Batchelor on Mad Max Ahmadinejad calls to light a prophetic
(1987) presumption belonging to Philip Rieff, king of sociologists
with whom you should all get quickly acquainted:
"I persist [he wrote] in thinking, until better informed, that
even Islamic jihadists are really therapeutic ideologists, who,
like the Irish Catholic terrorists of the IRA, mobilize backward
masses to gain power any man in good faith may live to regret."
Rieff calls these "post-Muslims." Iraq/Iran is the present
deviant version of the Nazi/Soviet armageddon -- deviant in that
the Ba'athism of Iraq was not post-Muslim but specifically
un-Muslim in its secular devotion to power, whereas both Nazis and
Soviets were something other than merely secular. Such is
the Iranian regime, now, too. Saddam could never be pan-Islamic --
he couldn't even accomplish pan-Arabism, as the invasion of Kuwait
proved well enough to all. But MM Ahmadinejad's is an utterly
Islam-raping faith -- subjecting the religion into a predicate of
power. For some reason the arrival of the Twelfth Imam must be
prepared by a panther feast of blood.
In this way MMA illustrates how vast is the ugly difference
between this present crisis and the Iraqi. Iraq was a truly
isolate, truly singular nation and case -- thumbed down by
international law, hamstrung by a record of huge failures and
kicked-over subterfuges, without allies and without the sheerness
of size, population, and topographical leverage God has granted
Iran.
Once again: without allies, alone. We could conduct
neoconservatism in a petri dish in Iraq, for good and for ill: even
the leakage now of jihadists from Syria drips rarely from the tap.
The meniscus bends but holds. Now consider Iran -- reaching
tentacles around Israel, recruiting serviceable Syria for
chamberpot/bagman duty, accumulating audibles on offense and
defense from Hormuz to Iraq to the Cartoon Diaspora. Calling all
guards: the C-Intifada registered in the Great Crescent a Threat
Level upgrade to Orange. Behold sheer possibility. Confronting Iran -- and its
gnarled attendants -- will be utterly different than confronting
Iraq, utterly more difficult, and -- saving grace -- ultimately
more popular among the more populous afraid.
topics:
Religion, Islam, Law, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Conservatism, Neoconservatism
About the Author
James Poulos is a doctoral student at Georgetown and the former Political Editor of Culture11. His writing has been published by The American Conservative, The National Interest, The New Atlantis, Partnership for a Secure America, and The Weekly Standard. In addition to AmSpecBlog, he has blogged at The American Scene, Doublethink, and Postmodern Conservative, which he founded. With degrees in political science and law from Duke and USC, he is currently at work on a dissertation about life after Napoleon. In his spare time he anti-blogs at Pish Tosh.
