The bloggers at Pedestrian Infidel (PI) have bought into what Zbigniew Brzezinski recently called, "A mythical historical narrative," or maybe they're just trying to sell it. In a February 8, 2007 post to their site, PI proposes an amendment to the US constitution. Following nine whereas statements that argue Islam is social and political ideology, is intolerant of other religions, seeks to supplant all other religions across the world, they conclude Therefore:
Islam is not a religion, but a political ideology more akin to Fascism and totally in opposition to the ideals of freedom as described in the United States Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights.
They continue with a series of proposed constitutional amendements that begin with a change to Article I:
The social/political/ideological system known around the world as Islam is not recognized in the United States as a religion.
The practice of Islam is therefore not protected under the 1st Amendment as to freedom of religion and speech.
One might dismiss this as, "just another blogger doing his or her thing", or in this case just another group of bloggers.
Which brings us back to Zbigniew Brzezinski's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Februray 1, 2007. Rather than ignore the kind of thinking reflected by the Pedestrian Infidel, Brzezinski invests a signigicant portion of his short testimony to exposing it's fraudulence. The set-up is his statement that:
A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks [that is, Bush's surge fails]; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
This statement is followed immediately by Brzezinski's exposure of the messianic, fear mongering calls for a crusade against Islam:
A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.
This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran—though gaining in regional influence—is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In no uncertain terms, Brzezinski is saying that he believes the Bush Administration is intentionally steering the Nation into a huge war with Islam, which will make the war in Iraq pale by comparison.
Deplorably, the Administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about “a new strategic context” which is based on “clarity” and which prompts “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles’s attitude of the early 1950’s toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy.
Brzezinski closes his brief testimony with four steps in the "quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq."
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