House of War

Poverty already exists. It wasn’t created by globalised capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t perpetuate it by preventing the fair distribution of wealth. It isn’t the necessary opposite of wealth, which powers capitalism (that function is given to relative inequality), or an ontological unformed twin, birthed by capitalism’s inherent and deadly contradictions. It predates the current round of globalisation by some time. In fact, it predates history. It is the natural state of man, our default setting: empty-handed, empty-bellied and limited to local familial networks.

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Has the modern world left poor people behind? Yes, by definition.

And what does that prove? Nothing, beyond the obvious, like poor choices and bad governance. (1)

Can poverty (realistically defined) be defeated? Yes, in the developing world, by continued integration into the global economy and by developing strong contract law and independent judiciaries: in short, by well thought out policies implemented by responsible governments and international institutions.

And in the developed world? No, because the developed world doesn’t suffer from (realistically defined) poverty on a significant scale: poor people in the west live comfortable lives in historical or world terms. Our problems are different, the results of ineptness at life in general.

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Notes:

1. (Capitalism doesn’t make the developing world poor. Capitalism isn’t evil – it’s not that human, knowing nether good nor bad. It doesn’t have a programme. It doesn’t give a shit at all. Capitalism means letting go of the reigns, and ultimately, whatever emergent social, political and technological entities rise from the chaos of spontaneous, molecular-level decision making in the far (or perhaps not so far) future will be similarly beyond, unimaginable precisely because of the wide dispersal and dense granularity of their progress. Who knows what a globalised capitalist society will look like in two hundred years? It does not matter.)

Paul Berman has written a long, almost book-length article on Tariq Ramadan, the French Islamist and Muslim intellectual, examining what he represents within his own current of so-called “salafi reformism” and what his widespread feting by liberal European intellectuals tells us about society today. It’s very much in the spirit of Terror and Liberalism and, as such, is not so much recommended reading as required. The article was published in The New Republic and is called The Islamist, the Journalist, and the defence of Liberalism.

The Observer, not normally a newspaper I rate very highly, published a brilliant and very brave article by Hassan Butt recently, My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror. Butt was, at one time, the spokesman for a proscribed British Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, an involved feature of what he terms the “British Jihadi Network”, and even, following his arrest under the Terrorism Act, a minor celebrity of Muslim extremism. Hassan has renounced his past positions and is using his platform to now call for an Islamic response to Islamist terror, specifically, one grounded in Islamic law.

In the July edition of Reason Magazine, Brink Lindsey has a new article, The Aquarians and the Evangelicals, which discusses the split in what he calls the “postwar liberal consensus” in American society. The split, which gave birth to the oppositional yet curiously complementary left/right political spectrum of today, severed the American polity into the socially liberal anti-capitalists, who enjoyed modern freedoms yet hated the engine of capital that generated them, and the fiscally conservative religious right, who protected the market economy yet despaired of the freedoms it created. Lindsey notes that,

On the left gathered those who were most alive to the new possibilities created by the unprecedented mass affluence of the postwar years but at the same time were hostile to the social institutions—namely, the market and the middle-class work ethic—that created those possibilities. On the right rallied those who staunchly supported the institutions that created prosperity but who shrank from the social dynamism they were unleashing. One side denounced capitalism but gobbled its fruits; the other cursed the fruits while defending the system that bore them.

Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser in the Multi-National Force - Iraq, Dave Kilcullen, has a very revealing and timely post at the Small Wars Journal Blog, Understanding Current Operations in Iraq. Kilcullen explains the rational behind the surge and the MNF’s strategy for defeating the insurgency. The strategy will not focus on chasing clandestine cells of jihadists around the desert, but will instead look to protect the Iraqi population and cutting off support (be it moral or logistical) for the terrorists. Despite the ever more shrill shouts of “failure” in the press, Kilcullen advises his readers to wait and see, because in fact the surge proper is only just starting. The activity of the previous months was merely the prepapration of forces. “This is the end of the beginning,” he writes. If you want to understand what the MNF is doing in Iraq at present, you really need to read this. Links to related commentary (Kilcullen is always worth discussing) here.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.
Rev 6:12

According to World Tribune,

Israel is preparing for an imminent war with Iran, Syria and/or their non-state clients. Israeli military intelligence has projected that a major attack could come from any of five adversaries in the Middle East. Officials said such a strike could spark a war as early as July 2007.

On Sunday, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet that the Jewish state faces five adversaries in what could result in an imminent confrontation. Yadlin cited Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and Al Qaida.

Across the Middle East there is the sense that pressure is building, and that its release will unleash a huge storm across the region. Various conflicts appear to be coalescing, as once bitter enemies join together under the banner of defeating American-Israeli “hegemony”. In a recent op-ed in Opinion Journal, Joshua Muravchik wrote that “a bigger war… is growing more likely every day, beckoned by the sense that America and Israel are in retreat and that radical Islam is ascending.” The belief that American resolve is weakening, that the tide of public opinion in the west has turned firmly against Israel, and that at last Islam is a power once more is increasing the likelihood of regional conflagration.

Iran and Syria already believe that Israel was defeated by their proxy, Hezbollah, in last summer’s war in the Lebanon. Following the conclusion of that campaign, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad crowed “we tell [the Israelis] that after tasting humiliation in the latest battles, your weapons are not going to protect you — not your planes, or missiles, or even your nuclear bombs.” Ahmadinejad was also triumphant, stating that “God’s promises have come true”.

The Israeli “problem” is of central importance to the Arab psyche. Ahmed Sheikh, Editor-in-Chief of Al Jazeera has said that all the problems in the Middle East originate here. “It’s because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego.” And in the final analysis, it’s that perception that counts, rather than whether or not destroying Israel really would improve the political and economic realities of life in the Middle East. The prospect of war with Israel and victory for Arab forces is a powerful attraction that is drawing various different, ongoing regional conflicts together.

To that end unlikely alliances are forming. The Shiite theocracy in Iran is collaborating with its supposed religious enemies, the Sunni Al Qaeda, in Iraq. Syria, lead by a Baathist regime that draws its members from a Shiite sect, the Alawites, has also been collaborating with Al Qaeda groups, despite its secularity and Al Qaeda’s religiosity. The Iranian network is spreading, with reports of Iranian weapons being supplied to the Taliban and their sphere of influence widening to include even those jihadists who consider their religion apostasy. Their missiles point at Israel from Lebanon and Gaza, and their Revolutionary Guards tie down American counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dangerously, the Islamic radicals have begun to hope. As Muravchik notes, “A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. Often democracies have fed such beliefs by their own flaccid behaviour.” If Iran feels that victory is within its grasp (a feeling fed by Western leftists and apologists), it could lead to a five sided war with Israel later this summer, ultimately involving America as it comes to the aid of its ally. Should that happen, defeat for Israel seems unlikely, though misery and hardship are certain to be widespread. The region will probably begin to resemble contemporary Iraq: an area lit up by “low intensity conflict” and criss-crossed by a splintered web of terrorist factions.

Once again, the Middle East hangs upon a precipice.

There are plenty of things to be depressed about, at present. However, there are occasional chinks of light amidst the darkness. Here are two:

Dave Kilcullen

Thomas P.M. Barnett