The Arab Resistance and the American political system

An establishment Arab researcher from the Gulf warns that religious extremism mixed with an ideology of racial and religious hatred and violence continues to threaten the region, referring to the Republican party in the United States and its hard-right core. The corollary of the continued influence of this group is the need to continue to support the armed resistance in Iraq, south Lebanon and Palestine.

Ali Mohamed Fakhro, who I believe is head of the Bahrein Center for Studies and Research, writes in Al-Quds al-Arabi this morning that even though there are obvious signs that the Iraq and Afghanistan defeats have set in motion a decline in the American extreme right, it has to be remembered that the movement will still have its enormous base of power in the American political system, in media, and in the economy.

Politically, it still retains its control over the Republican party.

And it will continue to have access to its media networks including five thousand radio stations and a hundred TV stations that broadcast each week the messages of their main evangelists, along with politics centered on an ideology of violence and hatred of Islam and Muslims, under the cloak of the war on terror, and under the pretext of the need to support Israel, without whose control of Jerusalem, it would be impossible for the day to come for the return of the Messiah to earth and the salvation of the world. We should remember, Fakhro writes, what Pascal said about the worst crimes being those committed in the name of religion, because it will help us grasp the danger that awaits us Muslims and Arabs from the continued control by this group of the religious, media and political centers [in America].

And economically this group shares in the ideology of universal markets and the power of the multinational corporations. The war in Iraq, the fighting in Somalia and the massive foreign presence in the Gulf are merely the first signs of what awaits us on that score.

And although it is true that this group includes various components from moderate to extremist, the fact is that a large part of it is extremely dangerous, because it believes in violence and in preemptive intervention, and in punishing those who fail to follow the American path. Moreover, the most serious part is that their extremists have gone so far as to legalize the killing of unbelievers including Iraqi resistance people and Palestinian terrorists (and we know that the designation terrorist hasn't been conferred on America yet), and this should help us grasp the danger of this ideology of religion and violence.

The writer says his point is to admonish those Arabs who shamelessly criticize the establishment of a resistance in Iraq, in South Lebanon, and in Palestine, "preferring the idea of participating in what goes on in London and Washington". He says the blood of those who died in those fields of resistance will not have been in vain.

History will record that the enormous global project [of America] experienced its first signs of fracture in these three lands, and it would be a horrible intellectual and political mistake not to understand our history in this light.

But that doesn't mean that once Bush is gone the struggle won't continue, and with it the need to support the resistance and and the defence of every inch of our land.

He doesn't mention the Democratic Party or liberals or any of that ilk, or dialogue or what have you, and I guess it shouldn't be too hard to see why. Since no one in the American system recognizes the legitimacy of armed resistance to armed foreign occupation, from his point of view there wouldn't be a heck of a lot of room for dialogue.