Two CIA Intellectuals
Debunk Neocons
By Tahir Ali
Westborough, USA
While the neocons have flooded the
public square with a deluge of reports and studies
calling for and justifying endless war against
Muslims and Islam and indefinite occupation of
Muslim lands, two CIA intellectuals, one retired
and the other still in service, have come up with
their own books to expose, critique, and decisively
refute the neocons.
Michael Scheuer, a current CIA official, has authored
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War
on Terror, which has been published by Brassey’s
Inc. Initially Michael Scheuer’s name did
not appear on the cover of his book, perhaps for
security reasons, but in the second edition it
does. The other author, Graham E. Fuller, is a
former CIA official whose book titled The Future
of Political Islam has been published by Palgrave
Macmillan.
Challenging the theoretical and conceptual foundation
of the hostile neocon approach to the Muslim world,
most notably the 525-page Rand Report, The Muslim
World After 9/11, by an eight-member team of Rabasa
et al., the two authors have efficiently exposed
the game of lies and deceptions.
With unprecedented courage and clarity, the CIA
intellectuals have challenged the Islamophobic
myths perpetrated by the neocons, opened a new
debate about unqualified US support for Israel
and its devastating long-term consequences, and,
most importantly, proposed an alternate policy
framework to pursue stable, harmonious, and mutually-beneficial
relations with the Muslim world.
It is self-evident that a serving CIA analyst
would not have been allowed to write and publish
such a book and even reveal his own identity without
substantial moral and political support not only
from his colleagues but also from his superiors.
Strategic thinker must not fail to notice this
development. At least some members of the establishment
are beginning to call for a fair, balanced and
even-handed Mid East policy.
“These two books ought to be required reading
for every American and every Muslim who believes
in peaceful coexistence and a harmonious world
order but also opposes war and occupation,”
says political scientist Dr. Agha Saeed. “So
far the Muslim media has remained unaware of these
strategically significant books.”
Two key elements differentiate these writers from
the neocons: methodology and goals.
Both of them believe that 1) there is no inherent
or essential conflict between Islam and the West,
2) it is possible to avoid multigenerational conflict
by understanding and accommodating the legitimate
concerns of the Muslim world, and 3) violent reordering
of Muslim lands and societies will only expand
the circle of terror.
Contending “the greatest danger for Americans
confronting the radical Islamist threat is to
believe - at the urging of the U S leaders - that
Muslims attack us for what we are and what we
think rather than what we do”, Michael Scheuer
goes on to argue that this war cannot be won by
conventional means, nor can it be won without
significant changes in the American foreign policy.
Most readers are bound to feel the sobering effect
of his writing by time they get to the epilogue
of his book titled “No Basis for Optimism”.
Michael Scheuer points out that the US strategists
are trained to look for what Clauswitz called
“enemy’s center of gravity”
which referred to such assets or attributes attacking
which will ensure enemy’s defeat. But that
approach fails to recognize, he tells his audience,
that Bin Ladin has no center of gravity in the
traditional sense.
Getting to the heart of the matter, Michael Scheuer
writes: “Bin Laden’s center of gravity
rather lies in the current list of U S policies
toward the Muslim world because that status quo
enrages Muslims around the world - no matter their
view of al Qaeda’s view of Martial actions
- and gives Bin Ladens’ efforts to instigate
a worldwide defensive jihad virtually unlimited
room for growth.”
Michael Scheuer’s most creative and courageous
contributions, however, are narrated in his chapter
on “The Way Ahead: A Few Suggestions for
Debate”. He argues that the questions that
need debating include the following: “Does
unvarying military, economic, and political support
for Israel serve substantive - vice emotional
- U S interests, those that by definition affect
America’s survival. Do we totally support
Israel because it is essential to our security,
or because of habit, the prowess of Israel’s
American lobbyists and spies, the half-true mantra
that Israel is a democracy, the fear of having
no control over a state we allowed to become armed
with WMD, the bewildering pro-Israeli alliances
of the liberal democrats and Christian fundamentalists,
and a misplaced sense of guilt over the Holocaust.”
Even a year ago it would have been impossible
to imagine a serving CIA analyst authoring these
prohibited truths. But today, he is not alone.
A former colleague has joined him.
Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA analyst, who has
written many books and monographs on Islam, builds
his case with a simple but telling remark. “The
issues are not what Islam is, but what Muslims
want, and not whether Islam will play a central
role in politics, but which Islam.”
In the concluding chapter of his book, Fuller
offers “A Prognosis” about the Muslim
world and the US: We need to contemplate, he argues,
the possible future(s) that await political Islam
and the courses of action available to the United
States.
While he anticipates further deterioration of
the US relations with the Muslim world, he also
believes that this dark scenario can be averted
if the US is willing to arrest this rapid deterioration
by taking a number of concrete steps that include:
1) “A more benign, less confrontational
international order and the diminution of terrorism
in general, 2) The abandonment by Washington of
relentlessly harsh, peremptory, and unilateralist
policies toward the Muslim world in the context
of War against Terrorism, and adoption of more
sympathetic cooperation and engagement with the
Muslim world, 3) The attainment of a just solution
to the Palestinian problem, 4) Significant reform
and political change in the Muslim world, supported
actively by the United States, 5) Improved conditions
in most of the developing world, and especially
in the Muslim world, that ameliorate the current
mode impotence and anger and offer hope and sense
of progress, 6) High domestic incentives for populations
in the Muslim world to reject any sympathies for
potential terrorism against the United States
as irresponsible, unproductive, and damaging to
clearly more promising alternatives before them.”
Together these two books recognize the legitimacy
of Muslim concerns along with the legitimacy of
the Western concerns; advocate a minimalist (a
small number of necessary, reasonable and achievable
goals of security and stability) as opposed to
a maximalist position of regime change leading
to region change and alteration of the belief
structure of Islam; stress the need to bring about
a nuclear-free Middle East, and finally, exposes
the failed theories (of those who have made a
career of naming the failed states).
(The writer is the author of the book “Muslim
Vote: Counts and Recounts” published recently
by Wyndham Hall)
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