By PHK
Remember the childhood stories of chicken-little running around cackling “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” and the little boy who cried “wolf” too many times? I do. These stories were part and parcel of my family’s lore – not to mention admonitions.
Well, a WV reader reminded me yesterday that Bernard Lewis, the only scholar the W administration seems to listen to, suggested in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that we should beware of August 22 this year because “the date corresponds to the . . . night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Mohammed . . . to “the farthest mosque,” usually identified with Jerusalem . . (and this) might well deem an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world.” Lewis continues: “It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.”
But wait, Lewis hasn’t finished because he then goes on to threaten America’s demise – or at least Israel’s - through mutually assured destruction. Lewis informs us that this was decreed by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini who, if I remember correctly, turned to dust a number of years ago. Lewis also suggests that a direct attack on the U.S., however, is far less likely than one on Israel because it is a “nearer and easier target” and that Ahmadinejad has been thinking along those lines.
Lewis’ crystal-ball gazing Armageddon prediction was immediately amplified by several hand-wringing right-wing acolytes as this same WV reader pointed out.
Hello, its now August 23 – almost August 24 and nothing has happened
Give me a break. It is now August 23 and as far as I can tell nothing apocalyptic or otherwise has happened. The sky has not fallen although the rain clouds are gathering yet again on the Sandias. Meanwhile, the Iranians have not launched anything – oh, except to deliver a 23 page response to the W administration’s-inspired UN ultimatum to stop Iran’s development of fissile materials, a document which Cheney and company will likely attempt to use to press the case for bombing Iran before the November elections because it didn’t include Iranian capitulation to the American-driven Security Council demands. The wiser State Department response is that the Iranians haven’t gone far enough. This allows negotiating room – and if anyone understands Iranians it’s a good idea to be prepared for lengthy negotiations.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am no Bernard Lewis fan and when I assigned his hastily prepared book What Went Wrong? published in 2002 by Oxford University Press to my first class of undergraduates in an Islam and Politics course at UNM, the students almost universally panned it and with good reason. This was spring 2003. The book has not improved with age and I never assigned it or anything Lewis has written again.
What troubles me more – besides this shoddy collection of pseudo-scholarship (actually questionable lecture notes) being turned into a New York Times best seller in the aftermath of 9/11 – is the fact that a world class newspaper would just yesterday publish such unsubstantiated prognostications as those contained in the Lewis piece.
Since when is the WSJ Opinion Journal better than blogs?
Yes, I know that news and editorials in the WSJ might just as well belong to different owners even though they don’t, but still – Lewis’ WSJ August 22 Op Ed is the stuff that the cheesiest newsstand tabloids thrive on - not major newspapers. And the MSM has the nerve to sniff about the content and quality of blogs? Maybe they should look at themselves for a change.
But what concerns me even more is the influence Lewis apparently still has on the Bush administration – particularly the neocons in the Vice President’s Office and on their pals in the NSC (read Elliot Abrams among others). They – like Lewis – still fail to realize that there are major differences between US interests and foreign policy and Israel’s and that our “let Israel be Israel” and let the IDF demolish much of Lebanon’s infrastructure and murder thousands of innocent civilians through an ill-considered air and ground campaign was not and will not be in our long or short term interest. Personally, I don’t think the Lebanon fiasco was in Israel’s best interest either – but that’s another story and something the Israelis will themselves need to sort out.
Appeal How?
But on to Lewis’ “what is to be done” prescription: “Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary,” Lewis tells us. In the long term,” Lewis concludes, “it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are.”
Fine: But appeal how? Through a USAF Israeli-style bombing campaign? That really worked well for the Israelis against Hezbollah, now didn’t it.
Did Lewis ever consider the view from Tehran? Did he ever factor in the threats the Bush administration has made against Ahmadinejad’s government not to mention the administration's threat to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites – even though we may not know where they all are - and otherwise cause general havoc in the country and possibly in the Gulf of Hormuz?
If not, Lewis needs to include this in his calculations as well. If he doesn’t, the White House cabal that has done so much to destroy our credibility in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world not to mention trashing our image elsewhere abroad, surely should do so - before they go running around crying "Armageddon, Armageddon" and pointing to Ahmadinejad as the devil incarnate not to mention instigator of the Armageddon plot against Israel and the US. Even I realize that the Middle East just doesn’t work that way. Lewis, of all people, should know it.