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For a while, the exemplar op-ed for ridiculousness and gross violation of logic, reason, history and straw-men argumentation was Bernard Lewis's appearance on the WSJ pages declaring the End of Times. But, I think that standard has now been met, if not exceeded, by Edward Luttwak's incredibly offensive President Apostate? Love that Question Mark. Oh, Luttwak, why the Question Mark? Tell us how you really know and understand the 1 billion Muslims and their burning hatreds.
To what purpose does NYT give space to such claptrap? I am sure there are many thousands of voices waiting for the ability to speak to NYT's global audience. And they chose this partisan hack?
Amerian strategist Edward Luttwak arose Monday night at a banquet at Peres' house to warn assembled luminaries against fearing annihilation at the hands of an Ahmadinejad who, after all, was not Hitler but Mussolini, and an inept one at that. It is not lost on any Israeli that Ahmadinejad, in his usual delicate manner, last week called Israel a "stinking corpse."
Weirdly, at a Wednesday afternoon workshop, the selfsame Luttwak declared that Iran's reformers would actually welcome a sharp outsider's attack on their nuclear facilities. No other panelist disputed his suggestion, which was greeted with much applause from a largely Israeli audience.
Yikes.
Jonathan Dresner -
5/13/2008
I'm going to assume this is actually addressed to Chris Bray, not me, since I didn't call him that. That said, it's neither original nor nuanced: it's worst-case, and then some. It ignores actual opinion polls and reportage suggesting that Obama's candidacy is being watched with great interest and some enthusiasm by much of the non-Western world.
I actually think Mr. Jones, below, makes a better point that Mr. Luttwack -- the question of Obama's status highlights the issue of religious freedom and how the President might deal with our relations with states which do not respect that fundamental human right. That would be an interesting question to pose, and it wouldn't be hard for the candidates to come up with answers that were better than our current policy of ignoring the issue.
Grant W Jones -
5/13/2008
I also did not mean to imply that Jonathan Dresner is close-minded on this, or any topic. However, his point is off target. The Sharia Law rulings on apostates, along with issues relating to women's rights, are not non-operative, historical throw-backs to a bygone age. In too many places it is the law, either de facto or de jure.
On apostates, see the works of Ibn Warraq, Shafique Keshavjee, Paul Cook, and Muhammad Younus Shaikh in "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance" ed. Robert Spencer and elsewhere.
Grant W Jones -
5/13/2008
Ralph,
Try the "Dictionary of Islam." Below is a link to Canadian-Moslem site that has the definition.
One can also add, that the more "islamlic" a nation, the more this part of Sharia Law is enforced.
Jeff Vanke -
5/13/2008
Sorry, Ralph. I thought Dresdner was one, too. I'd've withheld the groupthink comment if I'd known better on that point. (But I don't see any of you defending Luttwak against Ahmed.)
Ralph E. Luker -
5/13/2008
It's interesting, Jeff, that you generalize from comments by two of the Cliopatricians to "group think". With that sloppy measure of consensus, you'll find it everywhere you look in the world -- not just at Cliopatria.
Ralph E. Luker -
5/13/2008
You're not known to be an expert on these things and you do flag the quotation by quotation marks, so ... cite your source, Grant.
Grant W Jones -
5/13/2008
Aloha Jeff,
I think you're wasting your time trying to argue this point with the P.C. denizoes of Cliopatria. If you ask why Ayaan Hirsi Ali is in hiding, they will say it's just that small minority of extremists. Extremists that the vast 1 billion Moslems won't do anything about. Like Manan, they're too busy attacking any Western critic of Islam to be bothered with the host of crimes being committed in its name.
"According to Muslim Law, a male apostate, or murtadd, is liable to be put to death if he continue obstinate in his error; a female apostate is not subject to capital punishment, but she may be kept in confinement until she recant. If either the husband or the wife apostatize from the faith of Islam, a divorce takes place ipso facto; the wife is entitled to her whole dower, but no sentence of divorce is necessary. If the husband and wife both apostatize together, their marriage is generally allowed to continue, although Imam Zufar says if either husband or wife were singly to return to Islam, then the marriage would be dissolved.
According to Abu Hanifah, a male apostate is disabled from selling or otherwise disposing of his property. But Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad differ from their master on this point, and consider a male apostate to be as competent to exercise every right as if he were still in the faith.
If a boy under age apostatize, he is not to be put to death, but to be imprisoned until he come to full age, when, if he continues in the state of unbelief, he must be put to death. Neither lunatics nor drunkards are held to be responsible for their apostasy from Islam. If a person upon compulsion became an apostate, his wife is not divorced, nor are his lands forfeited. If a person become a Mussulman [i.e. Muslim] upon compulsion, and afterwards apostatize, he is not to be put to death.
The will of a male apostate is not valid, but that of a female apostate is valid.
Ikrimah relates that some apostates were brought to the Khalifa Ali, and he burnt them alive; but Ibn Abbas heard of it and said that the Khalifa had not acted rightly, for the Prophet had said "Punish not with God's punishment (i.e., fire), but whosoever changes his religion, kill him with the sword."
Ralph M. Hitchens -
5/13/2008
I protest: Edward Luttwak is a complicated man, but hardly a partisan hack. He's been grievously wrong about some things, but most of the time -- on military matters in particular -- he is insightful and nonpartisan. In terms of peripheral blather about the current presidential candidates, this article comes in waaay behind what's been written by those trying to disqualify John McCain on account of his having been born in the Canal Zone.
Jeff Vanke -
5/13/2008
Unlike the groupthink evidently going on there at Cliopatria, I find Luttwak's remarks nuanced. He doesn't claim that one billion Muslims endorse this. He points out, though, the absence of strong theological or secular resistence to such thinking in the Muslim world.
Where is the vocal Muslim movement championing converts out of Islam? There isn't one. That's a problem for Islam, and a global problem. But especially because such a moderate theological bent is intimidated by murderers and would-be murderers, one cannot blame, and Luttwak does not blame, the average Muslim or even most Muslims.
Are the Cliopatriarchs coming to neglect the powerful, because they don't like the powerful (in this case, in the Muslim world)? No cause will be served this way.
Jonathan Dresner -
5/12/2008
Luttwak's argument really reminds me of the tendency on the part of non-Jews to assume that the religion is more or less the same as described in the Torah (and the Gospels), though it never was in the first place, and that the attitudes of Jews can be easily divined from those texts.
Luttwak is basically arguing more or less the same thing that Pipes (From which his argument comes, entirely; not sure why they bothered having someone else on the byline) and Furnish: there is no compromise with Islam, so the only response is to expand and purify the influence of Christianity in the West.
Chris Bray -
5/12/2008
The NYT still shows up at our house on Sunday, and I'm not sure why.
Manan Ahmed -
5/12/2008
Fair point.
Chris Bray -
5/12/2008
They should save that space for their usual voices, like Bill Kristol and Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman and Frederick Kagan. You know, the careful and insightful contributors. LOL, for sure.
