May 11, 2004

Osama bin Lenin

In a debate between Robert Novak and Niall Ferguson, Fergie says:

The obvious answer [of how the US might make amends with Europe] is that continued terrorist activity by Islamist zealots should eventually convince the Europeans that Bush is right to try for a radical transformation of the Middle East. There really is "something worse" [than the US] out there—and it's been out there since at least the Iranian Revolution. We just haven't quite woken up to the fact that Osama Bin Laden is the Lenin of our time. Must we wait for the Islamist Stalin to appear? [Emphasis mine.]

Interesting, although this is overstating the threat posed by Islamists. I think that there is no chance that somewhere from the Islamic world there will emerge so powerful and dangerous a force as Stalinist Russia. Here we go again, always fighting the last (cold) war. And overestimating one's foes tends to make one an asshole.


Then again, the Russian switch to communism was a huge surprise (early Marxists always thought it was relatively cosmopolitan Germany, not feudal Russia, that would go commie), as was the Soviet Union's rise to world power.

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Comments

Ferguson's analogy is an odd one. Stalin killed over 40 million people. Short of the most incredible terrorist act (something absurdly horrifying, along the lines of simultaneous suitcase nukes in the downtown centers of forty major world cities), I take the tiniest bit of solace in knowing that an "Islamist Lenin" does not necessitate the appearance of an "Islamist Stalin."

Looking beyond the narrow scope of Islamist extremists, it's interesting to note that the Muslim world has seen plenty of Lenins, guys who've screwed over hundreds of millions of Muslims by popularizing/following a losing ideology. Muslim leaders like Nasser, the royal Saudi family, and (okay, I'll say it!) Yasser Arafat have done much to ensure that their nations remain kleptocracies in which economic opportunity is beyond the reach of the general populace.

ejk nuf ced

Posted by Ezra at May 13, 2004 03:47 PM

I don't think he meant as bad as Stalin in terms of number killed, but just in relation to establishment of and ascendancy of a misguided, dangerous philosophy. This is more about ideology than statistics.

Islamism as put forward by Osama is, I think, a little more remarkable than the ideologies of Nasser, the Sauds, and Arafat. Nasser and Arafat were political thinkers with smaller ideas, and Wahhabism is a religious approach with less ambitious world goals. Osama's philosophy is really quite large, like communism, and that's the difference; Osama wants to change the world, and has shown at least some power to do that.

Islamism will never be as bad in effect as Stalinism, though.

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