Posted by
Mark McConnell on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 9:52:48 PM
In order to win in Iraq, we must believe unwaveringly that democracy is compatible with Islam. To sustain the war, we must be convinced that we are fighting on behalf of democratic Islam, against anti-democracy. To believe this, we must believe that the anti-democratic movements within Islam, against whom we are fighting, do not speak for all of Islam. It is alarming to see this conviction crumbling, on the left and the right.
The jihadists promote the view that democracy is the enemy of Islam. This is the ideological enemy that we are fighting. Whoever starts to believe that Islam and sharia are incompatible with democracy has become a hindrance to the cause of democracy in Islamic countries, and in fact has switched sides in the ideological battle that is the key to winning the war in Iraq.
A couple of thoughts will sustain our alliance with democratic Islam. First, there is a difference between secularization and democracy. Failure to believe this is why those who believe in secularization more than they believe in democracy cannot win the war. The forces in this country who are terrified because religious people have a democratic influence cannot persuade the religious people of another country that our war is not against their religion. This describes the difference between the President, who thinks that the insurgency will be defeated by fair elections, and his opposition.
Second, not all who favor genuine democracy are "moderates". Although democracy favors people more than it favors truth, it
does not exclude truth; and it is only on that account that people can be convinced to favor democracy as a means for advancing the truth as they understand it, and to oppose violent jihad as the disaster that it really is.
We need to pay attention to Indonesia, for example, and examine how Islamic "scholars" there have managed to interpret sharia in various democratic ways.