My Take on Bush's Speech

By Marc Schulman, American Future

To those who will say that the speech’s purpose was to shore up support for the President’s Iraq policy, I say this: is there anything unusual or wrong about a president using the bully pulpit to increase his approval ratings?

I care a lot more about what he said than why he said it, and there’s a lot in the speech I was very glad to hear. Topping the list are these words:

And while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil but not insane.

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism. Others militant jihadism.

Still, others Islamo-fascism.

What else do I like about the speech? Here’s a list:

In clear and unmistakable language, it identifies the goals of Islamic radicalism — (1) to end American and Western influence in the Middle East; (2) to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country and to use that country as a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments; (3) to use that control to rally the Muslim masses, enabling the radicals to overthrow all moderate governments in the region and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia; and, finally, (4) with greater economic and military and political power, to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people and to blackmail our government into isolation. Without using the term, the American people have been told that the Islamists want to resurrect the Caliphate. It’s about time.

As he did in his memorable speech of September 20, 2001, Bush warns that Islamo-fascism must be taken seriously and relates it to other totalitarian movements:

. . . the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience must be taken very seriously, and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.

Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses . . . Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life . . . Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims. Its leaders pretend to be in an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies . . . Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent.

In truth, they have endless ambitions of imperial domination and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves.

He specifically names Syria and Iran, “corrupted charities,” and “elements of the Arab news media” as “helpers and enablers” of Islamic radicalism:

They have been sheltered by authoritarian regimes: allies of convenience like Syria and Iran that share the goal of hurting America and moderate Muslim governments and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West and America and on the Jews. The radicals depend on front operations such as corrupted charities which direct money to terrorist activity . . . The militants are aided as well by elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, that feed conspiracy theories and speak of so-called American war on Islam with seldom a word about American actions to protect Muslims in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Kuwait and Iraq.

As to the claim that our presence in Iraq has aided the radicals’ cause, Bush echoes the words of Tony Blair:

. . . we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001, and Al Qaida attacked us anyway. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet militants killed more than 180 Russian school children in Beslan. Over the years, these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence: Israeli presence on the West Bank or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia or the defeat of the Taliban or the crusades of a thousand years ago.

In no uncertain terms, Bush says that the Islamists will not be appeased:

. . . we’re not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We’re facing a radical ideology with unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of the killers, and no concession, bribe or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder. On the contrary, they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. Against such an enemy there is only one effective response: We will never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory.

I’ve been waiting for a speech like this for a long, long time. It should have and could have come a lot sooner. Better late than never.