1

Middle Eastern perceptions of modern

American theopolitics
Abdal-Hakim Murad, 2013
>

America as a Jihad State:

I love America, such a wonderful country such a shame to see it taken over by religious
fundamentalists.
(Iranian diplomat, cited in 2011)[1]

The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities provides a helpful opportunity to consider recent evolutions
in Muslim perceptions of Western religious intention. The rhetoric and dichotomies of the immediate
aftermath have receded, and the more recent years have seemed to initiate some possible resolutions of
the polarity which look beyond the faltering and controversial security agenda. The publication in 2007
of the Common Word marked perhaps the clearest and most remarkable sign of this, a genuine shift in
the Muslim-Christian equation: David Burrell, one of the most seasoned Catholic scholars of Islam,
wrote of a dramatic turn-about unparalleled in the recent history of the relationship.[2] More recently,
the fall of the Bush administration seemed to permit a more measured and less histrionic assessment of
Americas travails with political Islam and political Christianity over the years since 2001. The Obama
victory was followed within days by the death of Samuel Huntington, most notorious of advocates of the
thesis of the mutual allergy of Islam and Christendom. It is a good time to take stock.

In this essay I propose to examine one of the less frequently-noted of post-9/11 developments by
attempting a survey of changing Middle Eastern perceptions of America following the increased visibility
of so-called theocon tendencies in Washington under George Bush Jr. I will then move on to some more
general reflections on the issue of scripturally-based political xenophobia as a strand in the mutual
regard or disregard of what remains of Christian and Muslim civilisation, and its implications for
the wider atmosphere in which the Muslim-Christian engagement is conducted.

The approach is necessarily imprecise. Determining a generic Muslim view of this (or of most things) is
hardly possible: regional, sectarian and educational variables see to that. Muslim elites which conform
to the emerging global monoculture have often been resistant to the idea that religion might be a factor
in the politics of a country which is such a leading icon of modernity, while Islamists, by contrast, may
exaggerate US official religiosity in order to appeal to audiences who think in religious terms, or, on
occasion, to bolster a polemic against the secular discourse of the regimes. A further difficulty is that
Muslim elites attracted to the monoculture may not have access to the books and media reports written
in local languages which should form the basis of our survey. Increasingly such elites read only in English
and French, and a survey of regional newspapers and vernacular TV channels is unlikely to provide sure
clues to their perceptions of the world. As a final complication, their subject populations are typically
consumers of mass media over which they exert only a very limited influence, and which are shaped by
the censorship which is still normal in most Muslim states. Hence the Middle Eastern media coverage of
American fundamentalism has been extremely erratic, and our conclusions can be no more than
tentative.

But for all the measurement problems, the transformation of Muslim perceptions of America has been
considerable. In 2009, at the edge of the Tanezrouft desert near Timbuktu, the present writer listened
to a traditional Sufi shaykhexpounding the view that Americas violence towards Muslims (itida alal-
muslimin) is the consequence of a sahwa masihiyya, a Christian revival. He seemed well-aware of the
 2
role of the Christian Coalition in the run-up to the Iraq war, despite living in a region where I saw no
newspapers, and where internet access is almost impossible. Yet he was familiar with the names of
Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, and other icons of the Christian Right. For him, Alan Greenspans
explanation of the Iraq invasion in terms of Americas need for oil was entirely unpersuasive:[3] Bush and
his team were crusaders (salibiyyin), servants of Israel (awan Israil), and madcap harbingers of the
violent Second Coming of Christ.

Here is another anecdotal sign, this time from the opposite end of the cultural spectrum. In November
of 2005, a very different group of Muslims gathered in Casablanca for the second symposium of an Arab-
American Dialogue. The sponsor was a neoliberal American trust, and the subject was the familiar one
of the relationship between religion and state in the Arab and American contexts. The American team
presented a critique of Arab society based on an apparent assumption that its political processes were
rooted either in medieval Islamic thought (essentially Mawardis model), or in modern radical Islamism,
with its Salafite doctrine of tawhid al-hakimiyya (the monopolising of sovereignty by God). The Arab
team, mainly composed of secular intellectuals, attempted to explain that most modern Arab regimes,
as nationalist autocracies, do not see themselves as standing in continuity with either tradition. They
added that for Muslims, political thought lies largely in the ijtihadi category of rulings, and is hence one
of those branches of the Sharia which are more readily susceptible to change.

