that they had always regarded as more formidable, they felt ready to take on the other; in this they were encouraged by the opinion, often expressed by bin Ladin among others, that America was a paper tiger.

Muslim terrorists had been driven by such beliefs before. One of the most surprising revelations in the memoirs of those who held the American Embassy in Tehran from 1979 to 1981 was that their original intention had been to hold the building and the hostages for only a few days. They changed their minds when statements from Washington made it clear that there was no danger of serious action against them. They finally released the hostages, they explained, only because they feared that the president-elect, Ronald Reagan, might approach the problem “like a cowboy.” Bin Ladin and his followers clearly have no such concern, and their hatred is neither constrained by fear nor diluted by respect. As precedents, they repeatedly cite the American retreats from Vietnam, from Lebanon, and—the most important of all, in their eyes—from Somalia. Bin Ladin’s remarks in an interview with John Miller, of ABC News, on May 28, 1998, are especially revealing:

We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier, who is ready to wage cold wars and unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions. It also proves they can run in less than twenty-four hours, and this was also repeated in Somalia. . . . [Our] youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers. . . . After a few blows, they ran in defeat. . . . They forgot about being the world leader and the leader of the new world order. [They] left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat.

For Usama bin Ladin, his declaration of war against the United States marks the resumption of the struggle for religious dominance of the world that began in the seventh century. For him and his followers, this is a moment of opportunity. Today, America exemplifies the civilization and embodies the leadership of the House of War, and like Rome and Byzantium, it has become degenerate and demoralized, ready to be overthrown. But despite its weakness, it is also dangerous. Khomeini’s designation of the United States as “the Great Satan” was telling, and for the members of Al-Qa‘ida it is the seduction of America and of its profligate, dissolute way of life that represents the greatest threat to the kind of Islam they wish to impose on their fellow Muslims.

But there are others for whom America offers a different kind of temptation—the promise of human rights, of free institutions, and of a responsible and representative government. There are a growing number of individuals and even some movements that have undertaken the complex task of introducing such institutions in their own countries. It is not easy. Similar attempts, as noted, led to many of today’s corrupt regimes. Of the fifty-seven member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, only one, the Turkish Republic, has operated democratic institutions over a long period of time and, despite difficult and ongoing problems, has made progress in establishing a liberal economy and a free society and political order.

In two countries, Iraq and Iran, where the regimes are strongly anti-American, there are democratic oppositions capable of taking over and forming governments. We, in what we like to call the free world, could do much to help them, and have done little. In most other countries in the region, there are people who share our values, sympathize with us, and would like to share our way of life. They understand freedom and want to enjoy it at home. It is more difficult for us to help those people, but at least we should not hinder them. If they succeed, we shall have friends and allies in the true, not just the diplomatic, sense of these words.

Meanwhile, there is a more urgent problem. If the leaders of Al-Qa‘ida can persuade the world of Islam to accept their views and their leadership, then a long and bitter struggle lies ahead, and not only for America. Europe, more particularly Western Europe, is now home to a large and rapidly growing Muslim community, and many Europeans are beginning to see its presence as a problem, for some even a threat. Sooner or later, Al-Qa‘ida and related groups will clash with the other neighbors of Islam—Russia, China, India—who may prove less squeamish than the Americans in using their power against Muslims and their sanctities. If the fundamentalists are correct in their calculations and succeed in their war, then a dark future awaits the world, especially the part of it that embraces Islam.

A
FTERWORD

The nucleus of this book was an article published in
The New Yorker,
in November 2001. In bringing it up to date and developing it from a long article to a short book, I have adapted a few passages from previous publications, especially some articles published in
Foreign Affairs
and
The Atlantic Monthly.
The rest is new.

There remains the pleasant task of thanking those who have been helpful in the preparation and production of this book. I am especially grateful once again to my relentless and invaluable editor, Joy de Menil, and to my assistant, Annamarie Cerminaro, for their unfailing support and help; to my friend Buntzie Churchill for her critical reading of my earlier drafts and her suggestions for their improvement; to Eli Alshech, a graduate student at Princeton who helped in various ways in the process of research and preparation. Any faults that remain are of course entirely my own.

N
OTES

I
NTRODUCTION

C
HAPTER II

C
HAPTER III

C
HAPTER IV