The Caucasus is a region where the memory of war is all too recent and its horrors all too familiar, yet despite that its return is seemingly all but inevitable again. For centuries located at the meeting point of three empires – the Russian/Soviet, the Iranian/Persian and the Turkish/Ottoman, the Caucasus been a battle ground where these empires fought each other and fought to subdue the ethnic Caucasian nations and tribes, while the Caucasians fought each other. The temporary stability enforced by the Soviet Union evaporated with it and the 90s saw a number of conflicts ignite or reignite in the region. As recently as a year or two ago it seemed that the Caucasus was again heading for a lasting stability, besides the ongoing, although hushed up, Chechen insurgency that is, as Westerm influence grew in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and Russia itself was still keeping up some appearance of embracing Western style democracy.

How much things have changed in a year.

Another war in the Caucasus is on the way. And not necessarily in the shape that a scan of current news headlines may bring to mind.

Russia reloads.

By default the suspicion for any destabilisation of the region first falls on Russia, the “re-emerging empire”, as the Georgian President Sakashvilli recently referred to it. So far its “re-emergence” has mostly been by non-military means, ie via its all but official foreign policy of energy blackmail. Re-enabling it’s military options however is evidently on the minds of Moscow’s policy makers too. Russia has increased its national defence budget from 140 billion rubles ($5.2 billion) in 2001, to 870 billion rubles ($32.4 billion) in 2007. Thats an increase of more than 6 times. What these numbers translate to in terms of strategic capabilities is of course another matter – how this money is spent is shrouded in secrecy, as tends to be the case in authoritarian regimes, and budget secrecy has the downside of massive built in inefficiency. (In light of which perhaps Putin should rethink his personal motto of “Get rich and keep quiet”. What is that about?) The Russian military consists of between 1.3 and 4 million people, depending on how you define “military” – an area where the Russians like to get creative, depending on the impression they seek to project – which suggests an expensive luxury.

Said Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov last month:

“When I came to the Defense Ministry, its budget was some 140 billion rubles. This was in 2001. The figure that has almost been agreed upon for 2007 is about 870 billion rubles. As they say, compare and feel the difference”

Georgian overconfidence.

One Caucasian nation that could really be “feeling the difference” is of course Georgia, incidentally the fastest-arming country in the world, which has two regions attempting to secede and join Russia – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia is making a nice profit from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that went online in June, and is expected to produce about 1.5% of its national income. Much like increased oil revenue has allowed the Russians its military spending indulgences, Georgia has been using its newly acquired funds (recently offset by the Russian blockade) for a massive beefing up of its military, Jane’s reports:

Under Minister of Defence Irakli Okruashvili, Georgian militarisation is proceeding apace. Spending has risen from less than USD25 million in 2002 to an exceptional USD337 million in 2006; from 0.7 to 5 per cent of GDP. Maximum force strength has been increased and an army reserve of 100,000 trained civilians is being created. Significant stocks of armoured vehicles, artillery and attack helicopters have been procured. A major ‘NATO-standard’ base has been constructed close to Abkhazia and another is underway near South Ossetia.

It now seems that it is Georgia that has overplayed its hand with its recent posturing over the Russian spy scandal, while attempting to draw international attention to Russian encouragement of its separatist regions. Not only have the Russians come down hard on Georgia, international condemnation has also been falling on the Georgians for initially escalating the affair. Counting on Western support President Mikhail Saakashvili may be preparing for an attempt to regain control of the break away regions by force. The Russians on the other hand are drawing attention to the various new nations whose separatist movements the West has encouraged – most recently Montenegro, and most importantly in the near future, Kosovo – as examples of Western self-serving hypocrisy.

Burning for vengeance in the Land of Eternal Fire.

But of course the possibility of confict between Georgia and Russia is a surprise to noone right now. In fact there is another conflict in the Caucasus which seems far more certain.

Also benefitting nicely from the BTC pipeline, but lacking the media attention, is Georgia’s neighbour, Azerbaijan, the economy of which is expected to grow 18% as a result of the pipeline. Like Georgia it is spending much of its profits on arming itself. On October 18th Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev announced that Azerbaijan’s defense expenditures will rise to $1 billion in 2007. Thats compared to $300 million in 2005. The Azeris fought a war with Armenia after the parliament of its Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has an Armenian majority, voted to join Armenia back in 1988. The first Nagorno-Karabakh War ended in 1994, claiming about 35,000 lives. In that conflict Armenia’s military proved superior. Now Azerbaijan is getting busy attempting to correct its disatvantage. Armenia on the other hand, which has no oil to sell, had a defence budget of $160 million this year and their entire national budget in 2005 was $930.7 million, which is less than next year’s defence budget alone for the Azeris. The status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region remains disputed, with no country officially recognising its independence. Armenia and Azerbaijan remain at a stand off, technically still at war, however the regions outskirts are currently a site of daily skirmishes and sniper attacks which, together with landmines claim about a 100 lives a year. 2006 was seen as a window of opportunity for resolving the conflict with diplomacy, as neither nation had an election this year. The window is fast closing. Some progress has been made in negotiating the return of areas that Armenia occupied during the last war that were strategically important for the defence of Nagorno-Karabakh. But the real source of their disagreements – the status of Nagorno-Karabakh itself – is no closer to resolution than it was a decade ago.

An incident that reflects the depths of the animosity between the two nations occured in Budapest, Hungary, in 2004 at a training seminar which was part of the Partnership for Peace NATO-sponsored program. One early morning an Azerbaijani officer, Ramil Safarov, came into the bedroom where the Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Markaryan was sleeping and hacked him to death with an axe. In response to the incident the human rights commissioner of Azerbaijan, Elmira Suleymanova, stated that “Safarov must become an example of patriotism for the Azerbaijani youth.” An Azeri political scientist, Zardusht Alizade, is also quoted as saying that Safarov “will be raised to the status of a national hero”. And Farida Askerova, Chairwoman of the Organization for the Liberation of Karabakh women’s board: “The young people ought to be ready for the holy war; every mother must raise a son to fight for the Motherland”.

And in February of this year, the following from Iskander Gamidov of the opposition National Democratic Party of Azerbaijan:

“Maybe in a month, maybe in a year or two, but sooner or later war will be inevitable. We should prepare for it and prepare society,” This was said a roundtable meeting titled ‘Prospects for the Karabakh settlement by military means’.

In a recent development Arkady Gukasian, the President of Nagorno-Karabakh signed a decree on November 3rd to hold a referendum Dec. 10 regarding the draft of the Nagorno-Karabakh Constitution.

The big question is who the major regional and world powers will back in the conflict. The US is likely to do everything in its power to prevent a war. Firstly there are more Armenians in the US than in Armenia, making for a powerful lobby. Secondly the US has growing economic interests in Azerbaijan, due to energy investments. Azerbaijan has been growing into a regional energy hub, both as a source of oil and a post of transit from Caspian oil and gas from Central Asia. In addition Azerbijian is a potential, although reluctant ally against Iran. Also there are more Azeris in Iran than in Azerbijian, 17 million or 24% of Iran’s population in fact, something Iran is uneasy about. In any case Iran has been developing its ties with Armenia, in part to counter Turkish influence in Azerbaijan and in part to keep a lever against Baku. There is little scope for the US to take sides in any confict here – it wants the region stable. As does the EU, which is looking to diversify its energy sources away from Russia. If absolutely forced however the US would have to side with the Azeris. But Azeribaijan’s closest ally and firmest backer is Turkey, with many Azeri officers currently studying there. A Turkish trained and advised army fighting against Armenia adds another grim dimension to the developments (the official position of the Azeri government on the Armenian genocide, by the way, is one of outright denial). Moscow, although not hostile to Azerbaijan per se, is closely allied, through the CSTO, with Armenia, where it is has been aggressively buying up infrastructure and has as its ultimate goal control of the whole Caucasus.

An overcrowded chessboard.

