I. Close embassies and consulates in unstable, Muslim countries. Remove American installations that are targets.
Traditional international relations conducted through ambassadors at embassies work only between viable nation-states, rigidly operating by agreed rules. Consider that even at the height of the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States, maintained embassies. Never did we worry that bitter Soviet citizens, whipped to a righteous communist frenzy, would attack and take over our embassy. Those citizens would have been shot by their own government, or sent to Siberia. In countries such as Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Egypt, and in the country that may emerge as the new Syria, those governments are not fully formed. We cannot rely on those governments to secure themselves, much less our embassies and consulates. Indeed, officials within the new governments may covertly collaborate with attackers.
It is likely that Libyan citizens and officials are horrified at what happened to our ambassador. I do not doubt them when they insist that “they” are not guilty of the abomination. But, they were ineffective to stop it. It makes no sense to maintain highly visible properties, known to locals, staffed by locals, guarded by locals, and only lightly fortified in those countries whose governments cling so uneasily to power. Close embassies and consulates in Muslim nations, except for Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Conduct foreign relations from secure locations of our choosing. Conduct intelligence operations within, using changing locations when necessary, avoiding creating a symbolic target.
II. Recognize that we are, in fact, “at war with Islam.” Failure to accept this simple but chilling statement is delusion. We would not wish to be at war with Islam, but the war is forced on us by the violent domination of Islam by essentially a large gang. Ineffectively restrained by their governments (or secretly assisted by their governments), and tolerated by fearful masses, Islamists rule the Arab street, North Africa’s sands and mountains, and the Persian nation. This does not mean that America would declare war, and send troops in the traditional sense; this means simply that we recognize what is a new reality: that we are already at war, and this war has been declared by a dominant force within a religion, a force controlling a worldview.
Islam is a worldview transcending nationhood, and even race. It knows no national boundary. While most Muslims do want peace, and wish to simply live their lives as the rest of us—enjoying family and prosperity—the sizable but smaller group of virulent Muslims dominate them—and they are permitted by the pacifist larger Muslim people to do so. Muslims are at civil war within their religion, and ordinary Muslims are losing. Indeed, they are failing to oppose this virulent Muslim movement. They are being taken over by it, co-opted by it, and brutalized by it until they are simply part of it, either passively or—when forced—actively. Until we all see ordinary Muslim people rise up, oppose, fight, and put down this disease among them, we must consider predominantly Muslim lands to be violently anti-American in philosophy and action. Even friendly governments who would support us cannot always control their own countrymen. Stated another way, the ordinary Muslim’s perceived self-interest is weighted toward surviving in the face of a murderous Islamist mob, fueled in some cases by Islamist government; the ordinary Muslim does not perceive his self-interest to be holding Islamism at bay in favor of western-styled democracy. Indeed, the ordinary Muslim who loathes Islamist violence is also repelled by western debauchery. He would embrace our liberty, but sees the low place to which it has brought us. Conflicted between two worlds, he chooses not to become the next mob target. His wife conforms to the dress code; he conforms and collaborates with Islamist demands. He would be our friend, but he does not perceive that he can afford to be our friend. He is a survivor. He is attracted to our freedom, but repelled by our excesses. In the “war with Islam” he is forced to choose sides; most choose homeland and family—and, thus, collaboration. Consider that not every German was a Nazi, and that few Soviets were Communist Party elites. Few South Vietnamese were Viet Cong. Smaller, ruthless movements dominate passive masses. Remember that: I will say it again. Smaller, ruthless movements dominate passive masses.
III. Cease general immigration from Muslim-dominated nations.
I do not like saying this. However, until the Muslim world sorts out its civil war for the soul of Islam, immigration is like a highway into America, along which Islamists mix and travel with those Muslims who simply want to live and work here with us. We foolishly assume that everyone coming here arrives joyfully to participate in the liberty and enterprise we offer. This is not so. Picture America as a fortress guarded by airport security, border agents, the FBI, the CIA, and layers of laws trying to filter out the murderous virus of Islamism from among the masses arriving from Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia, and other Muslim nations. Yet, the watchers on that fortress cannot identify who among the travelers hates us and infiltrates here only to kill as many of us as he can. The watchers may check lists of known terrorist-affiliated travelers, but cannot possibly read the minds of those who arrive already inculcated in a belief that prepares them for “radicalization” once here. Muslims who helped America and are now in danger in their own countries should be welcomed into our country, or assisted in re-settling in other Muslim lands where they would be safer. Otherwise—and it makes me sad to write this—we should close our doors. No one has the moral or legal right either to vacation here, or to move here. America must defend herself.
