“If the sword falls on the United States after eighty years, hypocrisy raised its head, lamenting the death of those killers who tampered with the blood, honor, and holy places of the Muslims. ---When these defended their oppressed sons, brothers, and sisters in Palestine and in many Islamic countries, the world at large shouted. The infidels shouted, followed by the hypocrites. ---They champion falsehood, support the butchers against the victim, the oppressor against the innocent child. ---In the aftermath of this event---every Muslim should rush to defend his religion.” Osama Bin Laden, October 7, 2001

“There is a human condition that we must worry about in times of war. There is a values system that cannot be compromised-God-given values. These aren’t the United States created values. These are values of freedom and the human condition and mothers loving their children. What’s very important as we articulate our diplomacy and our military action, is that we never look like we are creating-like we are the author of these values.” George W Bush, 2002 ⁽¹⁾

State and nation were created simultaneously in the United States unlike France, Germany. But the United States is also an historical cause and has so been identified from its very origins. Eugene Rostow sees a tension in American history in terms of identifying the American purpose. “We emphasize contradictory principles with equal fervor and cling to them with equal tenacity. Should foreign policy be based on power or morality? Realism or idealism? Pragmatism or principle? Should its goal be the protection of interests or the protection of values? Should we be nationalist or internationalist? Liberal or conservative? We blithely answer all of the above.”⁽²⁾

American “exceptionalism” was defined by what America was at home. Foreign policy was designed to defend but not define what America was. The authors of the Constitution foresaw a tension between personal liberty and the needs of defense. But these could be reconciled if policy was pragmatic and not ideological. ⁽³⁾ This was the only option available at the founding of the republic despite the crosscurrents and respective ideological attractions of Britain and France.

But this reconciliation, this measured tone was never completely incorporated in American foreign policy, either in a declaratory way or in practice. In 1812, Andrew Jackson, later the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in what has been called “The second war for independence,” asked “What are we as a nation? For what are we going to fight? ⁽⁴⁾ Les Aspin, the late Secretary of defense, remarked in South Bend a few years ago that American interests may not always be challenged but American values will be at risk more frequently. He was thinking at the time of “humanitarian” interventions in the Balkans; Bosnia and Kosovo but the question remains pertinent today and President Bush merges them, will be seen.

Walter McDougall sees this tension in two “mutually supportive and yet contradictory images, America as a “Promised Land,” a new Israel apart from history under God (John Winthrop’s “City on a Hill”). This image while attracting people by the sheer force of its example led almost ineluctably to that of the “Crusader State” called to save the world. He asks, “Does our liberal heritage as a land of liberty require us to crusade abroad on behalf of others? Or does giving in to the temptation to impose our will abroad, however virtuous our intentions violate the nature of America as a Promised Land? Can the United States remain a Crusader State and still remain a Promised Land?”⁽⁵⁾ This duality was latent in American history but became manifest in the Spanish –American war of 1898 foreshadowed by “manifest destiny”

American purposes abroad are affected by the notion of “civil religion”. Religious and republican values were traditionally set apart in Europe especially in the writings of Machiavelli but in the very origins of the United States religion and republicanism reinforced and supported each other. Jefferson noted the “persistent correlation of republican convictions and heterodox theological opinions.” This was contrary to the experiences of Britain and Canada; while there was some affinity between orthodox Christianity and republicanism under the Puritans in England they inhabited different moral universes. By contrast American republican languages had two main themes-“Fear of illegitimate power and a near messianic belief in the Benefits of liberty.” Religious beliefs set aside the counterposing convictions found outside the United States to “embrace the republican politics of the fathers (Jefferson, Franklin and other heterodox leaders) but rejected their religion.”⁽⁶⁾ The United States did not experience Europe’s religious wars and policies were more temperate about faith. Religion embraces liberty and pluralism. The tension between liberty and pluralism found in 19^th century Europe was not present in the United States.

Missionaries were a motivating force in American activities abroad. Lives needed to be changed and “spreading the good news and the mission of taking the gospel to other societies” was crucial. The U.S. government officials then, and now, should emphasize the separation of such activities from government policy but as one historian noted “not to understand religion---in American history is like trying to make sense of Moby Dick without the Whale.”⁽⁷⁾

While the term “Crusader State” has positive connotations for many, others like John Quincy Adams worried about America becoming the dictatress of the world .

