Muslim Rage: A Problem, Not a War

We are now witnessing the reckless inflation of a relatively minor problem of global politics—the anger and infrequent violence associated with Muslim extremists—into the clash of civilizations, World War IV, and who-knows-what-other “twilight struggle” metaphor. Political violence against the industrialized Western democracies is a pesky, if serious, matter. But to raise it into such a dramatic confrontation is a mistake. Let me explain why.

In the crudest terms, if one were to add up all the fatalities from this political violence—terrorism—it amounts to a few thousand dead. This total, certainly sad for the victims’ families, is nonetheless far fewer than the toll of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey (40,000 dead since 1980) or the pogroms against indigenous peoples in Guatemala in the 1980s and ‘90s (150,000 or more), both of which involved allies of the United States who were committing gross human-rights violations and never earned rebuke or punishment. It pales before the three million killed in Congo in recent years or the killing fields of the Sudan today, neither of which raises much concern in Washington.

Some who fashion themselves realists would say these conflicts don’t threaten the United States and are thereby uninteresting. That is debatable. The civil wars of Central America have produced gangs in Los Angeles, a drug economy, and illegal human trafficking. Sudan is a venue once used by Osama bin Laden and it remains a potential terrorist state. Turkey and its Kurdish restiveness are nettlesome for Iraq’s stability and are also now producing new repression internally. These are not trivial, and they matter to our security.

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