And this is far from the end of the the smoldering problems in the Caucasus. The trouble for the Russians is far from over in Chechnya and is perhaps only starting in surrounding regions like Dagestan, North Ossetia and Ingushetia, no matter how hard Moscow likes to pretend it has the situation there under control. And the trouble hasn’t even started yet for the various foreign companies that have been investing in Caspian oil and gas and building pipelines across the Caucasus going through to the Black Sea and Turkey. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) pipeline is the only pipeline on Russian soil that is not owned and controlled by the Russians – something Moscow is intent on remedying. They are also far from happy about any pipes taking energy resources out of Central Asia via any other route they don’t control, ie across Russian territory. As American influence has weakened in the region the Russians are growing bolder in enforcing their desires on their neighbours – and energy has been been their favored lever to push. The BTC pipeline, which passes through Azerbaijan and Georgia (avoiding CSTO member Armenia) into Turkey, drags a host of Western interests directly into the line of Russian ire, although that was part of the reason it was installed in the first place – Western economic involvement, and thus influence, in the region was one of the objectives, not a side effect. In reality should war break out the de facto over-involvement may morph into a liability. Kazakhstan also has a significant stake on oil sent through the BTC and another pipeline in a similar direction is likely in a couple of years for their massive Kashagan field in the north of the Caspian Sea. And lets not forget the Iranians. It was only in the 19th century that parts of the Caucasus, particularly in what is now Azerbaijan, were part of their empire, before the Czarist Russia made it a part of theirs. Iranian influence amongst the Shia of Azerbaijan has been increasing, as it has among all the Shia populations in the Middle East. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has recently spoken out in support of the Iranians’ right to nuclear power development. At the same time Armenia’s relationship with Iran has also been warming. Armenia is reliant on Russia and Iran for its energy and has Russian military bases on its territory. As already mentioned, it is a member of the Russian led Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Implications and opportunities for the West.

Should another war over Nagorno-Karabagh prove imminent a number of opportunities may present themselves to the West in dealing its current problem numero uno, Iran:

1. Challenging the perception in the Muslim world that Iran is the new champion of Islam by hammering the fact that it is supporting (Christian) Armenia against (mostly Shia) Muslim Azerbaijan, thus shattering the image Tehran is trying to create as the global champion of Islam against the Zionist and Christian Crusaders. Actually Azerbaijan was briefly the world’s first Muslim republic between 1918 and 1920, before the Soviets took control, seeking access to Baku’s oil. Ironically Armenia claims to be the world’s first Christian state. Azerbaijan is a perfect candidate for a Western ally in the Muslim world. It remains largely secular, unafflicted by extremism (except a small but growing Salafist movement amongst Sunnis near the Dagestan border) and is even a prime example of religious tolerance. Baku has the largest Jewish synagogue in Europe, built there in 2003 and unlike Iran, Azerbaijan is proud of its Zoroastrian roots – the name Azerbaijan means Land of The Eternal Fire, a place where Zoroastrian fire temples flourished for thousands of years. In fact their main holiday is Novruz, from the Zoroastrian tradition.

2. Fermenting unrest in Northern Iran by turning the focus of Azeri nationalism towards South Azerbaijan – otherwise known is northwestern Iran. As much as the US wants the Caucasus stable (and Caspian oil flowing westward) if that is not achievable than the it is in its interest to have Iran destabilised and the Iranians know it. A possibility to explore is the brokering of a deal which would allow Nagorno-Karabagh independence in return for full US support for Azeri interests in Iran, perhaps even floating the idea of the formation of a Greater Azerbaijan. Iran should be as worried about the Azeri state as Turkey is about an independent Kurdistan. If the answer to Iraq is Tehran, could this be an opportunity to give them a riddle of their own?
The situation in Georgia is another reason for the Azebaijan to seek closer ties with the US – Russia is ultimately seeking regime change in Tbilisi. Should Georgia turn into a Russian outpost, like Armenia, it will next turn its focus on Azerbaijan, which would then be effectively cut off from the West. And Nagorno Karabakh would give it the perfect pretext to do so aggresively. Baku has been careful not to appear to be too close to any of the three courting powers. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated for example that Azerbaijan would never become a staging ground for a US attack on Iran, despite rumours to the contrary and current negotiations with the US about renovating an Azeri air base as a refueling station for NATO planes traveling to Afghanistan. He also declined a invitation from Moscow to join a Russian led “counterterrorism” navy group on the Caspian, CASFOR, but did stop by Moscow last week for a chat with Putin ahead of Azerbaijan’s upcoming negotiations with Gazprom, straight after visitting Brussels and signing an energy agreement with the European Union. And the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met Aliyev in Baku on May 4th with the Iranians even announcing they are studying the possibility of transporting Iranian oil via the BTC pipeline. But Baku’s oil wealth is pegged to Western interests. Although fear of Iranian wrath from the south is a strong motivator in Baku, the Azeris know most of their prospects for growth lie eastward, with their friends in Turkey, in the EU, which is keen for Azeri gas, even in Israel, which gets 20% of its oil from Azerbaijan. This understanding should be further reinforced should Moscow’s stance towards Baku grow pushy or threatening.

3. Driving a wedge between Russia and Iran. Both are none too happy about Caspian oil flowing westward to Turkey, via Azerbaijan and Georgia, rather than north through Russia or south through Iran. Their clash of both economic and political interests here can be exploited. There is also a conflict of interest in Armenia. For example when the Iranians built a gas pipeline through Armenia Moscow demanded its diameter be limited to 700 millimeters, instead of the 1,420 millimeters in the original design, precluding the possibility of Iranian gas transitting to Georgia (or further to the Ukraine) via that line. Armenia promptly agreed. Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom pretty much owns Armenia’s gas distribution system. Another possible point of contention is Iran’s recent agreement with Georgia to supply it with energy. The EU is considering Iran as an option towards diversification away from overdependence on Russian gas. Yet another sign of possible tensions between Russia and Iran is the postponement last week of the Iranian Foreign Minister’s visit to Moscow, reportedly because of Iranian annoyance that the Russians said they may postpone the construction of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. Yet despite all these conflicts of interest Moscow and Tehran appear tentatively in the process of becoming energy partners – a partnership in which Russia will no doubt come out dominant. Russia partners with Iran to counterbalance Western influence in their respective peripheries and because Iran keeps the US busy while Russia pursues its own political goals unhindered.

Currently there is talk in the US of making deals with Iran over Iraq. But Iran no longer backed by Russia would lose much of its clout so the saner option of negotiating with Russia should be explored. Besides support for Nagorno Karabkh and assurance of keeping Tehran’s influence out of the Caucasus and Central Asia perhaps Russian involvement in the development of the Kashagan oil field, estimated to be the world’s fourth largest, in the north of the Caspian Sea could be placed on the table.

Also see update, 11/16/06.

The Meat Sheik shake down continues.

Mona Eltahawy in the Daily Star, Nov 4: “In appreciation of the radical imams of the West” (***)

Let us appreciate the radical imams of the West. As a liberal Muslim woman I am generally loathe to express gratitude to conservative men, but the more these imams perfect the ability to say something stupid – often in Arabic, thinking that no one will find out – the more attainable they make my goal: to show that these men do not represent all Muslims.

[..] Because these radical imams, who have failed to integrate in the West, have unilaterally appointed themselves as our spokesmen – and are so readily accepted as such by the media – their shortcomings are easily projected onto the community as a whole.

[..]The imams who are sent from Arab countries usually only speak Arabic and arrive with a suitcase full of stale ideas that are woefully out of touch with the concerns of the congregations they have been sent to tend to and even more out of sync with the culture and mores of their new homes.

Take Sheikh Taj al-Din Hamid Hilaly, Australia’s top Muslim cleric who recently asked for an indefinite leave of absence from his duties after he was barred from preaching for three months over having blamed women for rape. The Egyptian-born cleric is but the latest imam whose talent for placing his foot far into his mouth has ironically done the Australian Muslim community a huge favor.

Hilaly’s outrageous words – at one point in a sermon he described women who did not dress modestly as “uncovered meat” – earned him the wrath not just of mainstream Australian society, but more importantly, of many within the Muslim community itself, including the board of the Sydney mosque where he preaches. The board should have fired him. But short of that, the three-month suspension was a clear message that many Muslims in Hilaly’s congregation refuse to condone such a hatefully misogynistic attitude.

