Letters

28 Historically Speaking * April 2002 LETTERS To the Editors, BecauseJeremy Black's essay, "The Present Emergency " (February 2002) is, I think, serious and not a parody, I would like to reply to a number of his more astounding claims. Black writes, "There is no inherent reason why Islamic society should be antiAmerican "—which apparently suggests therefore that America might have done something wrong to subvert this natural affinity. He then goes on to assert that the United States has more in common with the Islamic world than with China, Russia, and Europe. Yet other than Turkey, there is not a single, true democracy in the Islamic world. Women cannot drive or vote in Saudi Arabia. Murder is state-sponsored in Iraq. There is no habeas corpus in Libya. Theocracy, monarchy, autocracy, or military dictatorship, whether in Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, or Pakistan, are the way of the region, with all the tragedy that characterizes such absolutism—lack of an independent judiciary, open press, religious tolerance, civic audit ofthe military, and free speech. In contrast, nearly every European nation is, like America, democratic and free, while Russia is undergoing a democratic revolution seldom witnessed in recent history. Black seems to be unaware of this common adherence to constitutional government, and so maintains that his proposed natural commonality between America and Islam rests with a mutual "powerful affirmation ofreligious values." Forget about differences between Christianity and Islam for the moment, and the suggestion that we may be fellow-fundamentalists, and simply consider that one ofthe Muslim world's chief complaints against America seems to be precisely our own commitment to a sometimes godless rationalism and religious diversity—and the dizzying pace of globalism and modernism , which are the dividends of a free, capitalist, and secular society , one largely immune from religious audit and state-sanctioned worship so common in much of the contemporary Islamic world. Black adds that a successful strategy against the terrorists "requires a reexamination ofAmerican policies in the Middle East that may well be impossible for American statesmen and policymakers ." But why would such a reexamination be "impossible" for a democratic society such as ours—one that reflects the views ofits voting constituents ? If Black is referring to the Israel question (". . . because of pronounced support for Israel"), then he should know that such American backing for Israel (consistently recorded at over 60% in polls) derives from its status as the only free and democratic society in the region. Our policy is not the result of some mythical force that would make our change "impossible"—but mirabile dieta based on old-fashioned idealism rather than real strategic national interest. More importantly, there is no reason to believe that the events ofSeptember 1 1 had anything much to do with American policy in the Middle East, as alleged by Black and, ofcourse, on occasion, by bin Laden himself—along with the terrorists' other grievances such as "Jewish women walking in the Holy Land" and general American decadence. Al Qaeda's earlier attack on the USS Cole coincided exactly with Mr. Clinton's deep involvement in Middle-East negotiations that resulted in an American -sponsored offer to return 96% of the West Bank. True, in a recent poll Kuwaitis replied that a reason for their overwhelming dislike ofAmericans (72% ofthose surveyed) was America's policies in Palestine. But then this is a populace that a mere decade ago was saved from extinction by the Americans —and then subsequently ethnically cleansed their country by deporting Palestinians on sight. Pace Black, we need not necessarily believe the purported grievances ofeither the terrorists in particular or the Islamic world in general against the United States—who saved Islam from Russian atheism in Afghanistan, Somalis from starvation, and Kosovars from murder—any more so than those hurts voiced by Germany and Japan on the eve of World War II. As Thucydides reminds us, states and parties can just as readily go to war over perceived slights and irrational concerns such as "fear, self-interest, and honor " as they can over legitimate grievances. Black also has a disturbing habit ofmisrepresenting , or perhaps simply failing to grasp, what others have written. OfJohn Keegan's dozens...