Books
Louis Lieb reviews Gilles Kepel's The War for Muslim Minds (Harvard, 2004)
Louis Lieb works in the energy field and has been passionately interested in study as well as activism relating to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
As someone who doesn't know a lot about Islam, I found this book quite interesting and useful as a field guide to the war on terror. The book's comprehensive scope includes sections on the principal components of the war on terror, including the Islamist movements, which include the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabiism. The former originated in Egypt in the 20th Century, while Wahabiism (or salafism, as the author calls it) originated
with the 18th century religious reformer Abdul Wahab, who lived on the Arabian Peninsula.
Salafism itself has two components, one of which seeks jihad. Jihad includes both an inner and an outer process of reforming the world (and the individual) according to Islamic law (sharia). It aims to introduce rule by sharia in the Middle
East and throughout the world. The other salafist group, which the author calls "sheikhist", is more politically passive, tends to support the Saudi regime and seeks Islamic purity by withdrawing from the political world. The Muslim Brotherhood is jihadist (read terroristic), but also emphasizes other forms of political and social action. The Brotherhood is also the intellectual progenitor of the Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Kepel’s book has valuable sections on the roots of American foreign policy in the region, particularly the neo-conservative movement. His description of the neocon movement sounds refreshingly idealistic and moral in tone, in contrast to the realpolitik or pragmatism promoted by the likes of James Baker or Henry Kissinger.
The neocons believe that a worldwide consensus exists that liberal democracy is the best form of government, and that the U.S. should take the opportunity as the world’s only superpower to export that system anywhere, especially the Middle East. Unilateralism is part of that vision, since they viewed the U.N. as obsolete.
To accomplish their goals they needed to topple Saddam Hussein. This, they argued, would secure the American oil supply, put pressure on Saudi Arabia to reform and supposedly spread democracy throughout the Middle East. It would also make the world safer for Israel, another of their primary goals, and thereby reduce the incentive for corrupt Arab states in the region from stirring up opinion against Israel as a way of diverting attention from their own failings.
As Kepel paints the picture, the neocons were uniquely influenced in their thinking by the development of “smart weapons,” which changed the traditional calculus of war. Whereas the sanctions against Iraq punished the population while leaving the regime unscathed, the neocons wanted to use those smart weapons to bring down the regime while leaving the population relatively unscathed.
All the same, Kepel offers a caveat about neocons. He asserts that they have a Machiavellian characteristic, which believes that it is all right to mislead the public for a good end.
Other sections discuss the two American wars on Iraq, the Palestinian conflict, the history of the Saudi regime and its intimate and fascinating relationship to the salafists, who were useful in providing ideological support for the regime. The author has a major discussion of Islamist movements among Muslim (primarily North African) immigrants to Europe.
The intellectual roots of Al Qaeda lie in the amazing amalgamation of Islamic thought, which occurred when the Muslim Brotherhood was kicked out of Egypt and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia. The Muslim Brotherhoods’ views combined with the indigenous salafist thought to create a "witches brew" of jihadist sentiment that ultimately resulted in the formation of Al Qaeda. Kepel writes that the United States played a major role in the creation of Al Qaeda by its support for the jihadists fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
According to Kepel, the victory over the Soviet forces was seen as proving the power and worth of the forces of jihad against "the faraway enemy", and emboldened jihadists to turn their sights on the US and Israel, particularly in the wake of the Persian Gulf War and the consequent influx of American troops into bases on the Arabian Peninsula.
The book has a fairly exhaustive account of Islamic fundamentalism, but has almost no discussion of more moderate versions of Islam. In a book entitled "The War for Muslim Minds" that would seem to be a serious limitation.
Another problem is that the book has no footnotes, though there is a glossary for each chapter. If the reader wants to find the author's evidence for some assertions, he would have to search the glossary for that chapter, which is no guarantee of finding anything. For example, Kepel’s discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli situation contains the assertion that Yasser Arafat initiated and directed the Al Aqsa Intifada, starting in the fall of 2000. This is presented as fact, without any supporting documentation of any kind.
All the same, the book is a useful and readable guide to one of the primary issues of the day and deserves a wide audience.
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