Some Australian Muslims defended Hilaly. While I cannot understand how anyone could defend such views, I can only welcome disagreement among Muslims. What a relief to have our differences so openly aired after years of lazy stereotyping that has portrayed Muslims as a homogenous lump.

You see why I have to thank Hilaly?

[..]To further appreciate the positive consequences of the blunders of imams, take the case of Ahmed Abu Laban, the Copenhagen cleric who helped organize a trip to Egypt and Lebanon last year to rally support among Muslim leaders for protests against the Prophet drawings in Jyllands-Posten.

His claims that he spoke on behalf of all Danish Muslims did wonders for the community. For one, it motivated Naser Khader, the first Muslim member of the Danish Parliament, to launch the moderate group Democratic Muslims. More poignantly, the sight of Abu Laban saying one thing to a Danish television crew and then almost in the same breath saying the complete opposite to an Arabic TV crew inspired many to join Khader’s group.

I have spent two of the past six months in Denmark researching the lives of Muslims there. Many told me that Abu Laban’s duplicity was pivotal in inspiring them to step forward and identify themselves as Muslims who disagreed with the imam. Danish journalists have told me they do not immediately turn to Abu Laban anymore to speak for Muslims. It looks like Muslims in Denmark are slowly being allowed the differences enjoyed by other groups.

So once again, let us appreciate the radical imams of the West.

The Stern Review.

Bjorn Lomborg in the Wall Street Journal, Nov 6: “Stern scare blunted by the figures: On the dodgy economic modelling behind the latest warming beat-up”

THE report on climate change by Nicholas Stern and the British Government has sparked publicity and scary headlines across the world. Much attention has been devoted to Stern’s core argument that the price of inaction would be extraordinary and the cost of action modest.

Unfortunately, this claim falls apart when one reads the 700-page tome. Despite using many good references, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is selective and its conclusion flawed. Its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalised, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off.

The review correctly points out that climate change is a real problem and that it is caused by human greenhouse-gas emissions. Little else is right, however, and the report seems hastily put together, with many sloppy errors. As an example, the cost of hurricanes in the US is said to be both 0.13 per cent of US gross domestic product and 10 times that figure.

The review is also one-sided, focusing almost exclusively on carbon-emission cuts as the solution to the problem of climate change. Stern sees increasing hurricane damage in the US as a powerful argument for carbon controls. However, hurricane damage is increasing predominantly because there are more people with more goods to be damaged, settling in more risky habitats. Even if global warming does significantly increase the power of hurricanes, it is estimated that 95 per cent to 98 per cent of the increased damage will be due to demographics. The review acknowledges that simple initiatives such as bracing and securing roof trusses and walls can cheaply reduce damage by more than 80 per cent; yet its policy recommendations on expensive carbon reductions promise to cut the damage by 1 per cent to 2per cent at best. That is a bad deal.

The Darfur Genocide.

Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times, Nov 6: “Darfur genocide continues”

Investments are pouring into Lt. Gen. Omar Bashir’s Sudan from the United Arab Emirates (even though all the corpses in Darfur are of black Muslims), China, India, Malaysia and Kuwait. And a Coca-Cola factory is thriving in Khartoum. Meanwhile, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights “is urging the government of Sudan to order an independent investigation into recent military attacks.”

Gee, maybe Sudan’s dictator, Gen. Bashir, will invite Jacob to testify as to what he saw as his 4-year-old brother was murdered by the Janjaweed before he ever went to school.

And the world’s civilized nations, including ours, refuse to combine forces to go into those killing fields lest they disrespect the august murderous sovereignty of Gen. Bashir.

Robert Tracinski, RealClearPolitics.com, Nov 4: “D” Stands for “Defeat”

As bad as things are now, a Democratic victory is likely to make things much, much worse very soon. The Democratic plan, if it is enacted, would deliver America into a period of retreat, humiliation, and uncertainty that we haven’t seen since the end of the Vietnam War–while giving our enemies a glorious victory that would be seen as a historical vindication of the Islamist cause.

And after such a victory, how long will it be before the Islamists decide that the time has come to strike an even harder blow against America, attacking us again on our own soil?

This is what is at stake next Tuesday.

Clifford D. May in the National Review, Nov 4: “If Democrats Win: How foreign policy might change.”

Now here’s my pessimistic scenario: The congressional Democrats who end up holding the reins are those favored by the left-wing base and blogs, such as Rep. John Murtha — who has said America is “more dangerous to world peace than Iran or North Korea,” and Rep. John Conyers, who has made it clear his agenda will include repealing vital counter-terrorism laws (e.g. the Patriot Act) and initiating impeachment proceedings against the president.

Among those inspiring such Democrats is Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) a Yale professor who this week wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times explicitly calling for a policy of “cutting and running” from Iraq. The U.S. also should drop its “resistance to Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” Odom wrote. “This will be as distasteful for U.S. leaders as cutting and running, but it is no less essential.”

[..] Among the outcomes that need to be prevented: al Qaeda in Iraq setting up permanent bases in the Sunni regions of the west; Iran controlling the Shia regions of the south; Saddam Hussein released from his cell and restored to his palaces; the pro-American Kurds coming under attack by hostile neighbors; Militant Islamist terrorists using additional waves of suicide bombings of innocent civilians to drive Americans out of Afghanistan and also to take over Jordan, Bangladesh and other countries. Additionally, despite Odom’s strange delusions, it would be catastrophic if the Militant Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, oil-rich, and feverishly anti-American regime in Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons.

Mark Steyn in the NY Sun, Nov 6: “My Face Time With Kerry”

Whatever he may or may not have intended (and “I was making a joke about how stupid Bush is but I’m the only condescending liberal in America too stupid to tell a Bush-is-stupid joke without blowing it” must rank as one of the all-time lame excuses) what he said fits what too many upscale Dems believe: that America’s soldiers are only there because they’re too poor and too ill-educated to know any better. That’s what they mean when they say “we support our troops” — they support them as victims, as children, as potential welfare recipients, but they don’t support them as warriors and they don’t support the mission.

So their “support” is objectively worthless. The indignant protest that “of course” “we support our troops” isn’t support, it’s a straddle, and one that emphasizes the Democrats’ frivolousness in the post-9/11 world. A serious party would have seen the jihad as a profound foreign-policy challenge they needed to address credibly. They could have found a Tony Blair — a big mushy-leftie pantywaist on health and education and all the other sissy stuff, but a man at ease with the projection of military force in the national interest. But we saw in Connecticut what happens to Democrats who run as Blairites: you get bounced from the ticket. In the 2004 election, instead of coming to terms with it as a national security question, the Democrats looked at the War on Terror merely as a Bush wedge issue they needed to neutralize. And so they signed up with the weirdly incoherent narrative of John Kerry — a celebrated anti-war activist suddenly “reporting for duty” as a war hero and claiming that, even though the war was a mistake and his comrades were murderers and rapists, his four months in the Mekong rank as the most epic chapter in the annals of the Republic.

Melanie Phillips expressed her view this week that re-Christianisation is vital for Europe if it is to defend its Western values against Islamisation, an opinion I happen to agree with (h/t Saint):

The crucial insight here is that only a strong indigenous faith has the capacity to resist Islamisation. That is why the collapse of Christianity in Britain and Europe and its steady replacement by secularisation is so catastrophic for the defence of the west. The useful idiots who believe that only a secular society can hold off the forces of irrational belief at the heart of the Islamic jihad have got this diametrically the wrong way round. Secularisation produces cultural enfeeblement, because the pursuit of personal happiness trumps absolutely everything else. The here and now is all that matters. Dying for a cause, however noble, becomes an absolute no-no. It’s better to be dhimmi than dead – the view that has now effectively prevailed in Britain and Europe.

