America's Catastrophic Dilemma

America now faces a catastrophic dilemma in Bush’s World War Against the Muslim World, and its occupation of the heartland of that world, the Persian Gulf region. The U.S. will suffer great losses if it continues this policy and great losses if it ends them. The U.S. can continue to invade, occupy and otherwise control (through proxy regimes) the Muslim World to control their oil and, thereby, unintentionally feed the vast “blowback” the U.S. has already created, a raging, soaring firestorm of Muslim Rebirth aimed (as Muslims see it) at ending the American rule of their world and planned destruction of Islam. The U.S. could only “win” this war by bankrupting itself and turning the world permanently against itself. Or the U.S. can withdraw from all of its vast military bases in the Muslim World, end its vast wars against Muslim nations, and end its support for its pseudo-Muslim proxy police states, thereby ending its vast feeding of the Rebirth of Islam movements, but also ending direct control over the oil. No halfway measures are possible. If the U.S. withdraws partially, that will be seen as weakness and the Muslim Revolution Against the American Threat will soar faster. No American “New Initiative” is possible in the Muslim World because the U.S. is now seen as The Great Satan incarnate by almost all Muslims, an evil force that is absolutely bent on destroying Islam by force and by pop-culture and bribes.

Each of the horns of this dilemma presents some awful prospects. The rational decision maker would be concerned with trying to see which looks less catastrophic. It is not at all clear that Bush et al., will make their decisions for the future of America and the world on any rational basis. They are desperate not to suffer the awful wound to their vanity of “losing a war.” But it is vitally important for Americans to try to see through all the lies and real complexities of the situation and recognize that there are now only these two very broad choices in the awful dilemma Bush et al. have unintentionally created for us.

Over the past half century the U.S. has paid for and helped in every way the Muslim World, from North Africa to Indonesia, to control and milk the vast wealth of Muslim states, especially their oil wealth. The U.S. has invaded and occupied two of the largest Muslim states, Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. has also built massive military bases throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf and is now doing so in the oil-rich Central Asia.

This presents any intelligent Muslim among this vast nation of nearly one and a half billion people with a simple choice. One, he can go along with the American Imperial Tyranny which rules over almost all Muslims to get ahead personally and help modernize the Muslim World, thereby giving him and all Muslims a chance for a more prosperous life, but also feel as if he is losing his soul as a Muslim one little step at a time. Or, two, he can try to reverse this half-century of increasingly oppressive and tyrannical American rule over the Muslim World by becoming part of the vast and soaring Born-Again Muslim Community, stigmatized as “Jihadism.”

This is a soul-wrenching choice. It would appear that somewhat more than half of them, varying from one nation to another, have already chosen to forsake the path to what they see as loss of their souls. They are profoundly anti-American now, probably around eighty percent or more of them. Hundreds of millions already have “returned to their roots,” opting for one of the ever-more radically Islamized movements. Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran were the first nations to do this massively numbers. Young Iranians more recently started moving away from the extremes of the Jihadist mullahs, but the American invasion and annihilation and occupation of Muslim nations has totally reversed this drift. Even Pakistan and Iraq, among the most secularized and Westernized Muslim nations, have become extremely radical Muslim nations in just a few years. This is a remarkably rapid change. It seems very likely that the continued American occupation or other control of their nations through tyrannical proxies will now rapidly convince almost everyone to become radically Islamist and radically anti-American. Al-Queda is now only one of the exploding number of Holy Warrior groups dedicated to attacking America and they are quietly supported by hundreds of millions of Muslims who see them as their Saviors.

My own guesstimate of the situation is that America would be safer economically in the short run by continuing its losing wars, but this would guarantee a long-run catastrophe for us and the world. The guerilla armies are still in their infancy, have barely begun to attack us and will soon master the use of low-tech weapons of mass destruction that are readily available and easy to deliver. I think the rational choice is to get out of the region, and try to make amends with all of the Muslim World, just as we should avoid terrible wars with China, Russia, Europe, and all other significant nations out of simple self-interest.

”Friendly” relations with all nations, as George Washington said, are in our best interest. The Muslim World was overwhelmingly in love with America until Big Oil and the corrupt Republicrats started imposing proxy totalitarian regimes on them. But my guess is that Americans will not see the simple, rational choice that faces them and will unknowingly choose the path to catastrophe, just as they have been doing for the past half century.

The most ignorant and hate-filled Americans put it very simply. “Stay the course!” They will probably wake up as they are going off the cliff and wonder in amazement, “How in the world did this happen to us?” That’s what they did in Vietnam. That’s what they are doing financially, happily digging an immense hole of debt and financial imbalances worldwide.

Americans are beginning to realize that they cannot “win” the war in Iraq at any cost they are willing to bear. They will likely demand a “pull-out” from Iraq in the coming months, hoping this will end the soaring Muslim mobilization against America worldwide. But it will not. It will simply make obvious the fact that the guerilla armies can defeat the U.S. just as they defeated the Soviet “Superpower,” while the continued occupation of the Persian Gulf and support for the proxy police states will lead to a soaring hatred of America and support for the guerilla armies.

America could not even defeat the small nation of communist Vietnam. It is losing its vast war against the tiny guerilla armies of the tiny Sunni nation in Iraq. It cannot possibly win a World War against an immense, mobilizing Muslim World that now sees America as hell-bent on destroying Islam.

December 28, 2005