President Bush held a private meeting at the Pentagon last Tuesday that included members of his war cabinet and several outside experts. The president expressed his frustration with the level of popular support in Iraq and searched for ways to get the people of that country on board with the U.S. mission to build a democracy. Bush also noted his perplexity at the lack of appreciation within Iraq for the U.S.’s efforts and sacrifices. Bush’s decision to hold such a meeting reflects a key aspect to one of the more troubling aspects of the war on terror.
         The major events of the last two weeks in the broader war – Israel’s aborted military action against Hezbollah, the foiled airliner plot, as well as the continuing violence in Iraq – has brought a disturbing reality to the surface. Success in Iraq has always been contingent on the assistance and cooperation of the people within that country and within that region as a whole. We know who the enemies of freedom and democracy are. We know that there are Sunni and Shiite extremists alike who despise the U.S. and the Israelis and will use any means at their disposal to frustrate our efforts to bring a freedom-based system of governance into that region. We know that there are religious fundamentalists who can’t wait to get U.S. forces out the way in Iraq so that they can plunge the country into a sectarian civil war and ultimately establish a new caliphate.
         We also know that there are Muslims living amongst us in the West who are intent on destroying the systems of freedom under which they currently live. These are young men (and women) who migrated to or were born and raised and even educated under the systems of a free society and who now think that these very societies that have brought them opportunity should now be punished for their influence in the world. These terrorists continue to attempt to strike fear into the hearts of westerners and are bent on destroying our economy in the name of their religion.     
         What we do not know is where the Islamic voices of moderation are, or whether they exist at all.
         When Israel invaded Lebanon last month in an attempt to root out Hezbollah once and for all from the border region, there were still a few voices within Lebanon and the broader Muslim world who did not denounce the Israeli action, understanding that the extremist group was a provocateur for more violence and were simply bringing more war to a country that has struggled in its grip for years and was finally beginning to rise above the cycle of bloodshed. After weeks of war and Israel’s bungled efforts, this extremist group is now considered as mainstream and legitimate as the Red Cross. The U.N. negotiates with Hezbollah as though they were a legitimately recognized nation. Hezbollah currently funds the relief and reconstruction effort (with money from Iran and Syria) within the war-ravaged neighborhoods of Lebanon.
         The events of the last couple of weeks have shown that we in the conservative, pro-war camp have been wrong on one fundamental point: we have overestimated the Muslims. When the Iraq war began in 2003, it seemed logical that the U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Even when it became apparent that the vast majority of Iraqis wanted U.S. forces out of Iraq, it could be assumed that they were still better off than they were under Hussein’s rule and that many of the “mainstream” Iraqis would value the opportunity at their feet and use their voices and muscle to drown out those in the violent opposition and establish a free and democratic system of governance, and could perhaps begin the process of becoming a beacon of hope and opportunity within a troubled sea.     
         That was the hope, and it seemed more than plausible. The reality, however, has been a slap in the face. There are indeed those within that country who are trying desperately to build a strong and democratic central government and a security force with teeth. What seems to be lacking is popular support. We can throw the weight of the U.S. around only so much, but without that support, what is it worth? So far, the U.S. has paid a price of billions of dollars and, more importantly, over 2,500 lives.  Not that the U.S. Army should ever play the role of martyr, but where is the thanks? The U.S. has spilled so much blood for a people who seem not only unwilling to use that sacrifice for their own opportunity, but who can’t seem to muster anything but the slightest hint of appreciation.
         This entire war has been built on the notion of helping people help themselves; of ridding their countries of the forces of tyranny and hate so that they can build something positive in its place and perhaps begin to join the modern world. This applies not only to Iraq, but to Afghanistan and to any other neighboring country close enough to feel the winds of change.  It seems more and more that this thinking is flawed, that the term “mainstream Muslim” may be a misnomer; that a “moderate, free-thinking Islamist” may be a figment of a neo-conservative imagination.
         Such hawkish hand-wringing may sound like excusing a failed U.S. policy in Iraq. Maybe we should have employed the Powell doctrine instead of the Rumsfeld doctrine and used overwhelming force and shock and awe to destroy the insurgency (and kill many more innocent civilians than have died already) after destroying the Hussein regime. Then would the moderate voices have felt safe enough to rise up from within? Would more mainstream Iraqis harbor terrorist insurgents in their home if they feared an American cruise missile through their window? Maybe we should have done nothing and simply stayed home after 9/11 and hoped for the best – hoped that someday forces of moderation would rise up in the Middle East and overthrow the dictators and the theocrats that threaten the modern world to which they are now so inextricably linked. Based on recent events, the latter seems like the biggest pipe dream of all.
