Back of the Envelope

This article by Jonah Goldberg seems depressingly correct:

The West is surely indebted to Protestantism. But the idea that liberal secularism was born from it steals a few bases. Protestantism lent itself to being a state religion even more than Catholicism did. And while Christianity has long recognized the distinction between secular and religious authority, the reality is that secularism rests on a foundation of blood, not theology. The Reformation inaugurated an era of relentless religious wars. French Catholics slaughtered Protestant French Huguenots. Calvinists and Lutherans beat the stuffing out of each other. The bloodshed continued until, as British historian Herbert Butterfield put it, religious tolerance became “the last policy that remained when it had proved impossible to go on fighting any longer.” Secular tolerance, in other words, defined the terms of cease-fire.

Now, obviously, as a Protestant evangelical Christian, I think the Reformation was a good thing. While the Pope made a good argument about the need for Classical thought in Christianity in his much maligned speech (and while sympathetic, I'm not completely convinced by that argument), I think the Church in Luther's time had strayed far from the right path and needed correction. After all, I believe that Christianity is at its core a true religion, and thus anything that makes its doctrine and practice more pure makes it more true. That said, purity is not something to be sought at any cost. While a worthwhile goal, it needs to be sought in humility, acknowledging that there is much that I do not know, and even when I know for a certainty, I should be teaching the truth in love. My goal is not to force anyone to believe anything, but to convince them, and to be willing to learn where I am mistaken.

As Jonah's Jewish, I don't expect him to agree that Christianity needs to be pure, so it's understandable that he's more interested in the practical results of the Reformation. Likewise, I'm less concerned with Islam's purity than the practical effects of what Muslim believes. So is it hypocritical for me to believe that Christianity should be more pure, while I'm all for Islam being less pure? Well, from my perspective, it makes perfect sense, as simply put, I believe Christianity is true and Islam is false.

Here the Pope and I agree, as is clear in this column by Michael Ledeen:

The combination of this crackpot toleration with a general contempt for religion made it difficult for us to comprehend the nature of the current war. Everyone from W. on down has been at great pains to assure us and themselves that we have no basic conflict with Islam, that our battle is with some lunatics who say falsely that they speak in the name of Islam. So we feel quite uncomfortable when the pope — quite deliberately — poses a question about Islam itself: Is it capable of responding to reason, or is it, as he put it, completely transcendent, beyond the reach of man, and hence unchallengeable by man under any circumstances?

It’s a big question, not easily reduced to newspeak like “did the pope anticipate the reaction?” Or “did the pope go too far?” That sort of banter is embarrassingly silly. Of course the pope anticipated the reaction, he’s one of the smartest and most learned men in the world, and he’s spent a lot of time studying Islam. He wanted to draw a line. He is not prepared to extend total, blind toleration to people who use violence in the name of faith, and he’s challenging the Muslims to answer the real questions. That quotation he chose — the one that asks, Is there anything positive that has emerged from the expansion of the domain of Islam? — wasn’t generated at random. He picked it quite wittingly. Of course he knows that, for several centuries, Islam conserved the wisdom of the West, the same “Greek” wisdom he invoked as the indispensable partner of Christian faith. He’s defying the Muslims to admit that, because he knows that the jihadis don’t want to hear about it, and that an open debate about it may undermine the sway of so many dogmatic mosques, schools, TV stations, and Internet sites.

Simply put, Christians are called to Evangelize. If I believe that Islam is wrong, then it is my duty to convince Muslims of this. As a Christian, I am not just opposed to radical Islam or fundamentalist Islam or Islamic fascism. I am opposed to Islam itself. Most Christians would just as soon shirk this responsibility. Calling on people to repent and convert doesn't come easily. It's never easy to evangelize, and even moreso with people who respond violently when you do so. That doesn't make it any less a Christian responsibility.

Having said that, here's what I don't believe it is my, or anyone else's responsibility, to do. I should not be trying to outlaw Islam, or to force people to convert, or ridiculing Muslims. I believe it's possible to respect Muslims, and even their beliefs, while opposing those beliefs. I'm not trying to force them to change their beliefs, but to convince them through reasoned arguments.

And this is not America's responsibility. It's not something our government or our military should be trying to do. They need to, and do, oppose the radical, violent ideology of Islamic fascism, trying to encourage more moderate versions of Islam. That is indeed what they should be doing. It is not up to them, but up to us, the Christian community, to oppose Islam itself, to say that it is false and force it to defend itself. I think it is highly unlikely that Islam will be destroyed in this confrontation, but there are several possible beneficial results:

1. It will win Muslim believers to Christianity. This is a real, and in a spiritual sense, the most important benefit.


2. It will force Muslim scholars to defend their faith, and encourage in them a more reasoned, and hopefully more moderate faith.


3. When forced to acknowledge other beliefs within their society, it will hopefully require Muslim countries to adopt a more tolerant attitude towards other religions, and finally acknowledge the freedom to conversion.

