Blame It on Robespierre

Obama’s belated anti-ISIS/ISIL Coalition is being called a “coalition of the unwilling,” compared to George W. Bush’s against Saddam Hussein which actually evoked authentic if narrow enthusiasm. It also has aspects of an arranged marriage forced upon unwilling parties. Anyway, this may be the indigenous rationale that Secretary of State Kerry is using to try to sell an anti-ISIS/ISIL shotgun marriage in the Mideast.

At this juncture, it’s unknown whether the U.S. State Department is extending an invitation to join to the conspiracy theorists in the Arab and Muslim world who are currently blaming the rise of ISIS/ISIL on the Jews.

Of course, this is an absurd theory. How, do we know it’s absurd? Because the authoritative leftist London “Guardian” is blaming ISIS/ISIL not on the Jews but instead on the Jacobins. In a classic example of post hoc, propter hoc, sociologist Kevin McDonald traces back ISIS/ISIL’s origins to the most recent antecedents of its epidemic of beheadings: Maximilien Robespierre did it first; therefore, he—not Muhammed (despite his even earlier preaching of “Off With Their Heads”)–is responsible.

In McDonald’s view, the newly self-proclaimed “Islamic State” envisages a universal, absolutist order. Hence, its claim to have roots in classic Islam are bunk. While it’s true that all contemporary Muslim Fundamentalist power grabs have a sneaking admiration for Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin, it is not true—as McDonald asserts—that such notions were entirely foreign to the Middle Ages. In medieval Europe, the Emperor Frederick II, as well as Pope Julius III, had visions of universal empire. More relevantly in the Muslim World, the Abbasid Caliphs aspired to an absolute state with a universal reach and answering only to Allah.

Yet the “Guardian,” at all costs, must deny that ISIS/ISIL really bears the Islamic pedigree it claims. Instead, blame it on Robespierre. Or, if Maximilien doesn’t work as a fall guy: blame it on Machiavelli—or Marx. A finding of such paternity would acquit Islam, but wouldn’t it embarrass a lot of admirers of “Red Karl”? Don’t worry: they never blush.

See http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/isis-jihadi-shaped-by-modern-western-philosophy