[..] Although the US is the high temple of consumerism, it is still a country with a very strong sense of its Christian faith. That fact is key to its robust sense of national identity, confidence and pride; and because it has such a strong sense of itself as a nation, it is prepared to fight to defend itself – the one bit of the analysis that the Islamists got wrong (although there are now deeply disturbing signs that the west’s cultural enfeeblement is beginning to erode American resolve too, at least around the edges).

That is why the cultural cringe of the Church of England before the advance of both secularism and Islamism is such unmitigated disaster, and why the Pope’s recent intervention was so significant. That is why those who sneer at President Bush’s strong Christian faith are cultural lemmings. And that is why I, a British Jew, argue that it is vital that Britain and Europe re-Christianise if they are to have any chance of defending western values.

She has drawn sharp criticism for this statement firstly because she does not herself subscribe to the belief system she is laying her hopes on and secondly because a re-Christianised Europe seems like a wild fantasy to some considering its current state. Writes Norman Geras:

A more serious problem still is that the re-Christianization of Britain and Europe just isn’t, as things currently stand, a credible societal project. Christians have been doing their bit to spread the Christian word for a very long time now. What is suddenly going to make the difference and bring new adherents flooding in, or ‘activate’ hitherto passive or lapsed believers?

Well, I can list several factors, that may not mean much when taken alone, but in combination may do just that.

1. Hundreds of thousands of Catholic Polish migrants have moved West since the 2004 EU enlargement round – about 300,000 to Britain alone. In Poland over half the population attends mass weekly, compared to under 20% in France or Italy. Poland accounts for about a quarter of Europe’s seminarians and thousands are migrating westward. Said Father Jan-Marie Szewek: “We Franciscans want to join in the rechristianization of Europe”.

Call it the Polish pastor effect.

2.According to some estimates the world’s fastest growing religion is not Islam but Christianity. Its just that most of the growth is happening in the Third World now and it is the Pentecostal Churches that are gaining the numbers. The Catholic Church is also experiencing strong growth. And this revitalised Christianity is starting to spill over back into the West. Says a Kenyan pastor in one of the largest churches in London: “I am in this country, believing that God sent me here in Great Britain to make a voice on His behalf to let them know that they need to repent and come back to God.”
Sociologist of religion Philip Jenkins, in his book “The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity”, argues that “within the next 25 years the population of the world’s Christians is expected to grow to 2.6 billion (making Christianity by far the world’s largest faith)”. An increased percentage of Christian migrants to Europe is likely, as European politics continue to shift towards the anti-Islamic immigration right. And the Pentecostal Churches have been growing rapidly in Australia even without a significant contribution from migrants. It won’t be too big of a surprise if its takes off in Europe too. Even the presence of a large Muslim population itself may contribute to a resurgence of religiosity amongst the secular Europeans, finding themselves inspired to seek their own Christian roots, much like European secularism draws many Muslim migrants towards secularism and more liberal interpretations of Islam. By the way, according to Wikipedia (edit: which quotes bible.ca) Christianity gets 2,500,000 converts per year, compared to Islam’s 865,000. Majority Muslim nations have higher birth rates, but that advantage is dimishing – birth rates are falling in Muslim majority nations, while Christianity is gaining in other countries with high birth rates.

3. Melanie Phillips is far from being the only non-Christian in Europe who holds to the above view. Said Oriana about Pope Benedict XVI: “I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. It’s that simple! There must be some human truth here that is beyond religion.” Upon her death Oriana left all her books and papers to Pope Benedict. She had a private audience with him last year and considered him “an ally in her campaign to rally Christians in Europe against what she saw as a Muslim crusade against the West.” This emerging alliance between the anti-Islamisation secularists and conservative Christians is as natural, even as it is as odd, as the alliance between the Islamists and the far Left. And even religion needs good publicity. Don’t also underestimate the ability of Pope Benedict himself to pump some life back into European Christianity. And by the way, why did he chose the name Benedict? Here’s why:

He was thinking of not one, but two previous Benedicts.

Saint Benedict, Benedict XVIThe first was not even a Pope. In fact, he was just a simple monk who desired nothing more than to live a quiet life of prayer and work and lead others to do the same. This Benedict, born in the 5th century in Nursia, an area of Italy, fled the decadent urban life of Rome to seek a life of solitude in the country. Monastic life was chaotic and unregulated at that time, and so this young man gathered a band of monks around him and formed a community, writing a rule of life that was so practical that it became the pattern for thousands of monks and monasteries all over the world. These monks who followed this rule ultimately were the ones who evangelized and educated Europe during the “dark ages” and are still doing the work of evangelization and education today.

It is clear that Pope Benedict XVI is dedicated to gathering around himself a band of disciples who, through prayer and hard work, will lead to the re-Christianization of Europe and to the carrying of the gospel to lands that have not yet heard it.

4. In times of trouble and hardship people turn back to religion. It is as simple as that. As conditions in Europe worsen, with the aging of the population, faultering economies and problems that have come with over-immigration, and the going gets tough, the tough, and especially the weak, will get going to church.

5. Its the demographics, stupid. From the cover story of Prospect magazine, “God returns to Europe”, by Eric Kaufmann:

Europe—especially western Europe—is seen as the world leader in secular modernisation, and is used as the model by Norris and Inglehart for their theory of secularisation. But if western Europe really is the trend-setter for secularism, there is a problem: secularisation appears to be losing force in its own backyard. Western Europe can broadly be divided in two. On the one hand are Catholic countries like Spain or Ireland, where religiosity is still high—around 60 per cent of the Irish population regularly attend church—and secularisation arrived only in the second half of the 20th century. On the other are the largely Protestant nations (including Britain) and Catholic France, which secularised earlier. But survey data from 1981-2004 show that in these latter nations, on average, postwar generations are no longer becoming more secular. It seems as though western Europe, with the possible exception of Italy, will converge towards a church attendance rate of little more than 5 per cent. However this will mask a much larger proportion—around half—who continue to describe themselves as religious and affiliate with a religious denomination.

These people, described by Grace Davie as “believing without belonging,” are seen by some as carriers of a flimsy faith which will soon disappear, and which doesn’t affect behaviour or attitudes. But if this is the case, how do we explain the fact that the fertility of these non-attending believers is much closer to church attenders than to non-believers? The non-attending religious are also significantly more likely than non-believers to identify themselves as ideologically conservative, even when controlling for education, wealth, age and generation. And the religious population has two demographic advantages over its non-believing counterpart. First, it maintains a 15-20 per cent fertility lead over the non-religious. Second, religious people in the childbearing 18-45 age range are disproportionately female. Offset against this is the much younger age structure of secularists.

The pivotal question is where the balance lies between religious fertility and religious abandonment in the secular cutting-edge societies of France and Protestant Europe. The population balance in these countries stands at roughly 53 per cent non-religious to 47 per cent religious. My projections, based on demographic differences between the populations and current patterns of religious abandonment, suggest that the secular population will continue to grow at a decelerating rate for three or four more decades, to peak at around 55 per cent. The proportion of secular people will then begin to decline between 2035 and 2045. The momentum behind secularisation in the most secular countries is a reflection of the religious abandonment of the pre-1945 generations, which overwhelmed the fertility advantage of the faithful. The end of apostasy in more recent generations means a population more religious at the end of the 21st century than at its beginning. As in the case of the Mormons or early Christians, demography rather than mass conversion will be the main agent of change.

He then adds the compounding significance of immigration to the equation:

This slow shift against secularisation would have only a gradual impact on the spirit of European society were it not for immigration. Immigration from Latin America has enabled American Catholics to grow despite losing far more believers to other denominations than they get in return. In Europe, immigration will similarly drive the rise of the religious population, especially its Islamic part.

However, due to factors I have already mentioned above, Islam’s immigration advantage is likely to diminish while that of Christianity is likely to grow.

So lets not write off European Christianity just yet.

UPDATE: Michael Burleigh with a couple more possibilities in the Telegraph, Nov 7:

What he [Nick Spencer of the Theos think tank in Britain] describes as a new, diffuse concern with “wellbeing” will inevitably make religion more important to politics, in that politicians will have to address an essentially religious agenda, based on values and ultimate meanings, of the sort with which Senator McCain electrified the Conservatives when he addressed their party conference.

