Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror

• Author: Major Jeremy A. Ball
• Pages: 07

IMPERIAL HUBRIS: WHY THE WEST IS LOSING THE WAR ON TERROR1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR JEREMY A. BALL2

Instead of facing reality, hubris-soaked U.S. leaders, elites, and media, locked behind an impenetrable wall of political correctness and moral cowardice, act as naive and arrogant cheerleaders for the universal applicability of Western values and feckless overseas military operations . . . .3

Using provocative language that is both shocking and inflammatory,4

"Anonymous"5 presents a tightly reasoned argument that the West, and more specifically the United States, is engaged in a protracted, and likely unsuccessful, global war. Improperly characterized by the trite political slogan, "War on Terror," this war is more accurately understood as a "worldwide Islamist insurgency."6 The figurative head of this

insurgency is Osama bin Laden, whose most significant threat "lies in the coherence and consistency of his ideas, their precise articulation, and the acts of war he takes to implement them."7 Applying these conclusions regarding the nature of the conflict, Anonymous makes a compelling argument that the United States has, since September 11th, "waged two failed half-wars and, in doing so, left Afghanistan and Iraq seething with anti-U.S. sentiment, fertile grounds for the expansion of al Qaeda and kindred groups."8

The underlying cause of the West's failure is "imperial hubris," a term Anonymous uses to describe the phenomena that causes Americans to "see and interpret people and events outside North America" in a way that "is heavily clouded by arrogance and self-centeredness."9 It is this imperial hubris that has caused the United States to see and define bin Laden and al Qaeda as what American's imagine them to be, rather than what they are. Perhaps the best example of imperial hubris is the assumption that both the Afghani and Iraqi peoples either want, or are able, to be governed by a constitutional democracy.10 While such may be the case, Anonymous argues strongly that two of the fundamental democratic principles cherished by the West, freedom of religion and the rule of law, are contrary to, or at least conflicting with, mainstream Muslim belief.11 To make this point, Anonymous states that, "For Muslims, God's word-as He revealed it in the Koran-and the Prophet's sayings and traditions (the Sunnah) are meant to guide all aspects of life: personal, familial, societal, political, and international. God makes laws, man does not."12 From this conflict, Anonymous draws the conclusion that, "as Americans today confront bin Laden and

militant Islam, they must recognize that the solution to this conflict can never be a painless, quick transformation of the Muslim world to a Western-style democratic system."13

The larger significance of Imperial Hubris, however, is that it makes clear that the United States has failed to develop a viable national political strategy. Although Anonymous does not cast his criticism in these terms, his ultimate conclusion is that America must choose "between keeping current policies, which will produce an escalating expenditure of American treasure and blood, or devising new policies, which may, over time, reduce the expenditure of both."14 The process of arriving at this choice is the essence of developing national strategy. Two of the nation's leading scholars on national strategy, Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, have described the concept in the following terms:

Strategy is not merely the art of preparing for the armed conflicts in which a nation may become involved and planning the use of its resources and the deployment of its forces in such a way as to bring a successful issue. It [strategy] is the rational determination of a nation's vital interests, the things that are essential to its security, its fundamental purposes in its relations with other nations, and its priorities with respect to goals. This broader form of strategy should animate and guide the narrower strategy of war planning and war fighting . . . .15

The contribution of Imperial Hubris, and what makes it essential reading for any American serious about understanding the War on Terror, is that it provides a starting point for fully understanding the enemy in the War on Terror. Armed with this knowledge, which has been largely lacking since September 11th, all Americans, but especially policy makers, are in a much better position to formulate a viable national strategy.

Identifying the Enemy

Anonymous's most powerful arguments are found in his identification and analysis of the enemy. In this regard, Anonymous builds upon his previous work, Through Our Enemies' Eyes.16 In contrast to the amorphous concept of waging a war against terrorists, as articulated by President George W. Bush,17 Anonymous concludes:

The threat facing America is the defensive jihad, an Islamic military reaction triggered by an attack by non-Muslims on the Islamic faith, on Muslims, on Muslim territory, or on all three. In this scenario, it is doctrinally incumbent on each Muslim-as an unavoidable personal

responsibility-to contribute to the fight against the attacker [the United States] to the best of his ability.18

At the forefront of this defensive jihad is Osama bin Laden, whose "genius," according to Anonymous, has been his ability to "construct[] and articulat[e] a consistent, convincing case that an attack on Islam is under way and is being led and directed by America."19 The enemy, therefore, is not a discrete group of radical ideologues; rather, they are a politically diverse group motivated by a common religious calling to resist the effects of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Anonymous convincingly argues that al Qaeda is not a band of religious zealots who perform acts of terror for their own sake. To the contrary, bin Laden has repeatedly articulated six policy goals of al Qaeda that resonate throughout the Muslim world: (1) "the end of all U.S. aid to Israel, the elimination of the Jewish state, and . . . the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state;" (2) "the withdrawal of all U.S. and Western military forces from the Arabian Peninsula;" (3) "the end of all of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq;" (4) "the end of U.S. support for, and acquiescence in, the oppression of Muslims by the Chinese, Russian, Indian, and other governments;" (5) the "restoration of full Muslim control over the Islamic world's energy resources;" and (6) "the replacement of U.S.-protected Muslim regimes that do not govern according to Islam by regimes that do."20 Just as the ubiquitous phrase War on Terror fails to identify the enemy, it necessarily fails to identify the enemy's political objectives. By expressly identifying al Qaeda's objectives, Anonymous takes us one step closer to being able to properly debate national strategy.

Within this...