Are these benefits likely to happen? In the short term, no. If the reaction to the Pope's speech is any indicator, the immediate response will be close-mindedness and violence. That does not make it any less worthwhile. While most Muslim leaders probably don't agree, I believe that Islam has to move past this. If it doesn't, it will implode. If belief needs to be enforced by the sword, it will collapse the same way Communism did the moment the sword-arm shows any weakness. Applying pressure only accelerates this.

John Podhoretz thinks that Bush may be ready to use force against Iran:

George W. Bush just delivered what may be the most important speech of his presidency since he went before the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, and declared his intention to seek regime change in Iraq.

The time has come, the president all but said yesterday, to take the gloves off with Iran.

"The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," he said flatly. He prefaced those words by saying that efforts were being made to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. Nonetheless, Bush has now said in the strongest sentence he has yet spoken on the matter that Iran will not go nuclear. He is unconditional about it.

Captain Ed takes a different view of the whole situation:

The White House and senior Republican leadership in Congress have little enthusiasm for a war resolution at this time targeting Iran, the New York Sun reports this morning. After a suggestion by William Kristol that such a piece of legislation would put more pressure on Teheran to comply with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the Bush administration and Congress distanced themselves from any such talk...

At best, such a resolution would be a big bluff, providing authority for little more than air strikes that might damage Iran's nuclear program but would also likely turn their population against us. And the last thing we need in that region is to issue more empty threats.

The political situation in Iran is far different than it was in Iraq, and there is much greater hope that an internal movement could collapse the mullahcracy. Ahmadinejad and the Guardian Council do not exercise the same kind of oppression that Saddam Hussein did on Iraqis. The Iranians would not stand for it, and the mullahs have to tread carefully to maintain their power, which is why they stage elections for the Assembly and the presidency, even though they retain veto power over all that either do. (They may have forgotten this, as my post below notes.)

If the US could help Iranian democracy activists gain momentum, especially starting with the trade unions and university professors, the Iranians themselves could overthrow the mullahcracy and replace it with a much more rational government. Iran's history is not one of radicalism, with the exception of the last thirty years, but of educated, Western-looking sophisticates. They may not replace the mullahs with a carbon-copy Western democracy, but any rational form of representative government will make a huge difference.

How do I feel about this? While, like Captain Ed, I long for an internal revolution that overthrows the mullahs, I just don't know whether that will happen quickly enough. I'm worried that a nuclear weapon will be in Hezbollah's or Hamas's or even al Qaeda's hands before that can happen, and airstrikes to set back Iran's nuclear program by a couple of years is starting to sound like a good idea. If Iran's population is truly looking for a liberal democracy, they won't change their minds because we knock out such a dire threat.

Mario Loyola makes the argument that Israel came out on top in the ceasefire with Hezbollah deal, even if mostly by accident. The general consensus of everyone except Olmert (the Israeli Prime Minister) is that Israel messed up the war, losing out on a golden opportunity to cripple Hezbollah by lashing out blindly. I guess I have to give more credit to all the complaints about Israel's "disproportionate response" than I did before, although it was less "disproportionate" than "poorly aimed." Of course, even a poorly aimed response can have some benefits, as Loyola notes:

Despite appearances, things are shaping up in some ways quite favorably for Israel — insofar as this is possible. Israel may not have much ground truth to show for its military efforts in south Lebanon, but it did make a very important point, or rather two: Namely, that it will destroy half of Lebanon in the blink of an eye before it will permit Lebanon to be used as a missile platform to terrorize Israelis, and that it will blow right through anybody that Hezbollah tries to use as a human shield.

In effect, Israel has transcended its image problem. Agree with Israel or disagree with it, everybody now knows that if Hezbollah uses you as a human shield, you are dead. This creates a huge disincentive to being used as human shields—at least for Europeans, who are generally happy with the abundant supply of virgins (etc.) right here on planet Earth and feel no need to go seeking them anyplace else.

A rather cold analysis, but a useful one. Our enemies' tactics are based on their high estimation of our humane behavior. They may accuse us of murdering women and children, but if they really believed that, they wouldn't be hiding behind them. Israel has made it clear that there is a limit to how far that strategy can take you. They know that they will be accused of killing innocents no matter how careful they are, so they are free to pursue their military objectives without regard for how it plays on TV. Although I don't commend that attitude (you don't avoid killing civilians just to avoid the press's condemnation), it is nevertheless satisfying to see Hezbollah's own strategy working against them. The modern West's paranoia of civilian casualties is often unhealthy anyway, making it impossible to wage war to the full extent and thus dragging out the fighting, and ultimately resulting in greater civilian casualties.

Mario has a bit more to say about how the new UN force is larger and more effective than the previous one, and he concludes with

The most immediate effect of a robust European-led presence may indeed be to chill Hezbollah activity in south Lebanon. The current ceasefire could turn out to be a lasting interregnum. But with our without the fighting, one thing is increasingly clear. In seeking deviously to outsmart the Israelis and the Americans, Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan may have outsmarted themselves.

Read the whole thing.