Wahabism - naming names

The Belmon Club's take on David Warren's view of naming the true source of today's terrorism.

Y'eor maintains that "today, Europe itself is living with this Great Fear" the source of which everyone knows but is afraid to mention in almost the same way that an earlier, more superstitious generation avoided mention of the Devil for fear of conjuring it. But the problem with conceding the point to David Warren and Bat Y'eor is that it merely articulating the word would cause a revolution in domestic and international politics something neither Democrats nor Republicans are prepared to do. Domestically it would mean that for the first time in American history, a major branch of a world religion would be declare a de facto enemy of the state. Not people, not a country; nothing with a capital unless it be Mecca, but a system of religious belief. It would strike at the very root of the American Constitutional system. Internationally it would signify that the principal enemy host, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, whose ruling house is intimately connected to and supports this ideology, should be targeted or its regime changed. Naming Wahabism as an enemy would indicate that the Iraq campaign, which the Bush administration was at pains to reach, was not the end but merely the beginning.

One the most most striking things about the Global War on Terror is how closely it's resolution is linked with the longest standing issues of Western society. For that reason the war intrudes directly and insistently on Western domestic politics. The Madrid bombing of March 11, 2004 and the American Presidential elections in November are cases in point. Both are essentially about the War on Terror. The enemy cannot be named because doing so would overturn the 20th century political and economic foundations to its roots. It would tear down the Big Tent of political correctness; put a prosperity heavily dependent on oil supplies at risk; and replace an entire paradigm of international relations. For that reason naming the enemy will avoided for as long as possible; perhaps even after a mushroom or biological cloud darkens an American city.
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