Om USAs misstag

När jag tidigare idag skrev om USA, Irak och Ryssland sökte jag på nätet efter ett citat jag aldrig sett i skrift men väl hört en god vän berätta om:

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

Det finns en källa som säger att detta kommer från Winston Churchill men en annan, mera grundlig källa hävdar att det åtminstone inte finns dokumenterat som ett uttalande av Churchill.

Men – det kunde varit sant !

Citatet används för att beskriva hur USA bedriver krig – inte minst i det andra världskriget – men det kan också användas när jag tittar på USAs inrikes förhållanden.

Uppsidan är såklart den oförtrutliga energin, viljan att inte bara ha rätt utan att också få rätt i slutändan.

Men som jag påpekade i min förra text så är risken såklart att misstagen blir så omfattande och så utdragna att de underminerar eller omintetgör syftet – och att kostnaderna blir enorma för USA.

Detta gäller USAs krig i världen efter andra världskriget och inte minst USAs militära engagemang i Mellanöstern idag.

Fareed Zakaria om ”an ideological war America must watch, not fight”:

Radical Islam, by contrast, is severely limited in its global appeal. Almost by definition, it is deeply unattractive to all non-Muslims. What Christian would want the forced imposition of sharia law? Even within the Muslim world, radical Islam does not resonate. In the half of that world that holds elections — including Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iraq, even Pakistan — such ideologies have not garnered many votes. The Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral success in Egypt is a partial exception to this rule, but it fared well for a variety of reasons unrelated to its Islamic ideology (which was also not nearly as radical as Egypt’s military dictatorship claims).

Because the ideas at stake are potentially seductive only to Muslims, the ideological war today is really a struggle within Islam. It’s a cultural war that has to be waged by Muslims. If outsiders such as the United States want to play a role, they should listen to and support Muslims fighting the good fight. One such person is the king of Jordan, Abdullah II, whom I interviewed this week in Amman.

President Obama is inclined not to describe the Islamic State as “Islamic,” and the king supports this, saying, “They’re looking for legitimacy that they don’t have inside of Islam.” But the truth is that it’s irrelevant what Obama wants to call these terrorists. What matters is what the king and other locals here in Jordan and across the Arab world call them. And uniformly, they choose not to call it the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL. Instead, they call it Daesh, a rough acronym that is seen as derogatory because it sounds like the Arabic word “daes,” which means to crush underfoot. The word that King Abdullah prefers is “khawarij,” which translates to “outlaws” or “renegades” of Islam.

“It’s not a Western fight,” the king said to me. “This is a fight inside of Islam where everybody comes together against these outlaws.” He wants international support and involvement, of course, but is wary of Western troops. Jordan is on the front line of this battle, but other countries, from Iraq to Egypt, are finally joining in, and not just on the battlefield. This week, the head of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s most prestigious academy, denounced “extremist violent groups” that have “corrupt interpretations” of Islam.

Zakaria

Den amerikanska viljan att lägga saker till rätta runtom i världen är en farlig reflex. I synnerhet om det mera handlar om machoreflexer än genomtänkt politik.