It is also probable that infantile Islamic enragement, and the sillier provocations of “diversity” officers in local government, will sooner rather than later trigger a much broader revival of cultural Christianity, as people balk at the insensitive disregard of this country’s two-millennia-old religious traditions, which are far from defunct in the moral imaginations of many.

Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly says he was a member of the Islamist organisation the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but left it because it was too extremist. And yet he pours praise upon Sayyid Qutb, an idealogue the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he was a member, considered a radical because of his fervent calls for the ummah to take up violent jihad against the infidel West. His writing subsequently inspired a generation of Salafists. Sounds like more whitewash from the Sheik that just don’t stick.

Not that the Muslim Brotherhood is in any way opposed to jihad against the West. They just seek to dominate by other, subtler means:

Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations. Unlike the larger Islamic community, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate goal may not be simply “to help Muslims be the best citizens they can be,” but rather to extend Islamic law throughout Europe and the United States.[2]

Four decades of teaching and cultivation have paid off. The student refugees who migrated from the Middle East forty years ago and their descendants now lead organizations that represent the local Muslim communities in their engagement with Europe’s political elite. Funded by generous contributors from the Persian Gulf, they preside over a centralized network that spans nearly every European country.

These organizations represent themselves as mainstream, even as they continue to embrace the Brotherhood’s radical views and maintain links to terrorists. With moderate rhetoric and well-spoken German, Dutch, and French, they have gained acceptance among European governments and media alike. Politicians across the political spectrum rush to engage them whenever an issue involving Muslims arises or, more parochially, when they seek the vote of the burgeoning Muslim community.

But, speaking Arabic or Turkish before their fellows Muslims, they drop their facade and embrace radicalism. While their representatives speak about interfaith dialogue and integration on television, their mosques preach hate and warn worshippers about the evils of Western society. While they publicly condemn the murder of commuters in Madrid and school children in Russia, they continue to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Europeans, eager to create a dialogue with their increasingly disaffected Muslim minority, overlook this duplicity.

How lucky for Australia then that Sheik al-Hilaly has left the Brotherhood’s radical views behind and presents the same tolerant and moderate message both to his English and Arabic-speaking audiences!

The Brotherhood has this cute motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

And they even have a bit of plan down on paper:

Read an english translation of The Project here.

William Shawcross in the Australian, Oct 27: “Deny Islamists reward in Iraq”

George W. Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard are still right: a pullout would condemn the region to horror

IRAQ’S Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih made an excellent impression in London this week but he was surprised, if not horrified, by the level of hysteria and defeatism that he found in the media.

The bias in much of the coverage of Iraq – in Britain, the US and Australia – helps only those violent extremists who are trying to destroy the country.

It dreadfully discourages all those millions of Iraqis who need our support to build a decent society.

Oliver North in Human Events, Oct 27th: “Vietnam and Iraq: Myth vs. Reality”

Having now spent nearly as much time in Iraq as I did on my first “tour” of Vietnam in 1968-69, it’s readily apparent that the parallels between the two wars are practically non-existent on the battlefield. In the press and politics — it’s a different matter. The barons of bombast have decided that Iraq equals Vietnam. Those who make this argument are ignoring some very inconvenient facts.

[..] On Feb. 27, 1968, after a month of brutal fighting and daily images of U.S. casualties on American television, Walter Cronkite, then the host of the CBS Evening News, proclaimed that the Tet Offensive had proven to him that the Vietnam War was no longer winnable. Four weeks later, Lyndon Johnson told the nation that “I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” It didn’t matter that Tet had been a decisive victory for the United States and South Vietnam.

Today’s potentates of the press are trying to deliver the same message: that Iraq, like Vietnam, is un-winnable. One television network has gone so far as to broadcast images of U.S. troops being killed by terrorists — making Iraq the first war where Americans get their news from the enemy.

The war in Vietnam wasn’t lost during “Tet ‘68″ no matter what Cronkite said. Rather, it was lost in the pages of America’s newspapers, on our televisions, our college campuses — and eventually in the corridors of power in Washington. We need to pray that this war isn’t lost the same way.

Dennis Byrne, RealClearPolitics.com, Oct 28: “Don’t Withdraw, It’s Time to Take Out Sadr”

With Democrats prematurely “dancing in the end zone” in the conviction that the mid-term elections will endorse whatever it is that their party wants to do about the Iraq War, the time indeed has come for a “different approach.”

It’s time to take out anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

And whatever equally murderous fanatics are on the Sunni side.

Judith Miller in the Wall Street Journal, Oct 28: “Kurdistan”

A conversation with the president of Iraq’s most successful region.

ERBIL, Iraq–Unlike Baghdad, 200 miles away, the air here does not echo with the sound of gunfire, car bombs and helicopters. Residents of this city of a million people picnic by day in pristine new parks and sip tea with friends and relatives at night. American forces are not “occupiers” or the “enemy,” but “liberators.” Mentioning President Bush evokes smiles–and not of derision.

American forces were “most welcome” when stationed here at the start of the invasion of Iraq, says Massoud Barzani, the president of Kurdistan in the north. Not a single U.S. soldier was killed in his region, he adds proudly, “not even in a traffic accident.” Would U.S. forces be welcome back now? “Most certainly,” he declared this week in an interview in his newly minted marble (and heavily chandeliered) palace. The more American soldiers the better, a top aide confirms.

British journalist and author of Londonistan Melanie Phillips gauges the depths of Britain’s evolving collective derangement (hat tip Ayaan Hirsi Ali):

Everyone knows that Europe is a continent stuffed with craven, terror-appeasing fromages who loathe America. Britain, by contrast, led by the lion-hearted Tony Blair, is full of stalwarts who stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the defense of the West. Right?

Wrong. Fury at Prime Minister Blair for being President Bush’s “poodle” has reached such a pitch that the most successful Labor prime minister in memory is being forced out of office because of his support for U.S. policy in Iraq and Israel. Labor’s members of Parliament say his refusal to break with America by calling for an earlier cease-fire in Lebanon was the last straw. The disturbing fact is that Britain is consumed by a rampant anti-Americanism and an allied hostility toward Israel, which are driving public debate into irrationality, prejudice and appeasement.

In a Populus poll last month in The Times of London, 62% said the government should change its policy by distancing itself from the United States, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq. An August YouGov poll in The Spectator magazine revealed that while 53% wanted a tougher anti-terrorism policy, 45% wanted to be allied more closely with the European Union than with America. Only 14% supported closer U.S. ties.

[..]But British animosity toward the U.K.’s most important and historic ally is wider and deeper. Partly it derives from simple snobbery, the long-standing British belief that Americans are vulgar upstarts who lack the gravitas that Britain has accrued from a thousand years of history.

Probe further, however, and you discover anguish at the progressive junking of that history. Schools, for example, no longer teach the history or values of the British nation on the grounds that national identity based on a majority culture is viewed as “racist.” Instead, they promote multiculturalism, the doctrine that minority value must have equal status to those of the majority. Loss of confidence in Britain’s role in the world has demoralized its governing class so badly that it has come to believe that the nation state is the principal source of all ills from prejudice to war, and that legitimacy resides instead in supranational institutions.

[..]The dismaying truth is that, even after the suicide bombings in London, America’s defense of the free world against Islamic terror is widely viewed in Britain as the cause of that terror. The paranoid bigotry that drives the jihad — that the United States and its Jewish puppet masters make up a giant conspiracy of evil — is being increasingly echoed within Britain’s non-Muslim population.

The very idea that weakening the alliance with the United States would be in Britain’s interests is madness. But in a country that has lost its way, rationality is a commodity in short supply.

