Cato Institute
Policy Analysis No. 177
The “Green Peril”: Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat
By Leon T. Hadar
August 27, 1992
Leon T. Hadar, a former bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post, is an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.
Executive Summary
Now that the Cold War is becoming a memory, America’s foreign policy establishment has begun searching for new enemies. Possible new villains include “instability” in Europe—ranging from German resurgence to new Russian imperialism—the “vanishing” ozone layer, nuclear proliferation, and narcoterrorism. Topping the list of potential new global bogeymen, however, are the Yellow Peril, the alleged threat to American economic security emanating from East Asia, and the so-called Green Peril (green is the color of Islam). That peril is symbolized by the Middle Eastern Moslem fundamentalist—the “Fundie,” to use a term coined by The Economist[1]—a Khomeini-like creature, armed with a radical ideology, equipped with nuclear weapons, and intent on launching a violent jihad against Western civilization.
George Will even suggested that the 1,000-year battle between Christendom and Islam might be breaking out once more when he asked, “Could it be that 20 years from now we will be saying, not that they’re at the gates of Vienna again, but that, in fact, the birth of Mohammed is at least as important as the birth of Christ, that Islamic vitality could be one of the big stories of the next generations?”[2]
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The pdf's 24 pages long. Some extracts:
Islam does seem to fit the bill as the ideal post-Cold War villain. "It's big; it's scary; it's anti-Western; it feeds on poverty and discontent," wrote David Ignatius, adding that Islam "spreads across vast swaths of the globe that can becolored green on the television maps in the same way that communist countries used to be colored red."
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The Making of a "Peril"
The Islamic threat argument is becoming increasingly popular with some segments of the American foreign policy establishment. They are encouraged by foreign governments who, for reasons of self-interest, want to see Washington embroiled in the coming West vs. Islam confrontation. The result is the construction of the new peril, a process that does not reflect any grand conspiracy but that nevertheless has its own logic, rules and timetables.
The creation of a peril usually starts with mysterious "sources" and unnamed officials who leak information, float trialballoons, and warn about the coming threat. Those sources reflect debates and discussions taking place withingovernment. Their information is then augmented by colorful intelligence reports that finger exotic and conspiratorialterrorists and military advisers. Journalists then search for the named and other villains. The media end up findingcorroboration from foreign sources who form an informal coalition with the sources in the U.S. government and helpthe press uncover further information substantiating the threat coming from the new bad guys.
In addition, think tanks studies and op-ed pieces add momentum to the official spin. Their publication is followed bycongressional hearings, policy conferences, and public press briefings. A governmental policy debate ensues, producingstudies, working papers, and eventually doctrines and policies that become part of the media's spin. The new villain isnow ready to be integrated into the popular culture to help to mobilize public support for a new crusade. In the case ofthe Green Peril, that process has been under way for several months.[13]
A series of leaks, signals, and trial balloons is already beginning to shape U.S. agenda and policy. Congress is about to conduct several hearings on the global threat of Islamic fundamentalism.
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The Gulf War has already provided the Turks, Saudis, Egyptians, and Israelis with an opportunity to revive the American engagement in the Middle East and their own roles as Washington's regional surrogates. Now that the Iraqi danger has been diminished, the Islamic fundamentalist threat is a new vehicle for achieving those goals.
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Western Democratic Hypocrisy
Those moves were explicitly backed by most of the rulers in the Middle East, including the military rulers of Tunisia and Libya, who face similar opposition from Islamic fundamentalist forces, and at least implicitly by France and theUnited States. "By neither criticizing nor approving the Algerian army's action, Western countries cloak their real attitude--that democracy is fine, up to a certain point--in necessary ambiguity," noted Jim Hoagland.[73]
American intellectuals--including many who advocate a Wilsonian global democracy crusade--exhibit a peculiar lackof enthusiasm for democratic objectives when it comes to the Middle East. There, to secure American hegemonic power, they typically support a "realist" approach that includes a U.S. military alliance with, and support for,authoritarian Arab regimes. When U.S. policies incite popular demand for change and reform, the neoconservativessolve their cognitive dissonance by proclaiming that the demonstrators in the streets represent the forces of reaction, the Green Peril, and that the spread of democracy would be served by containing that threat.[74]
The events in Algeria highlight the weakness of the global democracy crusade and suggest that it might be nothing more than a way to rationalize, in the eyes of Americans and international opinion makers, policies that are really based on cold, calculated realpolitik considerations. To put it another way, behind the mask of the American global missionary is the American global policeman.
Washington's approach means that the United States ends up backing ruling authoritarian elites and thereby incurring a backlash from popular opposition forces that resent its interventionist policies. Those policies inherently erode America's power as a role model. The search for imaginary Jeffersonian democrats ends up as a search for enemies,and the Islamic fundamentalists are the latest candidates.
Islam and Democracy
The sense of confusion and arrogance that lies at the root of the global democracy paradigm was exposed by the U.S.reaction to the events in Algeria. The United States could have pursued a detached policy toward Algeria, where U.S.interests could have been affected only minimally, and could have encouraged France and the southern European`states to take the lead. Washington could have recognized the complexity of the situation, which does not involve justgood guys vs. bad guys, and welcomed the gradual moves toward political freedom. Instead, the application of the Green Peril frame resulted in a destructive knee-jerk reaction.
U.S. policies also reflected the fallacies behind the Islamic fundamentalist scare and America's image of political Islam as a monolithic anti-Western movement that will return the Middle East to the dark ages.
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