After that New York Times op-ed asking whether the Muslim world would see Obama as an apostate, I argued that the question was irrelevant to this campaign; to argue that the Muslim world’s reaction to our next president should be taken into account is to create a de facto “Muslim veto” over who leads our country. I took a little flak from some usual allies on that.
Now the Christian Science Monitor discusses the idea, and the lead paragraph is brutal:
Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.
That eye-opening beginning comes from Shireen K. Burki, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington. She is identified as, “the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, she spent her childhood in Islamabad, Pakistan, where she studied Islam at school.”
But her argument runs into trouble about here:
He’s caught between a rock and a hard place. If he softens the US strategy against Al Qaeda and its ideologues, his apostasy might be an afterthought for Al Qaeda. But if he acts firmly in America’s national interest to defeat the terrorist threat, he’d be vilified in an Al Qaeda propaganda campaign for reneging on his “true identity.”
Furthermore, his administration would struggle to positively engage the Muslim world, where Islam isn’t just a religion, it’s the way of life. Conservative Muslim populations that are riddled with poverty and low literacy rates can be more readily swayed to join the cause against the “Great Satan” (the US) if their imams and mullahs shout that it is led by an apostate.
Diplomacy is highly personal. The leaders of America’s Middle Eastern allies – such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar – already feel besieged by jihadists and disgruntled citizens who see their governments as toadies of the West. The murtad card could intensify that pressure, so leaders of these countries might be compelled to distance themselves from Washington.
In short, an Obama presidency – which might be fine domestically – could have serious repercussions for US foreign interests at a time when it is especially vulnerable in a tight global oil market.
So far, Al Qaeda has been conspicuously quiet on Obama’s candidacy. But that should not come as a surprise. Hoping Obama gets elected, they’re probably waiting until he’s taken the oath of office to begin branding him a traitor to the faith of his fathers.
Any U.S. president will be vilified in al-Qaeda propaganda campaigns. It’s a given, the only question is which argument is used. If not an apostate, then a Crusader.
Again, I’m put in the unusual position of defending Obama. I don’t care if his election prompts Osama to do cartwheels over the symbolic value; we don’t reject candidates because of how somebody like bin Laden feels about them.
If al-Qaeda is dancing over the next president’s proposed policies, that’s a different story.