To start with here’s Daniel Pipes laying out the reasons exactly why I do these opinion roundups every week. NY Sun, Oct 17th “Op-eds now more central in war than bullets“

With loyalties now in play, wars are decided more on the Op Ed pages and less on the battlefield. Good arguments, eloquent rhetoric, subtle spin-doctoring, and strong poll numbers count more than taking a hill or crossing a river. Solidarity, morale, loyalty, and understanding are the new steel, rubber, oil, and ammunition. Opinion leaders are the new flag and general officers. Therefore, as I wrote in August, Western governments “need to see public relations as part of their strategy.”
Even in a case like the Iranian regime’s acquisition of atomic weaponry, Western public opinion is the key, not its arsenal. If united, Europeans and Americans will likely dissuade Iranians from going ahead with nuclear weapons. If disunited, Iranians will be emboldened to plunge ahead.
[..] Non-Western strategists recognize the primacy of politics and focus on it. A string of triumphs – Algeria in 1962, Vietnam in 1975, and Afghanistan in 1989 – all relied on eroding political will. Al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, codified this idea in a letter in July 2005, observing that more than half of the Islamists’ battle “is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”

Clifford D. May in the National Review on a similar theme, Oct 20th: “A Different War”

Has there ever before been a war in which journalists have given such a gift to their country’s enemies?

But this war is different. In this war, bullets and bombs are used at least as much to send messages as to kill and maim. And the media are for manipulating. One side makes full use of these changes. American political leaders seem not yet to fully comprehend what they are up against; much less have they begun to respond effectively

This editorial was published in the NY Times on Monday 17th of October, in the subscription only section. It was reproduced in full in Lebanon’s Daily Star a couple of days later, no doubt providing much entertainment to the anti-Western brigade, and much encouragement to the Islamists. It brings up an extremely important point. Know your enemy. (via Douglas Farah at the Counterterrorism Blog)
Jeff Stein: “Can Washington’s counter-terror officials tell a Sunni from a Shiite?”

For the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
[.. ]But so far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?

Read it all. Unbelievable.

Herbert I. London and Robert McMarthy originally in the Washington Post, Oct 20: “In Defence of Liberty”

It is a sad reality that radicalism is actually mainstream in much of the Islamic world. This is due primarily to the refusal of many Muslims not just Muslim terrorists but millions of Muslims to accept the cardinal principles of enlightened liberty and democracy.

One need not merely infer this. Explicit proof is abundant in both Sunni and Shi’ite Islam. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shi’ite authority and recipient of high praise by administration officials maintains that non-Muslims should be considered in the same category as “urine, feces, semen, dead bodies, blood, dogs, pigs, alcoholic liquors,” and “the sweat of an animal who persistently eats [unclean things].” Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Egypt, the highest Sunni authority, instructs that Jews are “enemies of Allah [and] descendants of apes and pigs,” views he expressly attributes to the Koran.

This dehumanizing hatred has been turned against our nation. Mustafa Zakri, a member of parliament in Egypt (the recipient of $2 billion a year in U.S. largess), has asserted that “America is the head of the serpent, and the greatest enemy, which we must confront.” In Yemen, a judge recently dismissed charges against 19 terrorists who joined with al Qaeda in fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, reasoning that Islamic law sanctions jihad against occupiers of Muslim lands.

In newly liberated Afghanistan, the government attempted to put a man to death for the “crime” of converting from Islam to another religion, a capital offense under Islamic law. In Iraq, homosexuals are executed in Shi’ite-controlled areas consistent with a fatwa from the Ayatollah al-Sistani.

Meanwhile, Iran, nearing a confrontation with the West over its nuclear program, has developed a missile called “Zelzad 1.” Its namesake is a Koranic verse that tells of a conflagration which precipitates Judgment Day. The missile is emblazoned with the slogan: “We will trample America under our feet. Death to America.”

Michael Freund in the Jerusalem Post, Oct 18: “Right On: The coming Middle East war”

he warning signs are everywhere, yet no one wishes to see them. Israel’s foes are gearing up for war, and it’s time that we opened our eyes to the danger that confronts us.
The conflict may be just weeks or even months away, or perhaps a bit longer. How it will start is anyone’s guess, but make no mistake, a major outbreak of hostilities is almost certainly around the corner.
If this sounds like scare-mongering or even an advanced case of paranoia to you, just take a glance at the newspapers from the past few weeks. If you read them with a discerning eye, you will see exactly what I mean.
For whichever direction one chooses to look, be it north, south or east of us, trouble – major trouble – is brewing.

Patience Wheatcroft in the Telegraph, Sun, Oct 22nd: “The Government has a secret weapon: Islamic podcasts” (via Right Truth)

The Government is right to be seeking ways of countering the fiery propaganda of the radical Islamists who have found such a receptive audience in Britain. The most obvious would have been to have arrested them rather than handing over generous state benefits to enable them to continue their efforts. Instead, Abu Hamza was able to build up a property investment business on the foundations of our national cowardice.
Only now that the dire results of that cowardice are apparent in the number of plots fomenting in our midst have ministers decided to sound a bit braver. Querying the desirability of the niqab was a start. Supporting the view that a teacher cannot do the job properly if fully veiled is nothing more than common sense, but just weeks ago, a craven administration might not have judged it politically correct to say so.
Aishah Azmi may be more interested in her modesty than the aims of al-Qaeda but the tone of in which she denounced her critics suggests that it will need more than a podcast or two to counter the propaganda of the fundamentalist clerics.

Diana West in the Washington Times, Oct 20: “A vote for civil war”

Even as we pursue “security,” “stabilizing” the Shi’ite-dominated, Shariah-guided Iraqi government—and, thus, creating a natural Iranian (Shi’ite) ally — makes zero strategic sense. But, see here, say supporters of the president’s Iraq policy: If we don’t secure and stabilize the Shi’ite-dominated, Shariah-guided government in Iraq, that same government falls, America suffers defeat in jihadist eyes, and Shi’ite-Sunni war breaks out in full force.

Well, which scenario is better for the U.S. of A? I vote for civil war. It seems obvious when Shi’ite and Sunni jihadis — and their Islamic world sponsors — are busy slaughtering one another, they have much less time to plan their next attack on Americans, in the region or stateside. This isn’t to say there’s no role for American forces in the Middle East. But that role may be, as a Marine captain home from Afghanistan and Iraq put it to me, far from booby-trapped Iraqi cities, perhaps in Kurdistan, where they can keep a lid on Iraq while preparing for the next stage of the war on jihad, against Iran and Syria — assuming there is a next stage.

Such a redeployment is no defeat. But it would represent a drastic change in war aims and in the Bush belief in the magical properties of Western-style liberty for truly all. The fact is, democratizing Islamic cultures into secular wonders of ecumenical productivity just ain’t going to happen. The sooner we acknowledge this, the better for us. And above all, this war should be, as they say in our therapeutic culture, all about us.

Aslam Abdullah in the Jerusalem Post, Oct 21: “We’re Muslim-Americans – kill us, too”

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, recently issued a decree to its supporters: Kill at least one American in the next two weeks “using a sniper rifle, explosive or whatever the battle may require.”

Well, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, I am an American too. Count me as the one of those you have asked your supporters to kill.

I am not alone. There are thousands of Muslims with me in Las Vegas, and many more millions in America, who are proud Americans and who are ready to face your challenge. You hide in your caves and behind the faces of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. You don’t show your faces and you have no guts to face Muslims. You thrive on the misery of thousands of Muslim youth and children who are victims of despotism, poverty and ignorance.

During the past two decades, you have brought nothing but shame and disaster to your religion and your world.

You said “not to drop your weapons,” not to let “your enemies rest until each one of you kills at least one American within a period that does not exceed 15 days.”

But I invite you to surrender, to seek forgiveness from God almighty for the senseless killing you and your supporters are involved in and repent for everything you have done.

