An Islamic Alternative

The Iraq War has been a mess. In a future post I'll explain how and where our country went wrong to get us into this quagmire. That said, we need to be there and we need to be trying to do what we finally seem focused upon doing: supporting the creation of an Islamic Alternative to extremism.

Our efforts in Iraq are a critical step in the "global war on terror;" but not for the reasons so often given by the president and members of the Bush administration. Saddam Hussein did not have direct links to Al Qaeda.

However, Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a monster and any government would have been justified in intervention. His regime was brutal to his neighbors and his own people. While Iraq was not the only government against which we could morally and ethically justify intervention, it was certainly on the list.

At the same time, America was (and is) in the throes of a huge battle with Islamic extremism. I believe the roots of this battle lie in one problem: the economic stagnation and political oppression under which much of the Islamic world suffers. This oppression is imposed by many of the goverments the United States supports. The environment is a breeding ground for scapegoating, hatred and extremism. Many of these governments tolerate (and even support) Islamic extremism as it effectively reflects blame from their own policies.

For the downdrotten masses of Muslims in the Middle East, there is no ideological alternative to extremism. The schools and mosques too often preach a version of Islam that leaves no room for tolerance. The dangers of permitting this kind of ideology to be the primary message heard by young Muslims were demonstrated clearly on 9/11.

The only solution is the creation of an Islamic Alternative in the Middle East. Young Muslims must have somewhere to turn that demonstrates that tolerance of others is not a weakness; that hard work can bring personal and community prosperity; that the rule of law need not be synonymous with fear; that their efforts can help their causes and that their voices can make a difference.

The Alternative must be viewed as "homegrown" in order to be successful. Anything viewed as having been imposed from the non-Islamic West is doomed to failure for the same reason that moderates have had such a hard time gaining ground in the Middle East up to now: their messages of tolerance are twisted by extremists to paint reformers as supporters of the West. Only if the government is widely viewed as independent from the West can it be a viable, trusted Islamic Alternative.

Iraq, teasingly taunting the U.S. with violations of Security Council resolutions provided the perfect opportunity to create this Alternative. We needed a country large enough to affect many people, and evil enough to allow the regime "changers" to be viewed as liberators: morally driven supporters able to give Iraqis a chance to set up their own moderate (homegrown) government.

Of course, the mistakes we've made in prosecuting the war and the peace may have undermined this great opporunity (though I'm not ready to give up on this yet). In my next post I'll summarize how I think the Bush administration has misled the American people and the rest of the world in a way that can only endanger the long-term success of this critical project.

In the meantime, I remain hopeful that the continued sacrifices of more and more American lives truly pay off to create an alternative so that the children growing up in the Middle East today can choose to respect and tolerate their neighbors. I also remain hopeful that my goals for Iraq actually do bear some resemblence to what President Bush would like to see happen in there.

About This Blog

This is my first blog posting. I wanted to create a blog about two separate things, and see where the blog takes me:

• Personalization: I work for a company called ChoiceStream that creates personalization software, so I end up spending a lot of time thinking about and theorizing on the power and dangers of personalization, collection of profiles and recommendations. The blog is a chance to create a record of those thoughts.
  
• Politics: I think of myself as a rare breed: an ardent supporter for regime change in Iraq who just as ardently stands in opposition to the methods and messages of our President. It seems to me that President Bush often tries to do the right things in such incredibly wrong and dangerous ways that I am literally frightened for my freedom. Of course, I'd be just as frightened in a world that wasn't helping solve the issues of islamic extremism in the only way that will ever work: by helping create a cultural alternative to that extremist way of life.

So I'll look forward to more posts as a way to "let it out" when I'm frustrated, excited or perplexed about the personalization or political issues of the day. Perhaps the two topics will someday even come together: a recommendation engine that tells you who to vote for? Hmm.