“She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners, than her own were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself , beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice ,envy, and ambition across the colors usurping the standards of freedom She might become the dictatetress of the world; she would no longer be the master of her own spirit”⁽⁸⁾

The “Crusader State” image has deep roots and may create a narrow understanding of nationalism that is difficult for many to accept although it has been applicable at certain times like World War 2. It has served many presidents rhetorically in good stead.

The “Promised Land” image was used in the Declaration of Independence and its notion of a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind” to establish its legitimacy and to justify the call for separation from the British Empire. In like fashion striking universal themes Lincoln in July, 1861 declared that the fundamental issue at stake in the conflict - (Civil War) embraced more than the fate of the United States. “It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic or a democracy –a government of the people by the same people-can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its domestic forces.” American nationalism was “aspirational”, both a guide for the nation and, like democracy, unfinished. The American free society would never be “perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.”⁽⁹⁾

In the current crisis this kind of “aspirational nationalism”, an inspiration to some both home and abroad is frequently controversial in both places. Ferguson for example notes the paradox of dictating democracy, of exporting emancipation (for even “benevolent hegemons” are not always appreciated.) Many are unwilling to pay the price in blood and treasure that this may entail. Americans are not imperialistically inclined. They are reluctant to “go there” and if they must go, then they count the day that they can come home They eschew the periphery They cling to the metropole.” Many are skeptical in retrospect of Truman’s very typical words at the very beginning of the Cold War in 1947. He declared that The only to win the world from the threat of totalitarianism was for “the whole world [to] adopt the American system for the American system could survive only by becoming a world system.”⁽¹⁰⁾

In an imaginative historical reconstruction of American diplomacy Mead in Special Providence outlines the political –religious character in part in terms of four presidential models, two of which are discussed below. While Adams-Hamilton were “realists” and called for restraint abroad and Jefferson worried about the impact of American activity abroad at home two others, Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson had very different ideas about the scope of America’s role abroad.

Wilson has always been a contradictory president, calling for democracy abroad but not always practicing it at home, but he has been far removed in spirit from American foreign relations and actions. While he enunciates ideals for America abroad another president, Andrew Jackson reflects the tough “populist” side of an America that reacts in rage when it is challenged and attacked as it was on September 11, 2001.

Wilsonians believe that the United States has both a moral obligation and an important national interest in spreading American democracy and social values throughout the world, creating a peaceful international community that “accepts the rule of law.” The Wilsonian “strain” reflects a view that “the United States has the right and the duty to change the rest of the world’s behavior, and that the United States should concern itself not only with the way that other countries conduct their international affairs but with their domestic policies as well.”

Wilson, as former president of Princeton University, was called the “Princeton schoolmaster” in his time. Appropriately, he lectured and hectored other nations. He went beyond the Monroe Doctrine and Roosevelt Corollary of December 1904, which sanctioned by implication American armed intervention in the Latin American hemisphere, primarily the Caribbean, as part of an international police power.” We can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government, to advance their own personal interests and ambitions.” Implicitly Wilson contended that only certain types of governments would be tolerated by the United States in Latin America. Military dictators were not but so too were revolutionaries. The United States reserved the right to intervene to use force against unacceptable regimes.

In 1913, the American ambassador in London told British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey what the U.S. would do if it intervened. The ambassador said that first the United States would “Make ‘em vote and live by their decisions.” If this didn’t work out “We’ll go in and make ‘em vote again.” For 200 years, Grey asked? “Yes, the United States will be here for two hundred years and it can continue to shoot men for that little space till they learn to vote and to rule themselves.” (AS previously noted this is the “paradox of dictating democracy, or enforcing freedom, or extorting emancipation.”) ⁽¹¹⁾

A far different side of the American historical tradition is that embodied by Andrew Jackson. Where Wilson clearly has an activist side behind the sweeping moral vision, in Jackson’s case it is fiercely personified once the casus belli” is acceptable. In “Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright” Mead epitomizes and encapsulates the Jackonian idea: honor, equity, and dignity for those who pull their own weight and individualism, a duty to seek self fulfillment. Jacksonians are democratic and populist. Spending money on the military is one of the best things that government can do in part because Jacksonian “realism” distinguishes between the acceptable internal country and the dark world outside. Honor, concern for reputation, and faith in military conditions are much more prominent than in the case of Wilson who was horrified by boyhood memories of the Civil War. Accordingly, Jacksonians are suspicious of Wilsonian idealism. They are leery of humanitarian initiatives or world order schemes.

