--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Wait a minute. Does this mean that you think
> Islamists would be
> plotting to blow up planes or drive them into tall
> buildings if the
> US hadn't supported Israel and a host of
> reactionary, corrupt Arab
> regimes for years, and more recently, invaded Iraq,
> with the support
> of that lickspittle Blair? And you think that they'd
> still be as
> perfervid (to use Marty Peretz' favorite word) if
> the US changed its
> policies?
>
> Doug
Of course I have no way of knowing what eould have happened in an alternate history, but I've already made the Nazi/Versaillies analogy (NOT to compare Islamists to Nazis in any other except this salient respect). Islamism is the product of a lot of factors, of which Israel and the discreditation of secular mass movements in the Muslim world were major ones. But those things have already happened, and the ideology they helped produce is very real and very dangerous.
The US is not part of the hoped-for Caliphate, so I would guess that if the impossible were to occur and the US to totally withdraw its presence and influence from that area, it would take a much lower position on the target list. The jihadis would turn their murderous attention to other targets (such us, hum, the place I live).
As to Israel, no position adopted by Israel will ever placate them. Israel is in the Caliphate-to-be. Just like when Russia withdrew from Chechnya in 1996, any olive branch held out by Israel will be seen by the Jihadis as a sign of weakness. This is why Israel is in such a shitty situation. Really founding that country was a bad idea.
When the US eventually leaves Iraq and if no international forces or local powers are able to stabilize/carve up the place, I predict that central Sunni Iraq will become ground zero of the Jihadi movement, like Afghanistan with better infrastructure. Same as happened in Chechnya. This is one reason the war was so freakin' stupid, as well as evil.
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