John Lloyd in the Financial Times, Oct 20 (subscription only) “Growing gulf sets young Muslims at odds with society “

A profoundly unsettling movement is sweeping through the universities, colleges and even schools of the Muslim communities of Europe. There, a minority of young Muslims, mainly men, have embraced a form of faith-cum-militancy which puts them at odds both with their fellow citizens and their (usually older) co-religionists. Whichever group promulgates the radical nostrums they ingest – Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Tony Blair, UK prime minister, had proposed banning, before drawing back, is among the most active in calling for a global caliphate enforcing Sharia law – the result is to produce a cohort within which a significant number views the replete and largely godless societies of Europe with scorn.
They hate Marxism, but owe much to it. Writing in the New Statesman, Shiv Malik, who attended Hizb seminars, reported on gatherings of enthused, driven radicals of the kind who fuelled far left movements 20 years ago. He quotes a Hizb member, Hassan Mujtaba, as saying that “as a political party we wouldn’t engage in action that would divert us from our main aim, which is the establishment of the caliphate. We wouldn’t go around building a school or a mosque or setting up a drugs project. We would collate information, really closely observe what is going on in British society and then provide a template that would assist those people to go and establish an Islamic community.” As Ariel Cohen, a researcher at the US Heritage Foundation, writes: “This ideology poses a direct challenge to the western model of a secular, market-driven, tolerant, multicultural globalisation.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the LA Times, Oct 22: “Europe’s Immigration Quagmire”

The continent needs more realistic policies that recognize both immigration’s economic benefit and the dangers of Islamism.
IN AFRICA, we sometimes used animals to say things on sensitive issues to avoid discussing the messenger instead of the message. So I shall use the ostrich and the owl to sketch the two most important positions on immigration and pluralism in Europe.

[..]

In a worst-case scenario, the warnings of the owl will not be heeded. The optimism of the ostrich will be abandoned. The monopoly of force that is now exclusive to states will be challenged by armed subgroups. European societies will be divided along ethnic and religious lines. The education system will not succeed in grooming the youth to believe in a shared past, let alone a shared future.

The European states will find themselves limiting civil liberties. Europeans will come to accept the de facto implementation of Sharia law in certain neighborhoods and even cities. The exploitation of the weak, women and children will be commonplace. Those who can afford to emigrate will do so.

Instead of an ever-growing union in Europe, future generations may witness an ever-disintegrating one.

In a best-case scenario, Europeans will heed the caution of the owl without losing the liveliness of the ostrich. This approach will be translated into a three-dimensional, comprehensive policy.

First, controlled or planned immigration. [..]

Second, an intervention, sometimes proactive, in Europe’s neighboring states or in failed states with conditions that force people to migrate in large numbers. [..]

Finally, in a best-case scenario, the EU will implement an assimilation program guided by the lessons learned from our failed attempts at multiculturalism. [..]

Mark Steyn in the Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 22: “Fear of too many babies is hard to bear “

Last Tuesday morning, in a maternity ward somewhere in the United States, the 300 millionth American arrived. He or she got a marginally warmer welcome than Mark Foley turning up to hand out the prizes at junior high. One could have predicted the appalled editorials from European newspapers aghast at yet another addition to the swollen cohort of excess Americans consuming ever more of the planet’s dwindling resources. And, when Canada’s National Post announced “‘Frightening’ Surge Brings US To 300m People,” you can appreciate their terror: the millions of Democrats who declared they were moving north after Bush’s re-election must have placed incredible strain on Canada’s highways, schools, trauma counselors, etc.

[..]I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty chipper about the birth of the cute l’il quality-of-life degrader. The previous day, my new book was published. You’ll find it in all good bookstores — it’s propping up the slightly wonky rear left leg of the front table groaning under the weight of unsold copies of Peace Mom by Cindy Sheehan. Anyway, the book — mine, not Cindy’s — deals in part with the geopolitical implications of demography — i.e., birth rates. That’s an easy subject to get all dry and statistical about, so I gotta hand it to my publicist: arranging for the birth of the 300 millionth American is about as good a promotional tie-in as you could get and well worth the 75 bucks he bribed the guy at the Census Bureau. But, even if you haven’t got a book to plug, the arrival of Junior 300 Mil is something everyone should celebrate.

Praveen Swami in The Hindu, Oct 23: “The search for the puppet-masters”

EVEN AS Pakistan’s armed forces massed the formations that would spearhead the Kargil war, the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s overall military commander proclaimed the opening of a second front. “To set up mujahideen networks across India is our one target,” Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi told The Nation on April 9, 1999. “We are preparing the Muslims of India,” he said, “and when they are ready, it will be the start of the disintegration of India.”
Six years after Lakhvi delivered this open threat, India is finally waking up to its seriousness. While a mass of evidence has emerged on the Lashkar role in the July 11 Mumbai serial bombings, Indian investigators continue to search for clear answers to the two most important questions. Just what strategic purpose was the bombing intended to serve? And is the regime of President Pervez Musharraf an enemy of the Lashkar’s jihad — or, in fact, its author?
[..]After 1989, and the Islamist triumph in Afghanistan, the Lashkar’s energies turned eastwards. From the outset, its objectives were clear. The Lashkar’s strategic goal, the scholar Yoginder Sikand has observed, was “to extend Muslim control over what is seen as having once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought back under Muslim domination.”

Robert D. Kaplan in the Atlantic, Oct 22: “We Can’t Just Withdraw”

Iraq may be closer to an explosion of genocide than we know.

Because no one is able to monopolize the use of force among either the Sunnis or Shiites, within each community various groups are in fierce competition over who can best defend it, which translates into who can murder more members of the other community. Even formal groupings like Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim’s Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army are aggregations of many smaller factions and death squads, whom their leaders don’t always control. Only when the political struggle within each sectarian community calms down can the civil war itself be ameliorated. Right now, there is no one on any side with the pivotal power to negotiate with the other.

An emerging school of thought says that the only real leverage we’re going to have is the threat of withdrawal, which would concentrate the minds of the various groups to seek modalities with each other for governing the country. That’s a bet, not a plan. You could also bet that any timetable for withdrawal will lead to a meltdown of the Iraq Army according to region and sect. Even if we promise that all of our military advisors will stay put, in addition to our air and special operations assets, no one in a culture of rumor and conspiracy theory might believe us.

Now about that Mark Steyn book. If, like myself, you haven’t gotten around to ordering it yet, here are some extracts and reviews for your smirking pleasure. Continueing on exactly where the previous post left off, in fact.

EXTRACTS:

“A Dark Globalism: How Islamist terror spread its tentacles worldwide” (NY Post)

THE dragons are no longer on the edge of the map: That’s the lesson of 9/11.

When you look at it that way, the biggest globali zation success story of recent years is not McDonald’s or Microsoft but Islamism. The Saudis took what was not so long ago a severe but peripheral strain of Islam – practiced by Bedouins in the middle of a desert miles from anywhere – and successfully exported it to Jakarta and Singapore and Alma-Ata and Grozny and Sarajevo and Lyons and Bergen and Manchester and Ottawa and Dearborn and Falls Church. It was a strictly local virus, but the bird flew the coop.

And now, instead of the quaintly parochial terrorist movements of yore, we have the first globalized insurgency.

[..]

“THE COMING OF AGE: Births vs dearths” (marksteyn.com)

The single most important fact about the early 21st century is the rapid aging of almost every developed nation other than the United States: Canada, Europe and Japan are getting old fast, older than any functioning society has ever been and faster than any has ever aged. A society ages when its birth rate falls and it finds itself with fewer children and more grandparents. For a stable population – ie, no growth, no decline; just a million folks in 1950, a million in 1980, a million in 2010 – you need a Total Fertility Rate of 2.1 live births per woman. That’s what America has: 2.1, give or take. Canada has 1.48, an all-time low and a more revealing difference between the Great Satan and the Great White North than any of the stuff (socialized health care, fewer handguns, more UN peacekeepers, etc) that Canucks usually brag about. Europe as a whole has 1.38, Japan 1.32, Russia 1.14. These countries – or, more precisely, these people – are going out of business.

[..]

Added 25/10: “The future belongs to Islam”

The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It’s the end of the world as we’ve known it. An excerpt from ‘America Alone’.

Sept. 11, 2001, was not “the day everything changed,” but the day that revealed how much had already changed. On Sept. 10, how many journalists had the Council of American-Islamic Relations or the Canadian Islamic Congress or the Muslim Council of Britain in their Rolodexes? If you’d said that whether something does or does not cause offence to Muslims would be the early 21st century’s principal political dynamic in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, most folks would have thought you were crazy. Yet on that Tuesday morning the top of the iceberg bobbed up and toppled the Twin Towers.

