Military and defence strategies of any army or security services are usually built around the presumed enemy or a potential threat. 

Potential threats differ from one country to another, and depend on the military planners’ estimation of the strength of the presumed enemy.

However, there is no disagreement over the right of communities to prepare for potential dangers and make contingency plans to counter them.

It is no secret that Samuel Huntington believed there was a potential threat; he benefited from the vision of orientalists such as Bernard Lewis, among others. Their views were behind the emergence of neo-conservatives and fundamentalists in western countries, especially in the United States. These people see Islam as their enemy.

Some of them did not even shy away from publicly calling for the burning or desecration of the Quran, as they did in places like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and prisons in Afghanistan.

Islam is seen by these fundamentalists as a potential enemy or threat. One only has to review statements by consecutive US presidents about Islam to see evidence of this. Most former US presidents spoke about the fearsome enemy that poses a threat to western civilisation — but without mentioning Islam by name, so as not to provoke Muslim public opinion, and not to be termed racists. Regrettably, we Muslims repeat anti-Islamic terminology and words coined by the West in its war against Muslims and Arabs. These words include ‘Salafists’, ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ and ‘jihadis’. The problem is that we are driven by the West to reiterate what they say against us and see things through their eyes, thus branding Islam and Islamists as enemies of civilisation and modernisation.

From the western perspective, we have no other choice but to play a crucial role in eliminating Islamist groups inside and outside our countries, just to please the West and help them in their war against Islam. This is in line with the beliefs of former US president George W. Bush, who had said “you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists”.

Of course, the West, which fuels hostile sentiments among Muslims against Islamist movements, is ready to help Muslim countries and provide them with money and arms to carry out pre-emptive military operations to eradicate these groups.

This simply means that the West wants us to be their soldiers in its war against Islam. As per the Patriot Act, which was introduced by the US in response to the attacks of September 11, American Muslims suspected of terrorism-related activities are subject to detention and deportation.

Unfortunately, some of our liberals and secularists have helped the West in its campaign against Muslims described as ‘fundamentalists’, ‘extremists’, ‘jihadists’ or ‘terrorists’.

Therefore, the leaders of Arab and Muslim countries, which have been witnessing popular uprisings, are using the threat of Islamists as a pretext for staying in power. They try to convince the West that Islamic movements would seize power if the regimes are not permitted to suppress mass demonstrations and kill their opponents.

The leaders of totalitarian regimes always warn that if Islamists come to power they will threaten the civilised West and carry out terrorist acts, such as 9/11 attacks and other operations. These leaders care about nothing other than staying in power, and are ready to do anything for it, ignoring the millions of Muslims who were either exiled from their countries or killed, such as in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Unfortunately, many Arabs now only trust western media outlets, especially Fox News. Hence, Arab intellectuals are now casting doubts about their political elite, and accusing them of treason.

One only needs to review the latest reports leaked by American intelligence on the relationship between a large number of political leaders and prominent individuals with the US to see the evidence of this malicious propaganda. This is aimed at creating divisions between the people and their intellectual elite, by accusing each other of treason.

Accordingly, we need to define the potential strategic threat to our nation in an accurate manner, so that military and defence strategies are built on solid grounds. Don’t we have universities, institutes and experts who can study our history and come up with clear-cut findings to help us in strategic planning?

Or, are we are still living in a state of uncertainty and heading towards an unknown future?

 

Khalifa Rashid Al Shaali is a UAE writer.