| [L]es néoconservateurs ont imposé une vision idéologique des relations internationales. Celle-ci reposait sur deux erreurs d'analyse : inventer le concept de "guerre globale contre le terrorisme" et faire de l'Irak le pivot de cette stratégie. (...) La double défaite idéologique et stratégique des néoconservateurs a laissé place à un débat entre "réalistes" et "éradicateurs". Ils sont réunis par un retour à la vieille politique de soutien aux régimes autoritaires en place dans le monde musulman, considérés comme les meilleurs remparts contre l'extrémisme et le terrorisme. Ils diffèrent sur l'importance que les premiers accordent au primat des intérêts nationaux et les seconds au combat contre la menace de l'"islamo-fascisme". Al-Qaida prospère dans les intervalles en sponsorisant le terrorisme contre l'Occident et en parasitant les conflits locaux que ce même Occident contribue à aggraver. |
Exactly which teacup that bag of winds belongs in is not easy to decide, but you should know that this is Le Monde summatorializing what appears to be a potboiler for the times, "Le Croissant et le Chaos d'Olivier Roy. Hachette Littératures, 190 p., 14 €. En librairie le 12 septembre."
Like Wagner's music, it may all be far better than it sounds, or so one scribbler scribbles closer to the holy Homeland:
| This review does not do justice to the subtlety and clarity of Roy's analysis. [M. Roy] shows how the implementation of a policy based on a false image of [M]iddle [E] astern societies self-destructs irretrievably once fantasy meets reality. An example from today's news is the latest "success" in Iraq: arming Saddamist Sunni militias against Salafi jihadists (and Shi'a militias) in the name of the civic equality of all citizens of Iraq. Let's hope this book is available in English soon. |
Dr. Rubin makes C&C sound even more potboilerly, I fear, possibly makes poor M. Roy sound even "cartoonish," like our betters despise so bitterly over at Mu’ámara Junction. It is not quite clear how the reviewer of the review concludes that the Bribe-a-Tribe™ whizbang exemplifies "policy based on a false image of Middle Eastern societies." Presumably Greater Levantines are about as venal as everybody else, so any GOP attempt on Saddamist Sunni virtue along Lord Mammon's lines has solid prospects of success antecedently, though hardly because of any local colour. "All foreigners can be bought" is undoubtedly a false image, a cartoon if you like, but it tells us scarcely anything about the corruptionists' private Party "vision" of the Middle East. It took them several years to be reduced to Bribe-a-Tribe™, remember: the original plan was rather "All foreigners can be shock-'n'-awed," which was politically and legally and ethically even less edifying, but at the same time equally devoid of Orientalism as opposed to everywhereism.
Meanwhile, what would Oliver Roy say? Buyin' themselves some "allies" seems fairly distant from le concept de "guerre globale contre le terrorisme" whereas bombin' and strafin' enemies fits the Big Management Party's GWOT paradigm exactly, does it not? I doubt that M. Roy would claim that this latest swerve shows that the vigilante cowpokers are finally cleanin' up their act a little, though in strict logic he might. Bribe-a-Tribe™ is also a bit dubious as a O. Royal example considering un retour à la vieille politique de soutien aux régimes autoritaires en place, in that the Awakeners and Salvationites are bein' put in place by the invasion-basers, not found entrenched already. Dr. Rubin doesn't like the shaykhly bribees much, but he presumably does not think that they were the main pillar of the Ba‘thí régime or even seriously flirted with before the War for Kuwait reduced Saddam to desperate measures. For the Occupyin' Party to turn their semiconquered Mesopotamia into Abú Rishá writ large would not be a recognition or even a restoration, it would be a whole new ball game.
However in the real world the GOP geniuses have no deliberate wish to play any such game as creatin' a paradise of neofeudal dependencies. Bribe-a-Tribe™ isn't much of a "policy" really, it's only the latest thing that the stumblebums have stumbled across as they micawberize. That point indicates the real weakness of M. Roy's "subtlety and clarity" (as described by the gentleman at Le Monde.) Nobody who dislikes les néoconservateurs can be all bad, of course, but nevertheless M. Roy seems to live in some parallel universe where things are topsy-turvy. Around here the Masters of Shock-'n'-Awe have long since lost sight of the forest for the one lone Peaceful Freedumbian upas tree. What they mean by a "policy" is pretty well anythin' at all that will let Boy and Party emerge from their bloody self-inflicted bog of a former Iraq without smellin' too godawful.
M. Roy, on the other hand, thinks they have a forest fixation, or, perhaps more likely, he confuses the real Party perps with Messrs. les néoconservateurs, who arguably do suffer from some such brain disorder. If we may rely on the reviewer, who is admirably clear whatever his accuracy may be, the subtle analyst fails by much the same criterion that he brands the Republican Party aggressors a failure with: both have preferred abstract and generic Soc. Sci. or "ideological vision" over concrete and particular Area Studies. The one direct quotation provided runs
| "Les néoconservateurs," écrit justement Olivier Roy, "ont poussé jusqu'au bout l'idée que les valeurs de l'Occident sont universelles et doivent être promues, au besoin par une intervention directe ; en ce sens, ils sont plus proches d'un progressisme de gauche qui refuse tout relativisme culturel que d'un colonialisme soucieux avant tout de maintenir l'ordre dominant." |
Such is the Way of Delusion, social-scientizing or ideology or neoconnery. The Way of Truth is not described except that it must presumably admit a little relativisme culturel. I think we gauge M. Oliver Roy's tempestuous teacup about right to identify it as the one wherein the empirical Islám of Clifford Geertz stands embattled against the fierce assaults of the jihád careerists' Islamophalangitarian dogmas. It's a fun teacup to visit, Mr. Bones, but it does not have a great deal to do with the actual behavior of GOP extremism in the world. That is to say, M. Roy is not very good at the particular branch of Area Studies called Crawfordology, he fails to appreciate the cultural relativity (or parochialism or provincialism) of vigilante cowpokerdom.
Hoist by his own petard is M. Olivier Roy. (If you trust his reviewer.) But God knows best.
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