At this point the discussion grew more stimulating. Some of the Arab thinkers present raised the issue
of American theopolitics, citing Tocquevilles well-known observations about the coexistence of
American official laicism with popular religiosity, and pointing out that many modern Muslim
jurisdictions preside over a broadly similar separation. But as in the world of Islam, where popular
religious convictions can still influence the decision-making of the officially secular elites, American
politicians cannot and do not ignore the hundred million or so voters who grade politicians for their
correctness on faith-specific issues. The report in al-Sharq al-Awsat continued: our American
colleagues (some of whom play an influential role in the American decision-making process) failed to
respond objectively and precisely to the fears of their Arab partners concerning the role of Christian
fundamentalism in American political decision-making.[4]

In the early years of the decade, a major concern of Muslim commentators seemed to be Christian
Zionism. The Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram and the Lebanese-rooted al-H{ayat ran a number of op-ed
pieces interpreting the apparent indulgence shown towards Israel by the Bush presidency in terms of the
influence of pro-Israel evangelicals. On occasion, the Iraq invasion was glossed in the context of end-
time persuasions attributed to some members of the White House staff and the Pentagon. For instance,
a 2003 article by Jafar Hadi Hasan in al-Hayat urged readers to broaden their understanding of US
objectives in the region to include the chiliastic. For Hasan, Bushs core electorate are expecting
the parousia in their lifetime, and as he writes: they believe that occupying Iraq confirms the predictions
of the Bible; it is one incident in a series of events before the return of the awaited Christ. Hasan offers
an outline of the history of Christian dispensationalism, summarising its schema of seven ages of the
world, and explains how many Bush voters believe themselves to stand at the threshold of the seventh
age: Christs millennial reign. Hasan then goes on to identify dispensationalist decision-makers in the
Bush team, including Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, a disciple of Billy Graham, and discusses
Grahams son Franklin in his role as the Presidents personal religious mentor.

Hasan then summarises the core passages of the Book of Revelation which are central to the world-view
of many so-called theocons. Much of Revelation, he writes, is ambiguous, but the role of Iraq in the end-
time scenario is clear: Iraq, or Babylon, will fill the nations with impurity; and an angel of Gods wrath
will bring it to destruction, and it will be divided into three parts: exactly what America has achieved.

When that takes place, Jerusalem, the city of true belief and the polar opposite of Babylon, will hear the
four angels liberated by the fall of the false city. They will proclaim the imminence of a great battle, and
then the reappearance of Jesus. Thus the next stage in the theocon plan will be the destruction of the
Dome of the Rock and the rebuilding of Solomons Temple, where Christ himself will preside over the
sacrificial rituals in order to symbolise the restoration of Gods order on earth.
 3
Hasan concludes with some reflections on right-wing American policies, attempting to fit them all into
his interpretation. Pat Robertson, he reports, preaches to the Christian world on the inexorable
disappearance of virtue, the spread of abortion and sodomy, and the forgetting of God. The
environmental crisis is a positive sign that the present world is coming to an end.[5]Peacemaking is an
illusion, even a demonic subversion, since conflict can only come to an end with Christs millennial
reign. [6]

Hasans article may be fairly typical of the growing Muslim concern over the influence of Americas
religious right. Baffled by what appears to regional commentators to be the foolhardiness of the Iraq
invasion, and by the administrations perceived maximalist support for Israel, such Arab journalists have
sought a master explanation in the Bible-time beliefs of key Bush decisionmakers.[7] Instead of a clash of
civilizations, one journalist concludes, we are witnessing a clash of religions.[8]

As Hasan indicates, this interpretation of American actions is new. And it will be helpful to trace the
conduits by which, in a highly-censored media environment not particularly open to innovation, such a
sea-change in understanding has taken place.

One key channel has been provided by Christian Arab journalists, whose greater cultural familiarity with
the Bible and with Christian eschatology has allowed them to unravel the so-called double-coding in
presidential speeches, in which apparently innocuous phrases turn out to trigger specific Biblical
resonances important to the religious electorate. Particularly impressive was al-Hayats coverage from
Washington during the 2008 elections. Its correspondent, Joyce Karam, showed a close awareness of
the evangelical hesitations over John McCain. Conservative evangelicals will almost invariably vote
Republican, she observes, despite McCains uneven record on abortion, but some moderate evangelicals,
less convinced that religion requires a state of endless Middle Eastern war, had been seduced by the
Obama camp, which had adroitly revived the memory of the Carter years. Karam then accounts for the
last-minute appointment of Sarah Palin as McCains running-mate. Altogether, she presents a
persuasive account to her Arab readers of the issues surrounding Barack Obamas rise to power: religious
politics, as well as the economy or a general post-conflict tristesse, are a significant hermeneutic key.[9]

