Faith and Conflict

The unstated premise is that faith is anchored to some static reality that directs it - you could call this God. If we dispense with that premise, then a religion becomes as dynamic as events and its core beliefs will allow.

If there is no one God to anchor religion to His will, then religion either becomes entirely disassociated from reality and goes the way of so many past religions, or it responds to reality in its struggle to maintain relevance and influence.

Had history not supported Islam and Christianity they might have long gone the way of Odin and Zeuss. But the Irish Catholic/Protestant and 9/11 obscenities have not undermined the religions that spawned them. Instead they have reinforced them, for by these obscenities religion is not only responding to reality, it is directing it.

Given that any monotheistic faith is a zero-sum game (a convert to Islam is a loss to Christianity and vice versa), in that sense at least, all religions are in conflict, and no religion has much time for a pagan, which makes most of us legitimate victims of someone else's beliefs (or so some of us obviously believe).

In view of this Islam is becoming progressively more socially significant for several reasons:

1. The nations with most of the world's oil are mostly Islamic. Islam is a very wealthy religion - it can afford conflict with the nations that need its oil without fear of sanction. It can also afford to buy the weapons it hasn't the social infrastructure to manufacture.

2. America has been demonized by Islam in the Middle East. It is now an ethically legitimate target for many Muslims, not just a lunatic fringe.

3. The Bush administration's overtly Christian agenda reinforces rather than defuses the significance of national faith in national conflict.

In short, America's negative sentiment about Islam is reciprocated.

If Islam is seduced by its nascent ability to direct reality rather than follow it then we can expect faith-based conflict.

Time we got some peoples' religion out of our government and our troops back where they belong?

Iraq and the iron maiden narrative

The Iraq debacle has soured national sentiment for war - in that respect we differ from the pre-1914 political climate. On the other hand, Europe had just experienced the disastrous Crimean War and yet it still blundered into WWI, perhaps because the narratives of the time worked like iron maidens, putting each of the European powers in a vise where, once certain things happened, the only possible conclusion was war. In the case of Iran we run the risk of an extremist response to an extreme provocation. Who the provoker and who the provoked is a moot point in the circumstances.

It seems likely the reasons for invading Iraq were both ideological and venal (certainly oil revenues were seen as part and parcel of the operation), but the invasion, no matter how altruistic in intent, is now widely perceived as unjust - a word that resonates especially powerfully in the Middle East. If we are to defuse the region we need to be far more pragmatic about it, for when extremism meets extremism the outcome is foreordained.

Dubai and American Ports

Most political analysis follows the binary nature of the American political structure. In these blogs we focus on the analysis of the true meaning in political events. Our starting point is to consider the Dubai-based management of American ports. The overwhelming question at issue is: why is Bush so adamant that the deal should go ahead without the proper congressionally-ordained review? His position teeters perilously close to antagonizing congress and uniting opposition to the deal across all ideological divides.

Obviously there is more at stake here than meets the eye.

Why did Bush threaten a veto? Even if he has a stake in it he would have been well advised to keep a low profile.

The most plausible reason I can come up with is that his very public assurances are directed outside America; at keeping a somewhat shaky deal on track. Obviously there's rather a lot of money on the line, but it may be a strategic or tactical issue rather than a venal one.

In reality, the risks of closely monitored Arab-based management are probably no greater than poorly monitored American management, but the deal is clearly unacceptable to the American electorate.

Interesting to see how Bush/Cheyney/Rove are going to defuse the mindset they have created and used so effectively to this point. It has become an obstacle to their interests.