It is more than four months since the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published the caricatures of the prophet Muhammed that supposedly caused the current confrontation between the West and the Islamic world. However, while many media outlets have focused on the important questions of freedom of expression and the incompatibility of Islamic values with Western society, many have failed to ask why it took so long for Muslims to begin their furious and violent protests, especially if their prophet and religion had been so severely insulted.
First, one must understand that the current crisis is less about hurt religious feelings and much more about the ongoing conflict between the West and the Islamic world. Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, once said that the Western-Islamic clash “would be carried out on many fronts: political, diplomatic, economic, military, ideological.” Until now, the current contretemps has involved mostly Islamic aggression in all but the military category – so far.
Governments of Muslim countries now stand accused of spurring on the current violence, and may even have orchestrated it in the first place. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said this week she has no doubt that both Iran and Syria are inciting the demonstrations for their own advantage. As well, a European paper states that the Danish flags demonstrators are burning across the Islamic world are coming from Pakistan, a Muslim country.
But all offenses are timed for a purpose and have objectives. The timing of this most recent Islamic attack against the West, four long months after the caricatures’ first appearance, tells one what it is mainly about, namely, an attempt to neutralize an anti-nuclear weapons Europe that was ready to help in the American-Israeli diplomatic and military showdown with Iran over that country’s ongoing efforts to acquire a nuclear arsenal. In a way, the current crisis could be regarded as a preemptive strike.
However, due to the present Islamic offensive, it now remains to be seen whether countries like France, which initially was ready to help America and Israel militarily against Iran’s nuclear program, will still persevere, and whether other European states can stand up to this Muslim intimidation and still contribute in the United Nations and in the European Union to the very necessary cause of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Whatever the result, it will definitely be difficult to take action against Iran as long as emotions are running high and the controversy continues, especially if it is allowed to escalate.
Besides helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons to counteract Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Islamic countries hope to achieve other goals with this current, manufactured crisis. Already, it has caused the story of the Hamas election to disappear from the front pages of most newspapers and, to a lesser extent, the Iranian nuclear crisis itself. This has lessened diplomatic and world opinion pressure, at least temporarily, against these entities as well as against Syria, another possible target of American/Israeli military intervention.
Islamists are also using the caricatures to unite the Muslim world against the West as well as a means of recruitment to their cause. Muslim extremists are also hoping the crisis will help accomplish one of their long-held goals, namely, to weaken the regimes of Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their favor, so that they can seize power.
Fear of the extremists and of appearing un-Muslim, or not Muslim enough, before their own peoples has also caused governments and politicians of Arab League countries to hasten in calling for apologies, boycotts and punishment of those in Europe who drew and published the caricatures. In a sense, the drawings represent a Muslim motherhood issue. Middle Eastern affairs commentators say these same governments are also using this international crisis, as they have used others before, to divert their peoples’ anger from internal issues.
But perhaps just as important as helping Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, Islamic countries are using the caricature confrontation to accomplish its long-term goal of reducing Europe to a state of dhimmitude, that is, a state of humiliating subservience that Islam reserves for non-Muslims. They have, for example, not just demanded apologies from the Danish government and the editor of Jyllands-Posten, an apology is also being asked from the Queen of Denmark, the symbol of Danish tradition and national integrity. In this confrontation with the West, the Islamic countries are behaving like the leftist radical bullies in 1960s North America, in that whenever someone agrees to one set of their demands, they simply come back with more.
It is absolutely imperative now that Europe persevere in helping stop the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran. The West itself must also stand up and support Denmark in this crisis to prevent a bullying Islamic world from attaining its goal of smashing Western liberal values and democratic traditions, a long-desired Islamist goal. And since Huntington said this conflict between the West and the Islamic world will last many years, a strong stand now will halt, and maybe even reverse, Europe’s downward slide into dhimmitude and thwart even worse Islamic blackmail attacks in the future.
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