         What will it take to bring a fundamentally religious society out of the dark ages and into the world of ideas and moderation? Perhaps there really are no moderate Muslims who will speak up and denounce the killing of those who do not subscribe to their brand of religion. Perhaps there is no one from within who will stand up and say that blowing up commercial airliners and killing thousands of people in the process and damaging economies that provide opportunities to millions more (including Muslims) is wrong and only serves to send Muslims and non-Muslims alike into a state of regression.
         It’s hard to imagine a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist not renouncing someone who would kill thousands of innocents in the name of their religion. One can only imagine an outpouring of anger at the distortion such acts would bring to their basis of spirituality. There’s something unique about the Muslim religion that makes such denouncements virtually non-existent. The reason could be fear – those moderates may fear the wrath of the militant elements, thereby allowing only those militant voices to be heard. It may be easy to be silent if the cost of speaking up is death. If that were true, then where are the Muslims within relatively safe countries like the United States and Britain? Do they too fear members of the militia showing up at their doors if they speak up? The other explanation is sympathy for the militant cause.  Perhaps non-violent Muslims are content to let the militant sects do the fighting and the dirty work for them. Perhaps they hate Israel and the U.S. just as much as their militant brethren do, even if they consider themselves to be non-violent.
         We’ve watched the vast majority of the Muslim world stand idly by over the years as others have done the hard work of expelling forces of tyranny and repression and violence from that region. Israeli operations aside, the Muslim world watched as the U.S. expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991 and when we overthrew the Taliban from Afghanistan a decade later. In each of these instances, including the current war in Iraq, the U.S. -- while protecting it’s own interests -- provided the bulk of the blood and sweat that freed populations of Muslims from repression at the hands of other Muslims. The only time in recent history that a Muslim population has risen up to overthrow a leader was the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 when Iranian Shiites took to the streets and overthrew the Shah and put a fundamentalist theocracy into power – a move toward an even greater religious fundamentalism that continues to threaten free societies today. Those moderate voices in Lebanon that expelled the Syrian army last year and the purple-fingered Iraqis who voted for a voice, those seeming harbingers of revolution, are being washed away by the tide of extremism.
         The American revolution had Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry; the French had Rousseau. Perhaps we don’t hear from the Muslim equivalent because there isn’t one. We may believe that freedom is the condition that the human spirit naturally yearns for, but maybe this is indeed a concept that uneducated masses who have a fundamentalist religion at the core of their being are unable to grasp. If this is true, then it still doesn’t explain the silence of Western-educated Muslims – those who have used free societies and superior universities to improve their lives, only to turn around and deride them as objects of hate.  Instead we heard British Muslims denounce as racism the profiling at airports, as though offense to one’s feelings take priority over the denouncement of those who aim to kill in the name of Islam -- those who make profiling an unsavory necessity in the first place. Even the Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police in London, Ali Desai, a Muslim, said “What you are suggesting is that we should have a new offense in this country called ‘traveling whilst Asian.’” It’s hard to understand how some could be so angered by the scrutiny applied to Muslim men, while at the same time there’s no recognition given to the fact the only people currently trying to blow up buses, trains, and airplanes are young Muslim men (and the occasional Muslim woman).
         History may show that the greatest mistake made by the Bush administration and the so-called neo-conservatives was in believing that Muslims would stand up and fight to be free – that they had a desire to join the modern world instead of retreating into a theocratic hole while progress and ideas passed them by.  Maybe it’s time we recognized that we’ve sacrificed too much for a people that don’t wish to help themselves. Countries like Turkey and the U.A.E. have demonstrated that moderate voices can be a factor in a Muslim country, but where have those countries been in this war on terror?

         Imagine if Israel was wiped off the map and no longer existed. Then what? Would Hezbollah and Hamas lead legitimate countries and integrate themselves into the rest of the world? Or would they more likely find a new oppressor to blame for whatever economic and social ills still ailed them? As long as Islam has an overriding sense of victimhood at its core, whether it be victims of Israel, U.S. foreign policy, western civilization, or other sects of Muslims, they will never accept freedom. They will never denounce those who lash out in violence and terror at their perceived oppressors. They will never create their own opportunities, nor will they ever take those opportunities handed to them on a silver platter.