Jacksonian patriotism is “an emotion, not a doctrine.” The nation is an extension of the family. There need be no unambiguous moral reason for fighting. Mass popular patriotism and the moral spirit behind it give the U.S. an advantage in international affairs. It buttresses the international pressure that the U.S. can bear on other states, “coercive diplomacy”. I would agree but it is always a matter of timing and degree. Jacksonians also believe that wars must be fought with all available means Neither Truman, in Korea or Johnson, in Vietnam survived limited wars politically. (It is for history eventually to judge the rightness of their course given the circumstances of the time as they saw them.) Jacksonians like all American presidents want to fight with the least loss of American lives but are not concerned with inflicting casualties on the enemy. In this sense Jackson is like Lincoln who anguished over the terrible losses of Americans on both sides bit resisted all entreaties for a limited war and peace despite the carnage. But then again these were all Americans!

Finally, Mead concludes as noted that despite its limitations American presidents need Jacksonian qualities to get what the U.S. wants. Even the American propensity for violence and military forces and operations may “also increase international respect for American strength and discourage attempts to test it.”⁽¹²⁾

What about the recent past and how have the experiences of the American diplomatic tradition outlined above been reflected in it, particularly in the presidencies of George Herbert Bush and William Clinton.? “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” a report of the Project for the New American Century came out in September, 2000 after parts of it were suppressed during the Clinton administration in 1992. But the latter administration reflected its optimistic tone if not its military recommendations. The Clinton administration, noted the end of the military threat from Moscow. The United States was the world’s indispensable nation (Secretary of State Madeline Albright) and the world’s only remaining superpower. (President Clinton) Reflecting this new geopolitical reality one of the report’s “key findings” was that today the United States has an unprecedented opportunity. “It has no immediate great power challenge, it is blessed with wealthy, and democratic allies in every part of the world.”

“At no time in history has the international security been so conducive to American interests and ideals.” The future challenge was to preserve and extend the American peace.” The Cold War was bipolar, the present was unipolar. (With the U.S. as noted the “World’s only remaining superpower.” No longer need the United States deter and contain the Soviet Union with an implied caution about military intervention.) Today, the report contends that the task is to preserve and expand “the zones of democratic peace.”⁽¹³⁾

The document clearly bears some of the strains of the American diplomatic tradition noted above. Another, later study argued that “The United Stats and especially its elite could now “promote a great project of globalization but it is a kind of globalization that entails American values. The American elites consequently want to portray American values as global or universal ones, for “peace, democracy, and free markets, the ideas that conquered the world.”⁽¹⁴⁾

The 1990s were halcyon days. After the turmoil of Vietnam and its tragic ending, the Iranian hostage drama, Watergate, and oil shocks the United States had triumphed over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, or as one writer called it the “50 Year Wound”. McDougall notes that American might was unprecedented; it won the first Gulf War in a decisive, short campaign. ⁽¹⁵⁾ American military power, economic might, and even what Joseph Nye called “soft power”, the attractions of American institutions and culture seemed to be in a permanent ascendancy. It appeared to be the first manifestation of the new American century and millennium.

At the zenith, the apogee of the power of Victorian England Rudyard Kipling wrote “The Recessional” which was to be prophetic:

“Far called, our navies melt away, Our dune and heartland sinks the fire, Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Niniveh and Tyre. Judge of the Nations spare us not Lest we forget, lest we forget.”⁽¹⁶⁾ (The irony of the poem in today’s context is clear by noting that Niniveh province is part of the “Sunni Triangle” in northern Iraq-one of the world’s oldest empires haunting the present.)

President George Bush’s Second Inaugural address reflects many historical themes:

“For half a century, America defended our own freedom [note the earlier Truman quote] by standing watch over distant borders. After the Soviet Union there were years of relative quiet, years of repose---and then there came a day of fire.” Then, echoing Wilson and Lincoln the President declares that “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope of freedom in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are one” (the combination foreshadowed earlier in the text.) “Self government is the U.S. imperative proclaimed across the generations. This will not be by force of arms. America will proselytize. (Wilson)” The U.S. will not impose its style of government on the unwilling but “help others find their voice, obtain their own freedom and make their own way, but we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary.”⁽¹⁷⁾ Helping others find the way is leading by example with a bit of help from the “schoolmaster Wilson.”“Defending ourselves and our friends” is standard but quite Jacksonian.

