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A Conversation with Milton Viorst
You have covered the Middle East as a correspondent for more than 30 years, in writing this book and condensing roughly 1,400 years of history into approximately 220 pages, what stood out in your research? Is democracy compatible with Islam?It is clear to me that the current war in Iraq is simply the latest expression of the conflict between the Arab world and the Christian West that has been going on for fourteen centuries. It has had its ups and downs, of course. The Arabs reached their peak in the early years, when they conquered North Africa and Spain, and threatened the heartland of Europe. The West, counterattacking, occupied Jerusalem and much of the Middle East during the Crusades. In the Middle Ages, Turkey’s Islamic armies threatened Europe time and again. But by the beginning of the nineteenth century, after experiencing the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the start of the Industrial Revolution, the West was clearly the more powerful of the two civilizations, and launched the drive for dominance called Imperialism, which reached a pinnacle after World War I. In Arab eyes, the invasion of Iraq signals Imperialism’s return.
Democracy may or may not be compatible with Islam, but that isn’t the right question. In the decades after World War I, when Britain and France were in power in the Middle East, they instituted democratic systems as a cover—in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon—for their own rule. They presided over elections, and when they didn’t like the results, they simply dismissed the parliaments, then tried again. Or they used devices of their own choosing to bend the parliaments to their will. Their practices totally discredited democracy, which the Arabs saw as a Western trick to preserve imperial rule. What the Arabs wanted was freedom, the power to control their own destiny, even to make their own mistakes. In the decades after World War II, when Arabs largely ruled themselves, they often told me they hated their rulers, but they were their rulers, not Western rulers. That was extremely important to them.
In lucidly examining the strains of Arab nationalism-- Nasserism, tribal monarchy, military despotism, Ba'athism, Islamic extremism-- you make a powerful case that what the Arabs want, far more than Western-style democracy or modernism, is control of their fate. If the United States pulls out of Iraq, what do you forsee to be the consequence?
All of the Arab countries—not just Iraq—are divided and volatile. In Iraq, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, the principal sectarian groups, are each willing to use American power to get a leg up on their rivals, but they all agree they don’t want the Americans (call them Imperialists, call them Crusaders) there. The problem is that our invasion ignited old hostilities within Iraq, creating a situation of chaos which we don’t have the credibility or the knowledge to deal with successfully. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The only force, in my judgment, that can succeed in restoring some sort of stability in Iraq has got to be Arab. It is not that Arabs trust one another; it is that they distrust us far more. And all of the Arab countries have a strong interest in restoring stability in Iraq out of fear it may spread to their own borders. It was the Arab League that finally brokered an end to the deadly civil war in Lebanon fifteen years ago. As I see it, only the Arab League—or, at the least, an independent consortium of Arab powers—can win enough confidence from the rival forces in Iraq to craft a settlement. The United States cannot.
The discussions about the difficulties facing the Middle East today tend to focus on immediate causes while you delve deeper to provide the base elements of today's conflicts. What are these base elements?
The United States invaded Iraq in March, 2003, without doing its homework. What was required was not sophisticated intelligence—spies, surveillance satellites, wiretaps. We needed some basic knowledge of history, some sense of the Arab reality, but our ideology persuaded us the Arabs would love us, and throw flowers at us for liberating them from Saddam Hussein. Instead, we found that Arabs have long historical memories, which contain a burning resentment over what they perceive to be mistreatment and betrayal at the hands of the West. Arab military power has not been the equal of the West’s for centuries but, as the British and the French learned during the age of imperialism, the Arabs are very skilled at fighting brutal guerrilla wars that make life miserable for outsiders. President Bush tried to reassure the Arabs with proclamations of our good intentions—but so did Napoleon in 1798 and so did every subsequent occupier. The history of the West’s relations has earned the Arabs’ distrust. That is a permanent fact that the U.S. government failed to take into account.
Medieval Europe learned a great deal from Islamic culture which once led the world in the arts and the sciences. Eventually this equation reversed itself, but the Muslims refused to avail themselves of culture and progress borne in other nations. How does this action of turning inward rather than looking outward contribute to the strongest, richest and most influential and international of the world's civilizations losing their former greatness?
The Arabs were the world’s leaders in the arts and sciences during their age of grandeur more than a thousand years ago; in fact, they passed on much of their wisdom to the West. But in choosing to give over the leadership of their society to traditionalism, they chose a much different path. Over the centuries, while the West grew increasingly secular, humanist, rational and materialist, the Arabs grew increasingly God-oriented, spiritual and other-worldly. As you said, while one looked outward, the other turned more inward. Some Christians today lament Western civilization’s course, but efforts to imbue Arab civilization with the values that characterize the West have all failed. The result is that in the competition—material, economic, military, political-- between East and West, the Arabs have fallen further and further behind. Most Arabs are nostalgic for their golden age, and many prefer to blame the West rather than take responsibility for the loss. But though much in the system of Arab values is admirable, its limitations are such that it provides little hope for the Arabs to regain their lost grandeur.
The Muslim world was not totally without attempts at reform and calls for renewal, yet the dominance of the Traditionalist position continues to have devastating consequences for the development and progress of law and society in the modern Middle East. Is there a solution?
A solution would require a revolution in values from within. The Islamic modernists of a century ago, who tried that, have long since been discredited. At the moment, the rise of fundamentalism that pervades the culture is moving the Arab civilization in the opposite direction. Arabs are a talented people. Individual Arabs have done very well in science and the arts, but nearly always by adopting Western ways. Without a cultural revolution, I do not see resources within Arab society resolving the dilemma faced by Arab civilization today.