Experts, pundits debate use of 'Islamo-fascist'
Some call the term appropriate, others say it is misleading and historically inaccurate.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

In what The Associated Press calls, "the new buzzword for Republicans in an election season dominated by an unpopular war in Iraq," President Bush, members of his cabinet, and conservative columnists and bloggers have recast the global "war on terror" into a war against 'Islamic fascism.' The phrase has become hotly debated among experts and in the blogosphere, with some writers calling it a correct description of the enemy that the US is facing, while other say it is "emotional" and "misleading."

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Tuesday that Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who is in an extremely tough reelection race, called Iran "the greatest threat we will ever face," and said that "Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are the driving forces behind a movement bent on destroying the United States." After the president used the term over the weekend, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday told a veteran's group in Salt Lake City that the US was facing "a new kind of fascism."

British author William Shawcross, writing in The Jerusalem Post, argues that the term 'Islamic fascism' is entirely appropriate.

In a live BBC interview recently, I called Hizbullah "Islamo-fascists." The interviewer said nervously, "That's a very controversial description." I replied that it was merely accurate. She brought the interview to a swift close.

But how else should one describe a military machine that marches under the banner of a demagogic leader who seeks above all to kill Jews? Its not just Hizbullah, of course. The same ideology of hate and destruction motivates al-Qaeda, perhaps the inspiration, if not the controller, of the arrested British bombers.

Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Richard Cohen compares current events in the Middle East to the year 1938, just before the start of World War II.

This inability of Europe to get its act together [in Lebanon] is what suggests 1938. Back then, Winston Churchill was hardly the only one who thought Hitler was intent on war. After all, the German leader was an ideological zealot and a murderer to boot. Still, England did little. Similarly, you don't have to have Churchillian prescience to see that what happened once in Lebanon can happen again. Hizbullah's avowed aim is to eradicate Israel. Listen to what it says. Pay attention. It will renew its attacks the first chance it gets. This is why it exists.

But it's futile to use colorful language when, in reality, you're out of the conversation altogether. This is another baleful consequence of the Iraq war. The United States is not only preoccupied, it is loathed. The leadership it once was able to exert – especially in the Middle East – is a thing of the past. If its credibility is to be restored, another president will have to do so. In the meantime, as we always learn, Europe without American leadership is a mere tourist destination.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero, writing in the conservative online journal Human Events, lashes out at liberals and their "refusal to acknowledge the reality of a cruel and imperialistic jihadist push worldwide."

To acknowledge the true face of Islamofascism and its aims would mean having to concede the necessity of phone surveillance, tough interrogation, common sense profiling, a reliance on the CIA and a strong military – all things they were taught to disdain. Better to deny reality than relinquish the badges and accoutrements of their internalized identity as "superior." Besides, how un-cosmopolitan and un-transnational to be in the corner of America, especially when anti-Americanism is cool and fashionable, indeed today's facile path to liberal "worldliness."

Trudy Rubin, columnist and editorial-board member for The Philadelphia Inquirer, writes, however, that while the term "fascism" may be appropriate to use in connections with certain Islamist (not Islamic, she says, a distinction she calls more than "a semantic quibble") political movements, trying to lump all Islamist groups under one rubric "confuses the American public about the nature of the struggle they are facing."

Raising the"Islamo-fascist" cry fosters false hope that terrorism can be halted with one great military strike – a Berlin or Hiroshima. I keep getting e-mails suggesting we can win if we bomb Tehran. On the contrary, Al Qaeda would get thousands of new recruits who, while they despise Shiites, would join up because America was killing Muslims. In the meantime, the Iranian regime would grow stronger. There is still a chance to change Iran's direction through diplomacy – backed by carrots and (economic) sticks.

Syndicated columnist David Ignatius wrote recently in The Daily Star of Lebanon, that in many ways, Islamic fascism "does capture the rage that fuels America's enemies" – as with European fascism, he wrote, it has "made Jews the symbol for larger forces that confound angry Muslims." But Mr. Ignatius says he still "balks at the term."

The notion that we are fighting "Islamic fascists" blurs the conflict, widening the enemy to many if not all Muslims. It's as if we were to call Hitler and Mussolini "Christian fascists," implying that it is their religion, not resistance to transcendence, that is the root cause of the problem. The revolution that began in Iran in 1979 must be contained so that it doesn't destabilize the region more than it already has. But it will only be broken from within, by people who are at last ready to transcend.

The term"Islamo-fascism" has political wings and plays to the president's mantra of good vs. evil. But it obscures the complex nature of the struggle Americans will face over the next decade. It misleads more than it informs.

Liberal Huffington Post blogger RJ Eskow, challenged by some commentators to come up with a better term, suggests "Islamic conservatism."

Why not call the radical Islamist movement "conservative" – in the new meaning of the word? After all, they believe in the following:
Opponents are to be killed. No negotiation is permissible.
It's acceptable to plunder the resources of a country in pursuit of the Cause.
Slandering your opponent is preferable to competing in the marketplace of ideas.
War is always the first option, not the last.
"We" can't be questioned because we're doing God's will.
"We" know it's God's will, because we're doing it.
The sacred texts must be selectively read, removing all references to peace, justice, or tolerance.
Enemies can be anyone – even people from the same community – who disagree with you.
The electoral process is a waste of time. God has already spoken.
Only the fundamentalists have "true religion."
"We" can do or say anything we want to our enemies ...
... but we treat our friends very, very well.
Finally, AP reports that Dennis Ross, who served in both the first Bush and then the Clinton administrations, and now is the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he would have chosen "different words."

"The 'war on terror' has always been a misnomer, because terrorism is an instrument, it's not an ideology. So I would always have preferred it to be called the 'war with radical Islam,' not with Islam but with 'radical Islam,'" Ross said.

Why even mention the religion? "Because that's who they are," Ross said. "Fascism had a certain definition. Whether they meet this or not, one thing is clear: They're radical. They represent a completely radical and intolerant interpretation of Islam."