The President’s “State of the Union” speech is more of a governing document, a statement of the administration’s future plans then is the Inaugural Address where Presidents try to speak to posterity. To damp down the messianic spirit of the earlier speech the United States has “no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else, unlike our enemies who are brute, self appointed rulers who seek to control every aspect of life.” By contrast the U.S. seeks a “community of independent nations and democracies. “Since they respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace.”⁽¹⁸⁾ (The peace like character of democracies who don’t go to war with each other is a staple of academic and political thought though not unchallengeable.)

The Islamic Challenge

Who are “these brute, self appointed rulers who seek to control every aspect of every life?” What are some of the motives and expressed intentions of those who helped to plan the September 11, 2001 tragedy, the first direct assault on US territory since the British victory in the battle of Bladensburg in the War of 1812 resulted in the burning of the White House. Ferguson calls the Islamists Nazis because of the messianic beliefs, need to indoctrinate and appetite for persecution (and I would add “victimization”.) They are in some ways also “Islamo–Bolsheviks”, committed to revolution and reordering of the world along anti-capitalist lines. ⁽¹⁹⁾ Like the latter they want to bring “consciousness” from the outside, a very strict ascetic interpretation of traditional sources said to emanate from a transcendent source-God or Allah. President Bush seeks to democratize the Arab world and thus weaken the Islamic fundamentalist appeal. It is a daunting task.

Leslie Gelb, for example contends that Iraqis don’t want to live their lives ruined by masters. They need a government that “commands public loyalty and hope, and looks as if it can prevail. They need an “Iraqi James Madison” who with others can draft a constitution with power, values, and protection worth dying for. ⁽²⁰⁾ How is this to be done?

One way to address the problem of democracy in the Arab world is to be guided by the works of Bernard Lewis who traces Arab hostility to the West to the arrival of Napoleon’s troops in Egypt in 1797 and later the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1, ending a long period of Islamic ascendancy. But this while useful is rather general. A preferred approach is to look at Arabs from the inside themselves their society, and their political values. In the west, people perform in contradictory roles while Arabs see people as a unified whole. Doubts about fundamental beliefs are equates with unbelief and the threat of chaos and “chaos, not freedom, is seen by many Arabs as the real alternative to tyranny.” Uncertainty over fundamentals will lead to the dreaded breakdown of the community of believers. In contradistinction to Gelb political institutions have never been separated from the individuals connected with them. In the American case George Washington put his imprint on the presidency and by sheer force of personality and will, after refusing absolute power created a nation that lived, after he had passed from the scene. Only Mustafa Kemal, “Ataturk” accomplished that in the Islamic world.

There is a very traditional social order, one of “mutual indebtedness” that prevents the system itself from falling to pieces. Changing conditions probe these boundaries, these relationships, leading many Muslims to equate Westernization with the breakdown of boundaries, or as one Moroccan judge said “what we call chaos you call civil society.”

Democracy must be based on the “spirit of reciprocity.” If people can’t be separated from their roles, an impersonal state is incapable of reciprocity, as would be the case in a constitution The President contends that the fundamentalists hate freedom but most Arabs see themselves as freer to build relationships than those in the West constrained by material things and impersonal conditions. Probing for the new must be kept in bounds so that “What hurts society does not outweigh what helps it.” For Iraqis there is the tightly circumscribed world of kin and territory. For suicide bombers, freedom of choice can mean the recapturing of order through visible martyrdom. ⁽²¹⁾

This essay began with quotes by President Bush and Osama Bin Laden. Seeking to assess the latter’s words is a difficult task of linguistic and theological analysis. Both the Old and New Testaments speak the language of killing in God’s name and by his command while others reflect a different spirit. This is also the case with the Koran. It is difficult to clarify the meanings and nuances of “Al Quran.” For example, on the one hand “fight those who fight you along God’s way, yet do not initiate hostilities; God does not love aggressors” (Al Quran 2-190) but on the other “O you who believe do not take the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends of each other, and whoever among them tasks them as a friend, then surely he is one of them, surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.”⁽²²⁾ It is possible, then to take hope and then swing to pessimism about the possibilities of changing the Arab culture and promote democracy (with uncertain consequences) to weaken the appeal of the “Jihadis”, the “Holy Warriors”.

Islam is split into different factions and schools, with Sunni and Shiia having factions of their own. One of the streams of thought and observance is Salafi Islam, the teachings of the reformer Abd Al-Wahaib or “Wahhabism”, the fundamentalist thought derived from and practiced in Saudi Arabia. The salfiyah movement seeks to return Islam to its purest roots and constructions. Muslims should try as hard as they can to imitate the blessed prophet in every aspect of life. They single out Allah in aid and refuge in times of ease and hardship. It is claimed to be “pure and free from any additions, deletions, or alternatives.” It is not necessarily violent but doctrinally rigid and peaceful.

