Remembering the big picture
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He frequently instructs the U.S. Navy and separately the FBI on issues relating to Middle Eastern politics, terrorism, and religious extremism. His latest book Kurdistan Rising is being released today. We talk here about the attack on the Istanbul airport yesterday. – KJL
Kathryn Jean Lopez: What do you make of an airport in a Muslim-majority country being attacked during Ramadan?
Michael Rubin: Religiously speaking, a lot is prohibited during Ramadan, but war is not. War is prohibited during the “sacred months,” which are the first (Muharram), seventh (Rajab), eleventh (Dhu al-Qa’dah), and twelfth months (Dhu al-Hijjah).
Lopez: What do you make of ISIS not rushing to claim credit for the attack?
Rubin: It could mean any number of things: There might be factionalism within ISIS. ISIS may believe that the attack is more important than the claim of responsibility. It could also be a new group. They may also want to keep Turkey and the world guessing. If enough people are talking about ISIS, they have achieved their aim, claim of responsibility or not.
Lopez: What worries you most about ISIS?
Rubin: Really, a lot of things worry me.
First, many diplomats, government officials, and journalists still don’t get what makes ISIS so attractive. Remember this Newsweek piece from a decade ago, ridiculing President George W. Bush for even talking about the idea of a caliphate as if it were anything more than a historical artifact? We are so hobbled by political correctness that we are unable to craft an effective strategy to counter ISIS. President Obama has focused U.S. strategy on Syria and Iraq, but that’s like playing chess and only caring about two squares on the board. What about Libya, the Sinai, Nigeria, and Afghanistan?
Second, even if Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is killed, he has succeeded in reviving the notion of a caliphate in contemporary debate, and that is only going to be augmented by the forthcoming 100th anniversary of Turkey’s abolition of the caliphate in 1924. Also, remember that many Muslims believe that there will be a specific number of caliphates before the end of times, and so Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wins by losing, as he has started the countdown.
And, last, we need to worry about whom ISIS inspires. People talk about “lone wolf” terrorism, but the wolf is no longer really alone. After all, al-Qaeda publishes Inspire magazine and ISIS publishes Dabiq. They are essentially instruction manuals for terrorism, and so every U.S. airport, shopping mall, and elementary school remain at risk.
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Lopez: What worries you most about Turkey?
Rubin: The terrorism Turkey faces is only beginning. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan flirted with ISIS (and other radical groups), and at times supported them, so long as they focused their violence against Erdoğan’s political and diplomatic adversaries. What Turkey is experiencing today is simply blowback, in much the same way that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria have all experienced blowback from the radical Islamists their regimes once supported.
We still pussyfoot around Turkey too much because we are afraid to cause the mercurial Erdoğan any offense. He has transformed Turkey into Pakistan on the Mediterranean, however, and it’s time for some tough love, before things get worse.
Lopez: What do you make of the scuffle between Turkish officials and the Vatican this week? Pope Francis referred to the Armenian genocide during his visit to Armenia and he was labeled a crusader for it.
Rubin: Erdoğan is prickly and responds with bombast to rally his brownshirts against those whom he feels have slighted him. Truth simply doesn’t matter to Erdoğan. In recent years, Islamist and nationalist thugs in Turkey have attacked and killed priests, and I’m afraid what Erdoğan is doing is simply giving them a green light to do so again.
Lopez: What would you most have presidential candidates consider about Islamic terrorism?
Rubin: “It’s the ideology, stupid.” Too many diplomats and politicians still see the world through the lens of grievance. But forcing ourselves or our allies to make concessions in the face of terror is never a formula for success; it is a formula for more violence.
Lopez: Obviously ISIS will kill whomever it doesn’t like, but it also has specific stated goals of exterminating religious minorities. What more can the U.S. do for them?
Rubin: Religious minorities should be our focus when it comes to asylum.
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Lopez: What is our blindest foreign-policy/Islamic-terrorism spot?
Rubin: Again, our diplomats want to see the root of terrorism in grievance. They believe the problem is poverty or lack of education or Israel. The facts suggest otherwise. Most terrorists are educated and middle-class. The Arab Spring shows how cursory Israel is to the everyday concerns of people in the region. And the fact that Muslim Brotherhood terrorism was flagged by the U.S. intelligence community as a direct threat to the United States in 1946, a year before the partition of Palestine and two years before the creation of Israel, suggests we’ve got to stop seeing the only democracy in the region as the problem.
Lopez: What gives you actual hope these days, in the face of all the violence and chaos and confusion about so many things?
Rubin: Eight years of denial and sycophancy in the White House are coming to an end. With a little luck, we can have a fresh start and actually calibrate a policy to evidence rather than to wishful thinking or a White House–constructed echo chamber.