The Islam That Threatens
ADICAL Islam, in the form of
a newly emerging caliphate Islamic State seeking hegemony in
the Middle East, requires deep insight in recognizing the
danger it poses for the liberal world.
Cmdr. Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, an
officer in the Naval Medical Service Corps, born in
Mississippi and raised in Saudi Arabia, who has advised the
intelligence community, lays out a blueprint to help us
understand what we in the West are up against.
In
Militant Islamist Ideology, published
by the U.S. Naval Institute, Aboul-Enein opens with the
requisite definitions of the threat that confronts the West.
Foremost are the Militant Islamists, an extremely narrow
interpretation of the Holy Quran that stands viciously
opposed not only to Western democracies but to all Islamist
political parties that participate non-violently in
elections. This is the aim of the old al-Qaida and the new
ISIS (Islamic State).
Second, you have political
Islamists who seek to implement sharia law as the basis of
an Islamist state, like the Muslim Brotherhood attempted in
Egypt (which the Egyptians repudiated after the Brotherhood
triumphed in elections).
Third, you have Islam, the faith
of 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, with a variety of
subdivisions such as the majority Sunni, Shia, Alawi (a Shia
offshoot followed by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad), Ismaili, Zaydiyah, Ibadi, Sufi and
others.
Thus it is the Militant Muslims we
should focus on, as they are the ones who represent an
immediate threat to the United States. Don’t confuse them
with the Islamists (such as Turkey’s ex-Prime Minister and
now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan) who, although
"desiring the establishment of an Islamic state that might
bear animosity toward the United States, wish to achieve
changes within the political frameworks" of their countries
without the violent methods of the Militant Islamists.
The purpose of Aboul-Enein’s book
is to define the threat "precisely as Militant Islamist
Ideology and disaggregate it from Islamists and Islam."
Naval Institute Press, soft cover, 253 pages,
$19.95
Amazon.com Price: $17.14)
End Of World Order?
VEN at 91, the Nobel laureate
Henry Kissinger is as sharp and wise as he’s ever been
during his years as national security advisor and then
secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations. In
his compelling new book,
World Order, Kissinger fears
for the future of the global Westphalian system of
coexistence between sovereign states as established at the
end of the Thirty Years War of 1618-48, a religious war
between the long-ruling Catholics and the upstart
Protestants that wiped out a quarter of the population of
Central Europe.
This new pattern of live and let
live, in which independent states refrained from interfering
in each other’s domestic affairs, has lasted till the
present day.
This system is being threatened by
jihadists all over the Middle East (al-Qaeda and most
notably ISIS), who are trying to supersede the independent
state with a regional or global caliphate under one ruler,
following the example of the Prophet Muhammad. What does the
future hold for succeeding generations: worldwide shariah or
a balance of powers that will enable people to live in peace
and harmony? Kissinger has contributed an immensely valuable
study of our current situation. Penguin Press, 432 pages,
$36.00
Amazon.com Price: $21.60)
THE MODERN HISTORY OF IRAQ
