Bill's Kristol Ball of Denial About Islamists

The lengths to which the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol is willing to go in criticizing Glenn Beck’s assertion that the Muslim Brotherhood wants to reestablish the Islamic Caliphate clearly demonstrates how out of phase with reality the former’s paradigm is. He simply doesn’t get it – regardless of how ensconced he is within the conservative media establishment.

In short, he’s in denial and so is his colleague Rich Lowry over at National Review.

In Egypt right now, the forces of secular nationalism – represented by Hosni Mubarak – are doing battle with those who want an Islamic theocracy. President Jimmy Carter failed to back the Shah of Iran in a similar battle. As a result, the side of Islamic theocracy won and the seeds were sown for the rise of the most dangerous country on earth today. In opposing Beck, Kristol urges readers to support the protesters; he views the uprising as the yearning for democracy manifest in its participants.

As a consequence of the 1979 uprising in Iran, Carter’s successor – Ronald Reagan – backed the lesser of two evils by siding with a secular nationalist in Iraq – Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi dictator was a brutal tyrant but he also kept Islamists in check. In fact, a vatican official stated in 2007 that Christians were safer under Saddam Hussein than after he was removed from power. After all, the Iraqi Constitution we helped write has Sharia law written into it which renders all other laws null and void if they conflict with Islamic writ.

Once the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq, there is a distinct possibility that Iran could fill the vacuum. Using his own litmus test, Kristol would necessarily have to support that Islamic theocracy next door. It resulted from an uprising virtually identical to what we’re seeing in Egypt.

The extent to which Saddam Hussein differed from Mubarak is a matter of degree, not ideology. The first of many critical mistakes the former Iraqi leader made was invading Kuwait. Relations with the United States would never be the same; the attempted assassination of George H.W. Bush didn’t help either.

There is one paragraph in Krisol’s piece that demonstrates most clearly how ignorant of reality he truly is about the Islamist threat facing America:

It was not so long ago, after all, when conservatives understood that Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Mubarak’s help spawn global terrorism. We needn’t remind our readers that the most famous of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, was an Egyptian, as is al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. The idea that democracy produces radical Islam is false: Whether in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, or Egypt, it is the dictatorships that have promoted and abetted Islamic radicalism.

Obviously lost on Kristol is that al Qaeda is a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood. By chastising Beck, he has necessarily become an apologist for the organization responsible for attacking his own country. It is a shocking statement because it implies that by supporting Mubarak, the United States contributed to Atta and al Zawahiri becoming terrorists. Kristol is precariously close to blaming America for 9/11.

Kristol supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and has consistently championed it as a victory for freedom. It would be inconsistent of him not to view the events in Egypt through the same lens. Not doing so would require him to reevaluate the decision to go into Iraq – a decision he’s invested extensive ideological capital in supporting.

Perhaps Mr. Kristol should re-examine his entire paradigmatic lens.

Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at www.benbarrack.com