It has attracted rootless and committed internationalist militias who fight for the “Sharia-Islamic law, a pure community that was said to exist in the 8^th century Caliphate. Some believe that only through armed struggle can Islam save itself from the infidel forces in the world”, expel the west from the precincts of Islam and recreate the Caliphate based on the spread of Islam as in the days of Mohammed and the later caliphs. ⁽²³⁾ (Bin Laden had been infuriated by the American presence in Saudi Arabia intended to protect it from Saddam Hussein and as a logistical base in the first Gulf War, in part because of its proximity to Mecca and Medina, the Muslim holy places.) Wahhabis reject the notion that war is the lesser form of jihad, while purification of self is the greater form, a notion accepted by mainstream clerics. Both forms attract individuals who seek assistance and comfort in the elimination of unsettling possibilities, especially in the age of modernization and globalization.

Some Israelis on the right like the late Meir Kahane (of the Jewish Defense League) admired the militant jihadis who are “ready to fight” and die for their ideas. Democratic liberal societies are getting globalized-rotten to the core. There is a masculine trend embodied in Islam which has no mercy-just power, force, and no place for the individual. America by contrast is “rotten with liberalism, submissive, and no will to live.”

Holy War to some “intensifies the boundaries between Us and Them. It satisfies a longing for a purpose in life, creating a ‘reductive state of bliss’.” What is critical and essential are “perceived humiliation, relative deprivation, and fear-personal cultural or both. There are holy wars when a large group of young men feel humiliated and deprived, when leaders know how to capitalize on those feelings and some segment of society is willing to fund it.” Suicide is critical. While the Koran forbids it, God rewards the martyr. The Koran says “Think not of those who are slain in the name of God as dead. Nay, they live in the presence of the Lord and receive gifts from him.” (Koran.3, 169) ⁽²⁴⁾

Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian jihadist, declared that all those who took part in the January 30, 2005 elections in Iraq were “apostates.” Candidates in the election were “demigods”, those voting for them “infidels.” Democracy supplanted the will of God with a popular majority. It is based on “freedom of religion and belief, freedom of speech, and separation of religion and politics. This is heresy itself.”⁽²⁵⁾

Zarqawi elaborates: “The soldiers of Islam have vowed to fight all forms of atheism, pagans, trees, or a parliamentary council that contravenes the faith and deprives Muslims of the mercy of their Lord. God is our help.”“My fraternal brothers, democracy and parliamentary councils are the beliefs of infidels. Endorsement of them is conversion into their faith and departure from Islam.” Democracy means “that the deified, worshiped is man and not God in the highest. This contravenes the foundation of religion and monotheism.”⁽²⁶⁾

Conclusion

I return to Niall Ferguson who supports the idea of an American “liberal empire” the imperialists IN SPITE of themselves but doubts that the US is prepared to make the sacrifices that are necessary in a struggle that may take generations. It is not so much a matter of defeating an organization –“Al Qaeda, The Base” as overcoming a set of ideas that are deeply held by many of its adherents.

Even democracy, which may be coming slowly to the Muslim world in Afghanistan, the Palestinian Authority and perhaps Iraq, may turn out to be a double edged sword. Fairly elected democratic leaders could set into motion the consolidation of anti-Western and Islamic forces. (One thinks of Algeria and Turkey where the military annulled election victories by Muslim parties and movements.) But this may be a chance that must be taken. Political reform and democracy may not, at least in the short run, eradicate a country of Islamic fundamentalism, but it will deliver some dissent at the grassroots level and perhaps dilute the appeal of the Islamists, the one large scale opposition that is currently available. ⁽²⁷⁾

The broad sweep of American history and diplomacy and a nation founded on a cause thus collides with a highly traditional movement with very different premises that clashes with it because it is the model of a modernist society, a globalist model. There are no clear boundaries in space and time to predict the end of this struggle. In itself it does not lead to nuclear annihilation but the vehemence of the jihadis conveys its own terrors.

But beyond the struggle against terrorism there is Meade’s warning injunction:

“The necessary balancing act between living up to ideals that provide legitimacy to the world order and effectively in defense of ones own core values will be a major problem for American diplomacy in the years ahead, as it was for British diplomacy one hundred years ago.”⁽²⁸⁾

Presented at the annual convention of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago, Illinois on April 9,2005. Revised May 2005.

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