If there is an interpretation, or an explaining-away, of the embarrassing to Christian Arab nationalists

notion of a religious driver to American policy in the Near East, then it seems to have been articulated
most typically by the Israeli Arab writer and former Knesset member, Azmi Bishara. In a
characteristically outspoken article in al-Ahram, this left-wing secular Christian explains the theocon
phenomenon by outlining its historic roots in Americas Puritan heritage. For Bishara, the New
Testament does not provide guidance, other than a universal message of love and understanding. The
Puritans, however, stressed the moral code expressed in the Old Testament. Apparently revisiting
perhaps the oldest trope of Christian anti-Judaism, the law-versus-spirit dichotomy, Bishara concludes
that this is a Judaizing Christianity, which turns the Gospels into a simple extension of what is, by
implication, the unpleasant, lawbound violence of the Hebrew Bible.[10]

Bisharas view is one that may also be heard from Orthodox church leaders in the Middle East. The
theocons are a reversion to an older, Jewish type of political religion, and have failed to notice that St
Paul proclaims the radical inferiority of Judaism and its law. As for the theocon preoccupation with the
seer of Patmos, this is also, by implication, a sort of Judaizing. However the true meaning of Revelation
is the eschatological disclosure of transformed life which is the Church. This was Augustines conviction;
but not every Protestant has been so happy to explain away the evident violence and retributive quality
of the text. Fifty-nine percent of Americans, according to a recent poll, affirm its literal truth.[11]

Another view was offered by the Lebanese-American writer Ghassan Rubeiz, who as the former secretary
for the Middle East of the World Council of Churches is also active in the Arab media. Rubeiz, evidently
more aware of modern sensitivities, chooses not to adopt the old theme of a Judaizing Christianity, but
offers a more sociological account. He asks why the religious right now appears to be the prevalent form
of religion in America, with conservative megachurches experiencing boom times while older, soi-
disant mainline denominations face economic and numerical decline. His interpretation is sociological
and somewhat moralising: Americas ever-increasing social mobility and rootlessness, set against the
background of an unstable job market and the rise in divorce and remarriage, allow fundamentalist
 4
preachers to offer a simple explanation of an otherwise confusing world. On the basis of this
interpretation the map divides into Christendom and the lands of darkness, while history is interpreted
as a series of Biblically-foretold signs which culminate in the imminent and longed-for end of ambiguity
and doubt at the Rapture and the Second Coming.[12]

Another Christian writer has been the Egyptian Samir Murqus. A sociologist of religion who founded a
Coptic Centre for Social Studies and has been active in Muslim-Christian dialogue, Murqus published,
in 2001, a popular but careful book on the role of Protestant fundamentalism in American foreign
policy.[13] In the wake of the 9/11 attacks he went on to publish American Imperialism: The Triad of
Wealth, Faith and Power,[14] in which he seeks to challenge the widespread Arab perception that current
American policies reflect the pragmatic post-Soviet world of sole-superpower status, rather than a much
older configuration of faith, money and power. On his view, the processes whereby missionary, soldier
and trader worked together in conquering the New World reasserted themselves in the twentieth
century, until they finally became the prevalent paradigm during the Bush administration, their
relationship taking a contemporary shape relevant to globalisation but still recognisably rooted in the
original pattern of American religious conquest.[15] The book is based on a wide range of Western
academic studies, enriched by the authors own daily scrutiny of President Bushs faith-oriented
pronouncements. On the basis of these and other books on American political religion[16] Murqus has also
contributed a number of articles to the Arab press.

Turning now to Islamic and Islamist mass media a small part of the whole in the Middle East we
encounter a slowly increasing sophistication and level of awareness. While takfiri Salafi formations such
as those which self-identify as al-Qaida are content to use generic terms such as crusading to account
for American interventions in the Muslim world, and offer simple accounts of the power of the Jewish
lobby over Christians paralyzed with guilt over the Holocaust, moderate Islamism appears able to adopt
a slightly more informed view. One example would be the coverage by the Turkish religious
newspaper Zaman (associated with the movement of Fethullah Glen) of President Bushs apparently
enthusiastic reading of the memoirs of Oswald Chambers, a Baptist missionary who accompanied the
British invasion of Ottoman Palestine in 1917, and whose crusading manual is apparently still popular
as inspirational reading for advocates of faith-based war.[17]

A further case of this was Islamist coverage of the role of Blackwater, the security firm engaged by the
Pentagon in conflict zones such as Iraq. Exempted by Paul Bremers Immunity Order No.17 from
prosecution by Iraqi authorities, Blackwater operatives were accused of a range of abuses against Iraqi
civilians, including the Nisour Square incident late in 2007.

At least two major sources of Islamist knowledge about the alleged religious agenda of Blackwater can
be identified. Firstly, there is a European Parliament report written by Giovanni Claudio Fava, which
details the connections between Blackwater and the Knights of Malta, a sovereign fraternity of Catholic
military elites answerable directly to the Pope. The occasion for the European Parliaments inquiry was
the claim that two Blackwater subsidiaries were involved in US special rendition flights. Fava confirmed
the connection with the Knights of Malta, and indicated that Malta was one of Blackwaters primary
operational bases. Its vice-president, Cofer Black, had been the CIA officer responsible for special
renditions of detainees to pro-Western regimes which employed torture as an interrogation technique.

