US - Window on Islam

Bernard Lews offers valuable insights.

Read the whole thing but here a few that stand out for me.

In the Islamic world, from the beginning, Islam was the primary basis of both identity and loyalty. We think of a nation subdivided into religions. They think, rather, of a religion subdivided into nations. It is the ultimate definition, the prime definition and the one that determines not only identity, but also basic loyalty. And this is quite independent of religious belief.

This is evident in a recent Pew poll.

Lews seems to want to state the obvious but just all before him he backs off just before stating it.

I am familiar with this slogan [the war on terror]. I feel that while we are indeed engaged in a war against terror, it is inadequate and even misleading. If Churchill had informed the country in 1940, "We are engaged in a war against bomber aircraft and submarines," that would have been an accurate statement but not a very helpful one. To say we are engaged in a war against terror is of the same order.

Terror is a tactic. It's a method of waging war. It is not a cause, it is not an adversary, it is not anything that one can identify as an opponent, and I think we need to be more specific in fighting a war. It's useful to know who the enemy is.

But as those before him, Lewis fails "to be more specific". But he gets closer.

The Wahhabi menace is particularly strong among the Muslim communities in Europe and America. And just think, for example, for a Muslim living in Hamburg, Birmingham, Los Angeles or whatever it may be, it is very natural that he should want to give his children some sort of grounding in his religion and culture. So he looks around for evening classes, weekend schools, holiday camps and the like. These are now almost entirely controlled, financed, funded by the Wahhabis, so that you get, among the Muslims in the diaspora more than among the Muslims in Muslim countries, an intense indoctrination from the most radical, the most violent, the most extreme and fanatical version of Islam.

As for the West's response, Lewis hits the nail on the head.

I have often thought in recent years of World War II – you were told earlier that I'm ancient myself. The most vividly remembered year of my life was the year 1940. And more recently, I have been thinking of 1938 rather than of 1940. We seem to be in the mode of Chamberlain and Munich rather than of Churchill.

Londonistan is all the proof you need of that.
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