Barry Rubin: Middle East: We're Going to Have a Revolution and We Can Do it the Hard Way or the Easy Way

Middle East: We're Going to Have a Revolution and We Can Do it the Hard Way or the Easy Way

By Barry Rubin

“Along the Paris streets the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the…Guillotine.”
– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities


Do I have to draw you a picture of how Islamism is just pretending to be moderate and plans to fundamentally transform the society in countries like Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Turkey? Well, I’ll let the most respected Muslim Brotherhood theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, do it for me.

Let me underline the fact that when Qaradawi answers a query millions of people listen. Egyptian military officers and their families watch his show raptly and so do many others. And Qaradawi isn't just talking for the sake of talking. He is teaching the revolutionary strategy of seizing all power for all time and imposing all of the Sharia on all of the people. Qaradawi is Lenin in a turban, as was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who did a little number on Iranian politics after the same people who are telling us now that the Brotherhood is moderate were telling us then that the Iranian Islamists were moderate.

If only government officials, journalists, and “experts” would read and comprehend things like this they might understand what’s happening in the Middle East and how their policy is headed for disaster.

“Gradualism,” Qaradawi explains, “is one of the laws of nature that Allah Almighty has created. It is also needed in applying the rulings of the Sharia to make a change in people’s life.”

When used by Communists decades ago this approach was called the “salami tactic,” you go step by step to consolidate your power. This is precisely what the “Turkish model” means. And, of course, the point of the exercise is to fool the dummy observers into thinking you are just great guys and very moderate. Incidentally, in this case the salami will be halal.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

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