The second source is a popular book on Blackwater by the American journalist Jeremy Scahill.
Meticulously referenced, this book convinced many in the West that the leadership of Blackwater was
driven by a hardline Christian agenda championed by, as Scahill puts it, extreme religious
zealots.[18] Scahill records that its head, former Department of Defence Inspector General Joseph
Schmitz, is himself a Knight of Malta. He is portrayed as an energetic preacher on behalf of a crusading
ideology for our time, his recurrent theme being the rule of law under God. Americas role in the world
is to bring Gods law to all humanity, in what Scahill terms a vision of Christian supremacy.

Scahills book appeared in March 2007, and became a world bestseller, following already intense
speculation about private armies and their role in the Pentagons new wars in the Islamic world. A month
later, even before the Arabic translation was published,[19] a review appeared on a website connected to
the Muslim Brotherhood leader Shaykh Yusuf al-Qardawi.[20] The review homed in on the religious
 5
ideology of the Blackwater leadership, and particularly on Erik Prince, the founder-chairman, a figure
already known to the Arab press. Prince, the review believes, is a secretive, neo-crusader mega-
millionaire [] a major bankroller of President George Bush. On Scahills account, with his connections
to right-wing Catholic groups Prince believes that Blackwater is an important vehicle for ensuring the
central role of Christianity in US foreign policy. As Prince says: Everybody carries guns, just like the
Prophet Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.

Media reports on Blackwaters apparent right-wing Catholic affiliations had several consequences, most
notably an instruction purporting to be from al-Qaida summoning Muslims to attack the Cairo embassy
of the Knights of Malta. (In the event, nobody bothered.)

From a different ideological base, Jordanian MP Jamal Muhammad A<bida<t wrote in the Abu Dhabi
newspaper al-Bayan that the revelations about the religious motivations of the Blackwater management
shed new and disturbing light on American intentions:

The painful saga of modern Arab-Muslim history evokes the battles fought in the Crusades of the
eleventh century, when the Knights of Malta began their operations as a Christian militia whose mission
it was to defend the land conquered by the Crusaders. These memories return violently to mind with the
discovery of links between the so-called security firms in Iraq such as Blackwater which have historic
links with the Knights of Malta. You cannot exaggerate it. The Order of Malta is a hidden government,
or the most mysterious government in the world.[21]

In 2009, a book on the Knights of Malta appeared from the prolific pen of Mansur Abd al-H{akim.
Entitled The State of the Knights of Malta and the Iraq Invasion, its more lurid subtitle ran The Military
Wing of the Antichrist, Masonic Knights Templars, Soldiers of Darkness.[22] Abd al-Hakim, an Egyptian
lawyer and journalist, is one of the regions most popular religious writers on current affairs. Many of
his hundred-odd books reveal a strong predilection for conspiracy theories. Sources for his long account
of the Knights of Malta include, as well as Scahills book, an eclectic mixture of Ibn Kathir, Robert Fisk,
Dan Brown, and David Icke, indicating the success of a new genre of apocalypticism which mingles
Islamic with popular Western lore (another of his best-selling works offers an Islamic reading of the
predictions of Nostradamus). In their fondness for doom-laden prophecies, particularly in the post-9/11
age, some modern Middle Eastern readers have tastes intriguingly similar to their American
counterparts.

Through investigative journalism popularised by mass-circulation screeds, the notion of the worlds
largest mercenary army, accused of arbitrary and excessive violence in Iraq, being led by soldiers who
take a direct oath of obedience to a Pope who had already caused controversy with his comments on
Islam, seems to have entered a wide circulation. It was reinforced by the American journalist Seymour
Hirsh, who in a speech in Doha on 17 January 2011 alleged that Knights of Malta and other Christian
militants exercised increasing influence in the US military. Were going to change mosques into
cathedrals [] thats an attitude that pervades, Im here to say, a large percentage of the Special
Operations Command.[23]

The practice of rendition also triggered Arab media concern with the interrogation style and cultural
policies applied to Muslim suspects in American custody. While it has not been possible for the media,
including Arab media, to know precisely what procedures have been used at the various black sites
around the globe, there has been extensive public-domain documentation of American practices at the
Guantnamo Bay facility. The various methods of detainee control were deployed by interrogators
schooled in what they took to be the cultural vulnerabilities of Arabs and Muslims. The use of methods
such as the playing of loud rock music, insults to female family members, nudity, comparing prisoners
to rats and dogs, and requiring detainees to wear female clothing, has been familiar in the Muslim world
since, in June 2005, Time magazine published classified logs recording the interrogation