Joint Military Intelligence College LAMBERT Y Y The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct TEL IN LIG Y E R N A C T E I L C I O M L L T E N G I E O J 1962 Major Stephen P. Lambert U.S. Air Force TEL IN LIG Y E R N A C ISBN 1-932946-02-0 T E PCN 56747 I L C I O M L L T E N G I E O J 1962 The Joint Military Intelligence College supports and encourages research on intelligence issues that distills lessons and improves Intelligence Community capabilities for policy-level and operational consumers Y: The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct, Major Stephen P. Lambert, U.S. Air Force This product has been reviewed by senior experts from academia and government, and has been approved for unrestricted distribution by the Directorate for Freedom of Information and Security Review, Washington Headquarters Services. It is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service (www.ntis.gov). The author has also arranged for publication of this study through the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The projected publication date is 2005. The Hoover Institution book includes commentar- ies on Major Lambert’s work by an even greater variety of scholars than included in the present book. [email protected], Editor and Director Center for Strategic Intelligence Research Library of Congress Control Number 2004114330 ISBN 1-932946-02-0 Y The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct Major Stephen P. Lambert, U.S. Air Force Research Fellow In g ic t e e g ll t ii a g e r n tt c SS c ee rr R R o o e e f f s s e e r r a a e e t r t r n c n Joint Military c e h e h C Intelligence College C WASHINGTON, DC April 2005 With the cooperation and support of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) USAF Academy, Colorado Springs The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government CONTENTS Acknowledgments . v Commentaries . vii Author’s Preface. xv Introduction . 1 Asking Strategic Questions Part I: Our Intellectual Pedigree . 7 The Search for Strategic Insight Part II: On Islam and Christendom. 35 Comparisons and Imperatives Part III: In the Mind of the Faithful . 99 Identity, Trauma, Ressentiment, and Transnational Islamic Revival Part IV: In the Mind of the Enemy. 129 The Revolutionary Islamic Vanguard Conclusion . 149 Seven Propositions for Recovering Strategic Insight Bibliography. 175 Index. 183 About the Author . 190 iii Acknowledgments I take this opportunity to express my appreciation to those who provided insight, advice, and encouragement and who made this work possible. I would like to thank the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Col- orado Springs and the Center for Strategic Intelligence Research (CSIR) in Wash- ington, DC. for providing the funding and administrative support to make my travels possible. I sincerely appreciate the strong commitment by the Institute for National Security Studies to actively support research in the public policy and national security fields—and, in particular, the efforts of Dr. Jim Smith and Mrs. Diana Heerdt. In addition, much of the research would have been impossible without the helpful attitudes of the staffs at the research libraries of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and the Middle East Centre at Oxford University, as well as the Oriental Institute at Oxford University. The research libraries at Oxford University contain many rare editions and limited-release books, particu- larly ones from non-Western Islamic publishers. I also need to acknowledge the kind support for research that I received from the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as from the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasa- dena, California. In addition, the access provided by the University of Rabat, Morocco; the American University in Cairo, Egypt; and Baku State University in Azerbaijan facilitated close contacts with a diverse group of Islamic experts. I am most grateful to Drs. Russell G. Swenson, David S. Yost, James M. Smith, and Jeffrey A. Larsen for the detailed and careful reviews of successive drafts of this work. Their patient and deliberate criticisms helped sharpen my focus and were tremendously valuable in providing detailed peer reviews. Along similar lines, I would like to thank Dr. Mark Dever and Dr. Bill Anderson for many hours of thoughtful and provocative probing as I grappled with ways to structure and write this work. I also appreciate Dr. Carl Haselbach’s careful read- ing of the final manuscript and his uniquely European perspectives. Dr. Fares Braizat, at the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies, graciously spent many hours scrutinizing my ideas, and presented a diverse set of consider- ations applicable to understanding the broader Islamic phenomenon. Finally, I would be remiss without also thanking two individuals for their faithful commit- ment: Bill Ruddell, for his tireless support, and in particular his exhaustive review of the final draft; and David Miller, for being a patient sounding board during innumerable discussions on the core themes of this book. v The author with Vasim Mamedaliev, Chairman of the Religious Council of the Caucasus Muslim region and Chairman of the Department of Arabic Philology/Dean of the Theological Faculty at the University of Baku in Azerbaijan vi Commentaries The title of this book naturally brings to mind the renowned diplomatic tele- gram from 1946, composed by “X” to explain “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” The anonymous George Kennan grasped the essence of the Soviet challenge, and the subsequent Containment Strategy became the foundation for strategic thought and action by the U.S. and its allies. The relatively brief “Cold War” of the late 20th century, we can now see, ironically carried the very name given in 13th cen- tury Spain to the ancient and ongoing conflict between Christians and Moors (Maghreb Moslems), a point underscored by Adda Bozeman. In the present work, Stephen Lambert convincingly argues that an effective, strategic appreciation of our present, worldwide contest, especially as it reflects the historic conflict between religious ideologies, cannot be achieved without public discussion of the religious foundations of individual and collective belief and action, whatever the label we choose to apply to the struggle. He captures the metaphysical foundation of a struggle that is at the same time entirely physical and real for those in the arena. Ideas are in conflict, and ideas rule the world. — Dr. Russell G. Swenson Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, Washington, D.C. The gulf between the radicalized elements of the Islamic world and typical Americans who desire an expansion of personal freedom and political democracy seems vast. To many, it seems unbridgeable. In Y: The Sources of Islamic Revolu- tionary Conduct, Stephen Lambert deftly leads the reader through worlds that are normally kept quite separate: political theory, social history, even a detailed account of theology. In so doing, Lambert does make some eye-opening sugges- tions on why the West faces an enemy that seems intractable. The book is marked throughout by carefully considered questions and concise summaries. Though this book has been written with the care of an academic, Lambert isn’t reluctant to give the reader clear, even bold analysis. So, for example, early on Lambert tells us that we in the West find it difficult to understand these “enemies” (Lambert uses the word) because of the Enlightenment, our “anti-Socratism” and Wilsonian idealism. These three themes he weaves together in the first chapter simply to help us better understand the tint of the windows through which we view the world. That should give any prospective reader a sense of the sweep of factors considered in this brief, but weighty, volume. Part 2 is in many ways the heart of Lambert’s argument. I say this not because I am a theologian, but because Lambert’s thesis is that our enemy is deeply theo- logical. Part of our problem, he argues, is that though our language about religion vii is neutral, Western ideas about it are not—we naively and probably unwittingly assume that other religions are like Christianity, when, in some very important ways, they are not. So with our heritage of John Owen, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, we have assumed that all religions are equally, or at least substantially, able to co-exist with a society committed to the freedoms that we enjoy in Amer- ica and the West. But this is not so, according to Lambert. It’s not psychologically abnormal people, but rather committed Muslims, who refuse to separate the polit- ical from the religious. In fact, Lambert’s long and sometimes difficult mes- sage—especially in Part 2—leads us to the conclusion that Islam may well be closer to an ideology than it is to what most Westerners imagine when we say the word “religion.” A privatized religion is an oxymoron to a faithful Muslim, as much so as privatized politics would be to a Marxist. One more thing about theology: I think Mr. Lambert has it right. He has care- fully interviewed numerous theologians—Muslim and Christian—and has gone to great pains to understand and to express their faith and worldviews in ways that the proponents themselves would recognize. He has not crammed them into a secular box in which all religious motivations are simply place-holders for some economic, political or sexual drive which is then taken to be the real reason for their actions.