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As is often noted, political Islam — which is sometimes referred to as “radical Islam” or “Islamism” — is a totalitarian ideology. All four schools of Sunni Islamic law, along with Shi’a jurisprudence, affirm the orthodox political interpretations of the Koran and the hadith that justify the establishment of an all-powerful theocratic state by any and all means. These interpretations of Islam’s core scriptures are validated by traditional doctrine as taught by scholars at all major Islamic universities, especially the most prestigious of them all, al-Azhar University in Cairo.
For these reasons we may assert that Islam is inherently totalitarian. Muslims themselves may or may not have totalitarian tendencies — it’s certainly true that many millions of Muslims, whether they really believe in their religion or not, are politically apathetic and indifferent to any practical political application of their creed. But official Islamic doctrine promotes a totalitarian political philosophy.
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Westerners who long for a “reform” of Islam — which they imagine will somehow purge Islamic theology of its violent tendencies — fail to realize that a reform is already well underway. The latest wave began in 1928 in Egypt with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood by Hassan al-Banna, and it continues to this day. Followers of al-Banna have returned to the core scriptures of Islam and studied the life and sayings of Mohammed. They take what is written in these texts and commentary seriously, and are thus driven to implement various totalitarian political practices, through violent means or otherwise.
John J. Dziak points out that political Islam, like other totalitarian systems such as those of China, Cuba, the U.S.S.R., and Nazi Germany, takes the form of a diffuse
counterintelligence state, with
its typical characteristics:
The residual influence of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia on Islamism may be seen precisely in the assimilated features of the counterintelligence state absorbed by both radical Islamic movements and radical Islamic regimes: the multiplicity and redundancy of intelligence and counterintelligence services with counterintelligence being the preferred tendency; fixation with conspiracies and incessant conspiratorial intrigue; provocation and associated deception; conspiracy-laced propaganda and very sophisticated information warfare campaigns; draconian police state tactics, this time justified by theocratic strictures vice party dogma. In its drive to nuclear power status Iran, especially, has shown adeptness at deception in masking the weapons side of its program, and in information warfare and propaganda with its bombast of military prowess aimed at strong anti-war sentiment in the U.S.
Many Westerners had trouble grasping the nature of the U.S.S.R., and they are no better at understanding the workings of the Islamic counterintelligence state. Iran is a good example: we treat it as if it were a Western democracy, with a parliament (the Majlis) as a legislative authority, a judiciary (the mullahs and ayatollahs) and an executive (President Ahmadinejad). However, there is at best a superficial resemblance between these structures and their Western counterparts. Politics in Iran is conducted quite differently from what we are used to. It is opaque to us because its operations proceed according to the internal logic inherent to a counterintelligence state.
As a made-up example, imagine that three American charity workers in Iran are arrested and detained by the Revolutionary Guards, and then later charged with being spies for the CIA. We’ll assume for the sake of argument that they are not really CIA spies.
So what is Iran up to?
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It may be quite difficult to determine the motives for such an arrest. If talks on Iran’s nuclear program are about to begin, the act may constitute the first move in the chess game of those negotiations. When backdoor discussions about the hostages are initiated, Iran may discreetly hint that a relaxation in the IAEA inspection regime might just result in the release of the captives.
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Or the arrest may be some other international gambit in a complex game — an effort to influence Russia, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Saudi Arabia.
Or the real reason may be found within the internal politics of Iran itself. Political disagreement and maneuvering in a counterintelligence state generally proceed out of sight. Publicly staged political events simply ratify what has been decided by other means — that is, through the struggles between the factions that form the power structure of the state. In Iran, as in any other Third World country, Western hostages — particularly Americans — are very valuable. They function as a big bank deposit for the faction that holds them. Taking the three prisoners may well have given the Revolutionary Guards or their allies more leverage in ongoing internal factional struggles.
By the time the captives are released by a smiling Ahmadinejad during a carefully staged photo op, the political issues of their capture have already been settled. The tearful erstwhile prisoners thank the president for his gracious help, the cameras and the journalists depart, and the real game moves on to the next move, unnoticed and unrecognized by the vast majority of Western observers.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Moving beyond Iran, we leave the realm of state totalitarianism and enter the world of diffuse non-state Islamic radicalism. Non-state actors such as Al Qaeda and the various affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood display the same characteristics as the counterintelligence state, but they operate in a different context. Their goal is not to maintain internal control within a discrete political entity, but subversion: they aim to turn non-Muslims into dhimmis by stages, without the intended targets being aware of what is happening until it is too late.
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To accomplish this goal, the Ikhwan uses all the techniques — provocation, penetration, diversion, disinformation, etc. — familiar to students of Soviet counterintelligence. These methods serve to undermine and subvert the targeted society below the level of public awareness.
One of the most successful counterintelligence operations yet mounted by the Muslim Brotherhood was the notorious
“Flying Imams” affair. In November 2006 a handful of imams affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood front groups managed to paralyze the Transportation Security Agency (and through it the Department of Homeland Security) with an easy and inexpensive
provocation at the Minneapolis airport. Their belligerence and litigiousness served to neutralize the already weak attempts by TSA officials to monitor and act upon specific behaviors that might be expected from potential Islamic terrorists.
The superficially apparent objective of the operation — to test security systems and procedures using a terrorist dry run — was accomplished. However, by drawing attention to their particular tactics, the imams compromised the future effectiveness of such methods. The subsequent out-of-court shakedown of USAirways could hardly suffice as a motivation for such an audacious public operation.
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Understood from the point of view of the counterintelligence state, however, the Flying Imams were an enormous success. The incident was a probe, a
diversion, and it neutered the capacity of domestic security agents to evaluate and react to evidence of Islamic terrorist behavior. By rewarding targeted lawfare, it ensured that no TSA or DHS official who values his career will ever take into consideration any obvious radical Muslim behavior until a bomb actually detonates.
The incident may accurately be labeled a “diversion” because the exact modus operandi of the probe — belligerent behavior, loud Arabic prayers, the demanding of seat belt extensions, etc. — is unlikely to be used again. What it accomplished instead was to restrict the scope of America’s available responses, so that the real attack, in whatever form it may take, will be impossible to deal with until dozens, hundreds, or thousands of Americans are already dead.