Thought Theater

Citizenship: Antidote To Ideology genre: Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

We have seen an interesting conflation of events that point to the complexity of politics. Those events include the victory by Ned Lamont in Connecticut, the rollout of the new GOP talking points with regards to the war on terror and national security, the increasing sectarian violence in Iraq (civil war), the Israeli offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, and the foiled terror plot in London.

There is certainly ample evidence that all of these situations have some connection to the neoconservative ideology that has been percolating for at least three decades and has risen to prominence under the stewardship of the Bush administration. At the same time, it is safe to say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has traveled a parallel path that has fostered an ideology that is now defined as Islamo-fascism by the President and his neocon cohorts.

The problem with ideological conflict is that it tends to overwhelm the political process because it is often seen to have superior standing...politics is seen as the vehicle with which to implement the ideology. The danger arises when the practice of politics is determined to be nothing more than a means to an end...simply a tool to be manipulated. Essentially, politics as the practice of government is supposed to be the social contract whereby a number of ideological groups have mutually established a system that allows each ideology to function but none to dominate. Collectively, it seems that the world has begun to move away from the notion of a social contract and towards a process of ideological purification.

Unfortunately, once that process begins, the social contract is quickly challenged as groups that feel threatened by the politics of other ideological actors set out to reassert their own ideology and the conflict escalates into a wholesale expansion of absolutist rhetoric. Once that cascading sequence is triggered, the process back to stasis...a commitment to the prior or a newly created social contract is akin to the notion of a pendulum...meaning there is sufficient energy to keep the back and forth struggle energized such that it is difficult to achieve a position of equilibrium.

Newsday's Craig Gordon has a good article that discusses the war on terror in this context.

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush likes to boast of five attack-free years in the United States since 9/11. He claims to have decimated the al-Qaida network.

But the re-emergence of an al-Qaida-style mega-plot - even a foiled one - shows just how little headway Bush's war on terrorism has made in defeating Islamic extremism, several analysts said yesterday.

"We took our eye off that ball when we didn't finish that job in Afghanistan at the outset, and when we decided to add Iraq," said Leslie Gelb, a longtime foreign policy analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Now Gelb sees the United States facing a decades-shaping battle for influence with Muslim extremists, one in which everyday people in the Middle East are deciding whether to cast their lot with America or the terrorists.

And the terrorists are making headway in the battle for public opinion, whether among insurgents in Iraq or with Hezbollah in Lebanon, fighting the U.S. ally Israel.

"This is a time when we would hope Muslims would be turning against extremists in their midst who are killing other Muslims, but that isn't happening," Gelb said.

"We have rolled up some key guys, no doubt about it, but when we roll up the third, fourth, fifth operations chief of al-Qaida, that's nothing to celebrate," said Tom Sanderson, an expert on terrorist threats at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "That's a signal that good people are taking over as soon as the other guy gets knocked off."

Gordon's article demonstrates both the consequences of ideological conflict and the fact that it frequently perpetuates itself into an atmosphere of building polarity that draws or compels more and more of those on the sidelines to enter the fray. Who can forget the Bush pronouncement that "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." At the time, one could argue that it was an appropriate statement...but over time...especially with the Iraq invasion and the eventual transformation of that effort to remove WMD's into a broader effort to export democracy, the equation was no longer simply about terrorists...it was about fundamental ideology. Unfortunately, as this ideology has expanded so have the rhetoric and the ramifications.

The failure to isolate conflict and maintain the proper definitional parameters serves to compel more conflict. With the current nature of politics...frequently viewed by ideologues on all sides as a righteous battle...we have segued into the Bush administrations characterization of the war on terror as a clash of civilizations. In neocon thinking, those competing for ideological influence are quickly identified and engaged and the appropriate solution is frequently force.

As bystanders are pushed to align with one ideology or the other, there is a belief that one is moving towards the point of resolve...a final conflict. As we have pushed forward with our plan to export democracy, we have therefore been seen to threaten many who hold and value Islamic ideology. As people conclude that there is a final battle in the making, they necessarily become more guided by their underlying ideology and the politics of negotiation becomes a secondary consideration. Groups and nations are driven to decide which ideology they can accept and therefore which one they will reject and the groundwork has been laid for expansive conflict, if not all out world war.

At the same time, those who seek to broker a resolution are seen to be ideologically bankrupt and are frequently met with derision. Both sides of the divide believe that these arbiters fail to comprehend the fanaticism of the opposing ideology and are thus misguided in believing that equilibrium can be achieved by choice. Notwithstanding, history tells us that this escalating conflict is driven more by a small group of ideologues who have assumed positions of power than by some groundswell of the proletariat. The proof can be found in the aftermath of World War II whereby once Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito were unseated, the populations reverted to previous positions of reasonability.

The lesson that can be learned is not that conflict can necessarily be avoided once the ideological escalation has begun…but that there must be a demand by the rank and file that leaders uphold the social contract and refrain from advancing ideology at its expense. The individual must avoid the instinct to vilify or to be drawn into the politics of those who seek to do so. In the same way we agree that each vote has value, so to does each voice of reason…it is in our collective commitment to that principle that we can overcome those who endorse and engage in the politics of ideology.

At this moment, society stands on the precipice. If we are to step back from this moment, it will require the wisdom and the will of the many in order to overcome the dogma and the doctrine of the powerful few. Come November, the choice may appear to be between two parties…but it is a much larger choice…it is a choice to return to our proven social contract or to continue this all out sprint towards ideological annihilation. This is not simply the moment when the citizen can speak…it is the moment when the citizen must speak. Society hangs in the balance.