Marie Harf's statement on ISIL was definitely taken out of context and dragged through the mud by her opponents. Ms. Harf was absolutely correct in saying that combating terrorism in the long run can't be managed solely through war. She didn't say war against ISIL was unwarranted, in fact she was explicit in saying in the short term it was necessary. She only pointed out, very accurately that in the long term more fundamental measures must be taken to eradicate the sources of terrorism.
However, that's where her being right stops. Her explanation of the deeper sources of terrorism is symptomatic of a neo-liberal American delusion every bit as misguided and potentially as devastating as the American neocon illusion that America can bomb and kill Arabs into being Scandanavians.
Harf's thesis is not novel, in fact it's a trite and banal conclusion of most American think tanks. She theorizes that poverty, lack of participation, and bad governance are the sources of terrorism in the Arab world. But as one is always bound to ask, why is it the that only Muslims in the Middle East are prone to terrorism? Why don't Christians, Yazidis, Druze, or atheists from the Mideast resort to terrorism?
The answer is because this thesis is wrong and extremely convenient. It's convenient on two fronts. Primarily, at least to Americans, it's very convenient because it allows them to completely discount the caustic and inflammatory role that Israel has played in turning the region's struggles progressively from wars of independence into religious wars. It also allows an oversimplification of Iran's role in stoking sectarian and ethnic tensions in the region. Additionally, it absolves America's disastrous recent interventions from any responsibility.
But this is all well and good. It is part of America's traditional delusional worldview. It allows Americans to "liberate" a country by decapitating all its statehood apparatus, killing its people, creating a chaos and vacuum, attracting all the terrorists in the world to that country; and then ten years later make an Oscar nominated movie about how killing the people in that country to liberate them psychologically scarred American rednecks.
This isn't unusual, the world is used to it. What is unusual about Harf's trite argument though is that it absolves Arab Muslims in the Middle East from ideological responsibility for ISIL. This, combined with western media's refusal to realize that Muslims are the primary victims of ISIL and Boko Haram and the like, paints a very false picture of the conflict that will only delay its resolution.
The conflict is not about economics or democracy or NGOs and the right to protest. This conflict is a Muslim civil war about a critical ideological bottle neck created by the insistence of the majority of Muslims that there is something like "real Islam" instead of multiple possible definitions. This is primarily a Muslim conflict. The main perpetrators are Muslims, Arab conspiracy theories not withstanding. The main victims are Muslims, Fox News assurance that ISIL is out to kill Christians and Jews notwithstanding. ISIL is out to subjugate non-Muslims yes, but its stated mission is not to subjugate but to kill Shiia, Sufis, apolotical Salafists, secular Muslims, leftist Muslims, and the list of all different kinds of Muslims they want to kill for apostasy goes on an on.
And why does ISIL find recruits and money? Because Arab Muslims provide a perfect ideological incubator for them. No, the majority of Muslims don't support ISIL, in fact the majority of Muslims are targets for ISIL. Ask a random group of Muslims what should be done with ISIL and the absolute majority will have very gory things to say. Westerners may not "hear mainstream Muslims condemning terrorism" loud enough, but maybe that's because mainstream Muslims are too busy not getting bombed by terrorist groups, invariably supported by Western governments at some point as a moderate opposition de joure, to give a fuck what Bill O'Reilly thinks.
However, ask a random group of Muslims how many forms of Islam they find acceptable. The answer will invariably be that there is only one true Islam, the definition of which is always elusive. Ask a random group of Muslims what should be done with apostates, the answer will invariably be death. Ask them if head taxes on non-Muslims are moral, the answer will be yes. Prove them a bit about equality of genders and full citizenship to all and freedom of faith and you will always be faced with very medieval responses.
Then how do they think ISIL is wrong? The answer is most Muslims don't really believe what they claim to believe. At least they have serious problems with many of these issues. But decades of Saudi and later Qatari petromoney cementing the demented Wahabi idea that one has to believe in a monolithic literalist medieval view of Islam to be Muslim, have ingrained a sense of dread in all Muslims in the region. Most Muslims believe that it is acceptable to pretend to believe that a literalist interpretation of Shariia will lead to a utopia, even if you never in reality want to see it happen. You can concoct complex messianic ideas about when Shariia can be implemented, you can demand impossible preconditions, you can try ludicrous comparisons with modern atrocities to make medieval holy atrocities more palatable. But you can't discuss the fundamental ideas. You can't ask why we can't just adopt a government system like that of Korea or Brazil or Sweden if we think they are so awesome. No, you have to lie and say the Japanese are successful because they fanatically held on to their culture; ignoring the Meiji era, and the large scale conscious westernization that even China went through.
What does that make Muslim societies? Hypocritical and constantly guilt ridden about the simplest most common facets of human civilization. And what does that mean for terrorists? It means that even though the absolute overwhelming majority of Muslims are not only against terrorism, but also its primary victims; there will always be a small minority that will join or finance ISIL or Boko Haram.
So now what? What should the U.S. Do? Now the Mideast will fight its own ideological war, and the west should not try to influence it. Because they can't, and they shouldn't. The west will always try to fit Muslims into molds similar to western Christian history. Which is why everyone's talking about Islam's need for a Protestant reformation. Which is symptomatic of deep ignorance about Sunni Islam. Sunni Islam has already had its Protestant reformation and it resulted in a chaotic non-hierarchical but Puritan form of Islam that naturally precipitated the current bloodshed. Which is why it's much easier to talk to Shiites who more resemble the a Catholic Church.
No, America shouldn't try to help in the intellectual war that must be fought in the long run. This war must and will be fought by the main victims of ISIL: Muslims. However, the U.S. Must participate in military action in the short and medium terms. Generally speaking American intervention in the region has catastrophic results. But in this case the U.S. has a moral obligation to interfere. Because it created ISIL. Yes, the Muslim ideological loggerheads is the source and solution of terrorist groups. But terrorism in the form of a group that controls enormous tracts of land and declares a caliphate requires a military and political vacuum of epic proportions. There is no doubt in my mind that without the disastrous American invasion of Iraq the degree and nature of the current conflict in the region would've been very different. To be even more blunt, yes it would've been much better if Saddam Hussein was still in power instead of Bush style democracy.
Which is why the U.S. has to bomb ISIL. And also why bombing will not radically solve the problem, nor will the U.S.
