Arab World Analysis lays it on the line

By Aussiegirl

Arab World Analysis is a great blog you should always check on for the latest news from the Middle East and for timely and expert analysis. The blogger here speaks Arabic and often translates Arabic language broadcasts or articles. Here is his take on President Bush's speech in response to a reader who asked about the following particular quote from President Bush's speech. His response is particularly edifying. Check out this blog frequently to keep up to date on an important part of the world -- also featured is a lengthy analysis of the current disengagment process from Gaza and the outlook for this policy.

"The terrorists who attacked us -- and the terrorists we face -- murder in the name of a TOTALITARIAN IDEOLOGY that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent." ~~ President Bush, speaking at Ft. Bragg.

Response by Kirk Sowell, of Arab World Analysis:

I would attribute this ideology to two forces, one indigenous and one foreign to the Arab world. The first is the religious ideology of Wahhabism. If one traces the history of the Wahhabi-Saudi alliance from its inception in 1744 (as I do in my book, pp. 135-39; 164-66; 187-189), it can be seen that Wahhabism has been a murderous ideology from the beginning. Their standard approach was to attack Arabian tribes until they accepted the Wahhabi version of Islam. These tribes were already Muslim, obviously, and most were Sunni, but this did not shield them from a coerced conversion to "true Islam." Most notorious perhaps were the Wahhabis' massacres of the Shia, leading to the pillaging of Iraqi Shia villages and the massacre of innocents.

This Wahhabi ideology was taught in the school system that Osama bin Laden grew up in, and he largely accepted it. One caveat is that bin Laden has been much more willing to work with Shia Muslims that strict Wahhabis, but he was much affected by their belief that killing non-Muslim civilians was acceptable as a means of spreading religion.

Second, during the 20th century the Arab world unfortunately underwent extensive exposure to Europe's totalitarian ideologies - Nazism, Communism and other variants of Marxism. The modern police state was invented (the theory goes) by late Czarist Russia at the end of the 19th century, and then "perfected" by Fascists, Nazis and Soviets thereafter.

Nazism had a brief period of influence in the 1930s and 1940s, but was overshadowed by Soviet influence after 1950. While the Baathists of Syria and Iraq rejected Communism, they adopted the Soviet method of rule by terror. Saddam Hussein consciously modeled himself on Stalin, and reportedly openly boasted during the 1960s that he intended to bring a Stalinist state (for a source on this, check the archives of the Financial Times, February 2003 I believe).

Thus, the quote above describes a new, modern ideology. While the term "Islamofascism" is somewhat overused, there is today a unique ideology never before in existence which relies on the tools of the totalitarian/fascist state to promote the goals of a violent religious ideology. Arab states before the modern era were autocratic, of course, as in Europe, but the Abbasid and Ottoman Empires were not totalitarian any more than Byzantium or the Habsburgs were.