Iraqi elections a rope-a-dope?
Islamists are in a corner with no exit

Citizen Smash observes of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq,

If the history of the past two centuries has taught us anything, it is this: when given a choice between Freedom and Tyranny, people will choose Freedom almost every time.

I'm not sure I'd say "almost" every time. Smash's point, btw, is that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is doomed:

It doesn't matter how many car bombs he sets off, or how many innocents he slaughters. He has publicly declared himself to be an Enemy of Democracy. He may be able to achieve some temporary victories, but ultimately he can't win.

Relatedly, syndicated columnist Austin Bay blogs that Zarqawi has been suckered.

Z-Man [as US troops call Zarqawi] has declared a "fierce war" on democracy. Z’s taken Bush’s bait– except the President's "bait" of promoting democracy and declaring war on tyranny and 0ppression isn’t mere bait, it’s essential American values. ...

[A] week before the Iraqi election Zarqawi has come out in public for imperialism, in his case Islamo-fascist imperialism.

That is actually Z-man's dilemma: if he wages "fierce war" against Iraqis who support the elections. He and his ideological allies have declared that democracy is heresy, and that therefore any Muslim who participates in democracy is actually an infidel. Therefore they both may and must be killed.

But this is a losing strategy for one simple reason. This war is a war of ideas and wills that cannot be finally decided by force of arms, either our arms or the terrorists'. America's central idea is simple and was re-emphasized by President Bush on Jan. 20.

We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.

It is this idea that will send Iraqis streaming to the polls, that and the fact that the Islamists have no competitive ideas. As I quoted two Iraqis here and here:

If we agree to live in fear for one day then we're going to live in fear forever. Today, the terrorists are using the elections as an excuse to murder the "infidels" and they will never run short of other insane excuses in the future, they will find something else... .

... they will have to kill me to keep me from voting. And many of my tribesmen feel the same. We have suffered too much and been denied too long to not go this last step. [I]t may be just a trickle at first, but when Iraqis see the results of their votes it will be like a flood over all Iraq. Iraqi people, Mr. Ron, want to be free more than anything else.

The Islamists have nothing to fight the idea of democracy with except guns and bombs. Yet if guns and bombs were sufficient to fight this idea, America itself could never have won its freedom from George III.

So Z-man is only marginalizing Islamism when he bombs and assassinates Iraqis who support democracy. Increasingly, his claim that such Muslims are really infidels deserving to die is seen as untenable. Mass heresy among millions of Iraqis? Who could possibly have the right credibly to claim that? Not Abu Musab al-Zarqawi nor anyone else. And who will believe it? Not the Iraqis themselves nor millions of their Arab neighbors.

And that's why Zarqawi wrote last year that "democracy is suffocation and why he said this week,

We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.

Violence there tragically will be in days and weeks ahead. But the Iraqi elections will succeed and they will be the first words written on the death warrant of Islamic terrorism. The elections are fundamentally an idea that the Iraqis will defend with arms where necessary. But the Islamists have no ideas, only arms. Although there much fighting remains, Jan. 30 will prove that the Islamists are outmatched. The more violently they resist, the more outmatched they become for the more idea-bankrupt they prove themselves to be.

Update: Wretchard explains some people's concerns that even if democratization takes root across the Middle East, the democratized countries may be anti-America and anti-Israel. Quoting Reuel Marc Gerecht's online PDF book, The Islamic Paradox,

Nationalism and fundamentalism, two complementary forces throughout most of the Middle East, will likely pump up popular patriotism. Such feelings always have a sharp anti-Western edge to them. That is what Professor Lewis called “the clash of civilizations.”64 Fourteen hundred years of tense, competitive history is not easily overcome, but this antagonism can diminish.

There's a lot more; read the whole thing.

Update again: Bill Roggio explains the strategic power and reach of the insurgency's most powerful ally. And Arthur Chrenkoff says that Zarqawi is really playing to his base, but that sadly there's a lot of base to play to.

by Donald Sensing, 1/24/2005 06:17:23 PM. Permalink |