The Islamic State: What Should Have Been Done

What leftists should have done, or at least promoted, about this new entity called the Islamic State goes back to about the year 1980 when the Islamists under Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran and began butchering leftists with abandon. That was the moment when the left should have taken a strong stand against any kind of Islamism, for several obvious reasons:

• They obviously hated the left.

• They were sexist.

• They were homophobic.

• They were religious conservatives.

• They showed no hesitation in using violence.

It is one thing to be a pacifist here in America and to criticize sending our troops overseas. One might have an effect. But it is quite another to criticize people who are basically living in the seventh century and who pay no attention to anyone who isn’t Muslim. Why would they pay any attention to pacifists in America, especially when they have the example of Muhammad to guide them? All the silly talk about how Islam is a religion of peace may persuade naive undergraduates here in America, but it is hardly going to persuade people in Iran, who know the traditions better.

Now that we have seen the effects of the rise of Islamism in Iran, we can add yet another reason why leftists should have railed against Islamism:

• They inspired many other Islamists groups.

That is, given that the Islamists in Iran were successful, that inspired other similar groups to see if they could be successful, too. And all of these groups have watched with satisfaction as the West has shown the weakest of wills in confronting them. They can almost do as they please, at least in the domains that they control.

Now had leftists decided right from the start that the Islamists must be stopped by all means possible, it is unlikely that we would be watching the advance of this Islamic State (IS) into Iraq. If leftists had said, “We must attack Iran,” who can doubt that we would have done so? And had we invaded Iran back then, had we invaded with the full support of the left, that would have shown all these other and newer groups that using extreme Islam to advance one’s political beliefs maybe wasn’t the wisest course of action.

Instead, the left decided, for reasons I’ve explained here, that it would be best to ignore the Islamists and that leftists should even side with Iran. When the Taliban began to conquer Afghanistan back in 1995, the left paid little attention, despite the horror stories coming out about their treatment of women. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that my wife received a mass email petition demanding that the Taliban treat women better. Why anyone would think that Muslim men who think of non-Muslims as infidels would pay any attention to women in the West is beyond me. One might as well have had a petition demanding that the Nazis treat the Jews better.

After 9/11, things got even worse as the left engaged in one long swoon of affection for everything Muslim, for having decided that 9/11 was all our fault, they insisted that the best thing to do was to be nice to Muslims, which was fine as far as the Islamists were concerned. If leftists wanted to be useful idiots in their quest for global power, they weren’t going to complain.

And now through some miracle, the left has actually decided that this new Islamic State needs to be dealt with. It’s not that they want us to put boots on the ground, and there are still whiners like Elizabeth Warren claiming that Iraq needs a negotiated solution and not a military solution (here.) But as the fight against the Nazis in World War II showed, sometimes negotiated solutions are not in the cards.

How long before the left figures this out?