Recently, I listened to one of our leaders talk about sharing “our values” with Muslim nations. Well, what are our values? We hardly know, ourselves! There is no agreement over even the basic value labeled loosely as “freedom.” To one party, “freedom” means massive confiscation of earnings, and massive government borrowing, to create benefits and checks for a receiving class of citizens and visitors. It means men may marry men, and taxpayer-funded abortion. To another group, it means the right to keep and bear arms, to write, to speak, and to contribute money to elect leaders. It means the liberty to start an enterprise without breaking through a leather-like layer of red tape, and then to keep the fruits of early mornings and late nights at work. To one faction, “freedom” means the right to a job; to the other, it means the right to hire, fire, and lay down the rules of the workplace.
While we squabble over such things—as important as they are—to the Muslim onlooker, watching our television and movies, and reading our news, “our values” may appear twisted and repulsive. Aberrations we accept in the name of “freedom” they may see as so perverse that our society has no right to continue to expect to exist.
Regardless of how you, the reader, see the United States, it is clear that the modern western view of political liberty is incompatible with Muslim theocracy. And, Islam is more than a belief. While Christianity is a personal relationship with God based on individual need for the salvation given by God through Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection, Islamism takes the idea of the Muslim’s personal accountability to Allah and turns it into a world conquest. While the atheist seeks to obliterate all vestiges of Biblical values from law, the Islamist seeks to replace all law with his reading of the Koran. Stated another way, the current of modern Islamic conquest tolerates no western notions of liberty. And, this current of conquest dominates modern Islam. Until the day the broader Muslim world finds a secure place in Islam for freedom, with submission to Allah being an individual’s choice, it is senseless to continue to join ourselves with an incompatible worldview.
To the Muslim reader who believes I am being harsh: Consider your own home country’s fate under Islam. America is divided enough; if America imports Islamism, where will you go then, to find liberty from brutal oppressors? Already, as in the United Kingdom, we see Islamism insisting on its way in America. If America does not diligently guard the light of liberty from those would extinguish it in the name of socialism, communism, fascism—or Islamism—there will be no United States for hopeful people to land in, in the future. The experiment in liberty and self-government that is America continues, incomplete. Our success is not yet obtained. Liberty is delicate, lost between careless generations, and always, always under assault from those who want to control—whatever their motive, their worldview. Islamism—which you permit to dominate your religion—blatantly claims the right to rule over us. We—and you—should take them at their word, and protect America from them. Some of you understand that, and have chosen our side; many of your number stand on the sideline here, as you stood on the sideline there. The time will come here, too, when there is no peaceful sideline to stand on, if America permits Islamism to infect here, too.
IV. Maintain absolute, confident, crushing strength and the lightning-swift ability to conduct operations wherever, whenever, and however we choose.
Military mobility and power are the keys to conducting foreign relations within the Muslim-dominated world. I could write at length about this, but by now, the truth of what I have just written in bold should be obvious.
V. Leave the Muslim world nations to determine their fate.
The United States has neither the duty nor the capability to somehow bring to the Islamist-dominated world the notions of liberty that we imagine all aspire to. People of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the like: your future is in your own hands. Trust in Allah if you like, but if you yearn for liberty, you had better busy yourselves about the bloody business of organizing, arming, and claiming your own version of liberty—or you will live for centuries underneath Islamist tyranny.
This means that America has purchased for Afghanistan and Iraq an opportunity that people wait for for centuries. But, we can only secure that opportunity. The people must want freedom badly enough to kill for it. It is time to leave you to work out your liberty, or to fall again to dictatorship—as you choose. You have weapons; what are you waiting for?
Conclusion
I consider it one of God’s worst jokes to put all of that oil underneath the Middle Eastern sands. But, it is their oil. They may sell it, keep it, or bathe in it for all I care. We have no moral right to it. We should either buy it at market price, or develop our own resources if they set too high a price. The price of gas at the pump does not reflect the cost of American blood spilled, and the burden of spilled red ink required to field armies, navies—and diplomats—thousands of miles away to try to secure what cannot be secured.
I write this sadly. Without American and allied involvement in the Middle East, I expect the Middle East and North Africa to spasm in violence, and implode into even more oppressive, authoritarian hell. We see this happening now, already, even after a decade of the American experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq. I wish for the people of Egypt—and others—your own form of liberty. But, I do not see that we Americans are even able to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves, much less for others.
