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Islamic Extremism: Once Broken...

HB: This concept of the executive is also a point where the Europeans and the Americans seem to miss each other. Especially in the small countries and specifically Scandinavia there is great hesitation as a gut reaction against the idea of use of force - not the least due to our historical experience of loss whenever one of the big countries have moved around a little bit. It is a gut reaction, which says that it is difficult to defend any kind of attempt to substantially move away from whatever the present status quo is. There seems to exist a more comprehensive conception of the moral possibility of leadership in the States?

CC: It is interesting that you’re so focused on the question of morality in politics. I’m probably not a representative neo-conservative in this sense, even though I agree with their position on Iraq: there are others who are very moral on foreign politics. I think that they think that a large a part of the case for invading Iraq is to stop it from being a totalitarian state and dictatorship.

HB: So this is classical idealism?

CC: Yes it is: I’m closer to the so-called “realist school” than they are. The big reason for invading Iraq that I would go with is to keep radical muslims from getting the atomic bomb. That’s why I would like to invade Iraq. I think there is a better chance of doing that if you intimidate Saudi-Arabia, which is a force because of its money, it is a small country, with very little military resources but its money gives it great reach, and to have a couple of hundred thousand troops in the area exercises I think a chilling effect on radical Islam in all the surrounding countries.

This might be my own, overly optimistic view, but I think that if you can break the tradition of this Islamic extremism, then it will not crop up again. It will be like Nazi Germany after its defeat: very little of the ideology survived. Even people who had held it before sort of ceased to see the logic of it. It was hard even for an ex-nazi to explain his way into this thinking – that is why all of those conversations with Albert Speer are so interesting. So I am applying this kind of logic to this part of the world: if you can break this cycle of recruital and upping the ante, of exaggerating and demonization – things like that, then I hope this ideology can be stopped.

HB: But is it possible to reduce religion to ideology in this context?

CC: That is a tough question. Before September 11 I would have said no, that it was not an ideology, they believe what they believe. But since then I have been impressed with how ideologized a religion Islam can be in certain cases. Maybe post-September 11 I err on the side of looking at it as too ideological.

HB: Then you have neo-conservatives pleading for a war on Iraq on the grounds of going against totalitarianism abroad – and then you have an implicit argument here, which says, to put it very bluntly, that the sociological characteristics of Islam as an ideology in the Middle East is an example of how it is not modern, secularised enough, not well suited for open deliberation and politics? And thus you have the neo-conservatives defending a classical enlightenment agenda?

CC: That’s right. I don’t want to make extravagant claims for my understanding of Islam. I read Oriana Fallaci’s book (Vreden og Skammen, red) and I’m uncomfortable with the sort of broad-brush descriptions in it. I don’t know whether she is right or wrong. But I do feel comfortable saying we should face that there is a kind of totalitarian threat from radical Islam, or from a broad strand of political Islam – the whole Sharia-imposing Islam.

But your formulation is right: this is a funny alliance of people who are interested in this war: Donald Rumsfeld is not fighting the same war as Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld is fighting the security war; Wolfowitz is fighting the idealistic war. But is doesn’t mean that one of them is wrong. An interesting thing was said by one of the Germans at the lunch yesterday. He said: this war is either going be a great success or a great failure. But whatever happens, I hope that the side that was proved wrong will have the courage to learn from its mistakes. He was a real agnostic, as at the end of the day I am.

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foto: Weekly Standard