This is about the seven-eighths below the surface — the larger forces at play in the developed world that have left Europe too enfeebled to resist its remorseless transformation into Eurabia and that call into question the future of much of the rest of the world. The key factors are: demographic decline; the unsustainability of the social democratic state; and civilizational exhaustion.

[..]

REVIEWS:

Austin Bay today on Townhall.com:

Europeans are reproducing below the “replacement rate” — thus the average age of their populations is increasing sharply. If current trends continue, by 2050 one in three Germans and Italians will be over 65 years old. In the United States, only one in five will be so gray.

As a result, the Europe of the European Union (Steyn disdainfully calls it “Eutopia”) faces economic decline and risks systemic change. Steyn writes: “Tax revenues that support the ever growing numbers of the elderly and retired have to be paid by equally growing numbers of the young and working. The design flaw of the radically secularist Eutopia is that it depend on a religious-society birth rate.”

Japan faces the same “gray threat.” Even China has a birthrate below the demographic replacement rate. Among the modern industrial nations, only the United States (and possibly India) has the knack for reproduction.
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Europe’s Muslims, however, are multiplying — but they are not integrating culturally. Steyn argues that if European nations fail to culturally integrate Muslims, Europe faces profound political changes.

“As fertility dries up,” he writes, “so do societies. Demography is the most obvious symptom of civilizational exhaustion, and the clearest indicator of where we’re headed.”

Mona Charen in the National Review: “Steyn at the Bridge” Read this book

I’ve never read such an amusing book about such a grim subject. Mark Steyn’s America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is in deadly earnest — our civilization is facing a crisis of confidence and demographic vigor just at the moment when a jihadi world movement stands poised to upend us. And yet Steyn’s inimitable wit enlivens every page. As NR readers already know, he is the Errol Flynn of commentators, finishing off opponents with a single flick of his rapier. Whether that rapier will finally be silenced by a scimitar is the story of this book.

Steyn is not the first to tackle the theme of Western pusillanimity in the face of Islamic barbarism — While Europe Slept, Londonistan, Eurabia, and others have plumbed similar themes — but he is undoubtedly the most stylish. Here is his rejoinder to an Episcopal priest who told his congregation after the London bombings “There are no Muslim terrorists. There are terrorists.”

“It’s not the perfect fatuousness of the assertion so much as the meta-message it conveys: we’re the defeatist wimps; bomb us and we’ll apologize to you.” Later, he warms to the subject: “Most mainline Protestant churches are, to one degree or another, post-Christian. If they no longer seem disposed to converting the unbelieving to Christ, they can at least convert them to the boggiest of soft-left political clichés, on the grounds that if Jesus were alive today he’d most likely be a gay Anglican bishop in a committed relationship driving around in an environmentally friendly car with an ‘Arms Are for Hugging’ sticker on the way to an interfaith dialogue with a Wiccan and a couple of Wahhabi imams.”

[..]

Mac Johnson, on humanevents.com: “Western Culture Must Regain Its Will to Survive”

With its elites adrift in a philosophy of self-loathing, post-Christian multiculturalism and its citizenry numbed by the narcotics of hedonism, entitlement and perpetual adolescence, the West has every means to fight back—and even conquer—but lacks the will to do so. Who will defend societies, he asks, run by those who detest their own cultural inheritance and peopled by those who believe their culture consists primarily of the right to “free” stuff from the government and the freedom to engage in personal consumption unmolested by the grand forces of history? No one, it would seem.

Apparently, Hottentot history month, paid leave, prescription drug benefits, gay marriage and Coldplay haven’t nearly the power to inspire men to take up arms and risk death as does belief in things as passé and primitive as God and Country and a conviction in the superiority of one’s own culture.

Only in America (within the West) does any sizeable portion of the population still believe in such things—albeit a declining portion. America alone then, Steyn posits, has any real potential to emerge intact from the current century. The other nations will succumb to their internal pathologies and be assimilated into more confident cultures, primarily globalized Islam.

Steyn argues that this process of Islamic assimilation will be aided above all by demographic forces, especially the modern collapse of European birth rates. This factor is not unrelated to the collapse of cultural confidence. Declining birth rates (and the concomitant dependence on large scale immigration), Steyn proposes, are merely symptoms of the loss of will brought on by anti-nationalism and the eternal childhood of life in the welfare state.

Added 25/10:
Random Jottings blog: “Obsessing over Global Warming is a way to avoid facing the big problems…”

Added 25/10:
David M. Kinchen for Huntington News:
Witty, Pun- Filled Look at Why Canadian Mark Steyn Believes U.S. is World’s Last Best Hope Before a New Dark Age of Repression

INTERVIEWS:

Kathryn Lopez for National Review: “Mark this down”

Linda Frum for Canada’s National Post: “The man who likes to poke the world in the eye”

At 7:46 a.m. EDT yesterday the US Census Bureau population clock ticked over the 300 million mark. Three cheers for the Empire!

I hereby declare this post a statistics party in honour of the Great Satan (and the quest for world domination, of course). So get some bubbly in your bell curves.

• 12 percent of U.S. residents are foreign-born. Mexico is the most popular country of origin.
• Australia (or Little Satan, as Mark Steyn calls us) and Ireland are the only countries in the world that have a greater net migration than the US.
• Of the 300 million residents 201 million are white, 44.7 million are hispanic, 38.7million are black, asian and pacific Islanders make up 14.3 million and other races make up the remaining 1.3 million.
• Pensions currently account for 4.4% of the US’s GOP. In comparison, in Italy and Denmark the figure is 11%.
• On top of the above figure there is another 12 million illegal residents in the US.
• The median age in the US is 36.5. In Australia it is 36.9, in Pakistan 19.8 and its 42.6 in Germany.
• The US fertility rate is 2.09 children per woman (2.1 is needed for a steady population, not taking into account immigration), with a birth rate of 14.14 births per 1000 people. The death rate is 8.26 death per 1000.
  

  For a little comparison and perspective here are some fertility rates around the world:
  Australia it is 1.76, China – 1.73, Russia 1.28, Pakistan 4, Germany 1.39 , Nigeria 5.49

  And some birth/death rates:
  Australia it is 12.14/7.51, China: 13.25/6.97, Russia: 9.95/14.65, Pakistan: 29.74/8.23, Germany: 8.25/10.62 and Nigeria: 40.43/16.94

  As you’d guess from figures, Russia’s population is shrinking fast, by close to a million a year in fact. Russia’s high death rate is a result of the second highest suicide rate in the world (Lithuania is first, Belarus and Kazakhstan, Russia’s closest neighbours are third and fourth), high alcohol and drug abuse rates, crime, the war in Chechnya and a growing AIDS problem. In addition Russia has more abortions than births. Germany population is keeping about steady through immigration. Nigeria’s high growth rate is dampened by the high incidence of AIDS infection about 5.5%.

For the Western civilisation-hating doomsayers that want to poop this party, Austin Bay, in his review of Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone” today includes this list, from Steyn’s book:

Author and columnist Mark Steyn notes in his new book, “America Alone”, “The end of the world’s nighness isn’t something you’d want to set your watch by. “

Steyn provides a collection of the dire predictions made by “Chicken Little’s eminent successors.”

Steyn’s list includes:

– 1968, in “The Population Bomb,” distinguished scientist Paul Ehrlich declared, “In the 1970s the world will undergo famines — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”

– 1972, in “The Limits to Growth,” the Club of Rome announced that the world would run out of gold by 1981, of mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and gas by 1993.

– 1976, Lowell Ponte published a huge bestseller called “The Cooling: Has the New Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive?”

– 1977, Jimmy Carter confidently predicted that “we could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”

“None of these things occurred,” Steyn writes. “Contrary to the doom-mongers’ predictions, millions didn’t starve.”

I’d be sending that population bomb to Russia for diffusing – one man’s bomb’s is another’s fireworks. Jimmy Carter can follow. And yes, I am aware of the irony of the word ‘doom-monger’ coming from Steyn. The guy is the king of irony, he’s allowed.