Bernard Lewis wrote in the Wall Street Journal,
For a long time, the main enemy was seen, with some plausibility, as being the West, and some Muslims were, naturally enough, willing to accept what help they could get against that enemy. This explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies.
Now the situation had changed. The more immediate, more dangerous enemy was the Soviet Union, already ruling a number of Muslim countries, and daily increasing its influence and presence in others. It was therefore natural to seek and accept American help. As Osama bin Laden explained, in this final phase of the millennial struggle, the world of the unbelievers was divided between two superpowers. The first task was to deal with the more deadly and more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union. After that, dealing with the pampered and degenerate Americans would be easy.
We in the Western world see the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union as a Western, more specifically an American, victory in the Cold War. For Osama bin Laden and his followers, it was a Muslim victory in a jihad, and, given the circumstances, this perception does not lack plausibility.
Will visiting of history preserve the future? (HT: AM)
More of Dr Lewis articles,
- Islamic Revolution, The New York Review of Books, January 21, 1988
- Islamic Revolution: An Exchange, The New York Review of Books, April 28, 1988
- The Roots of Muslim Rage, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990
- The Vanished Library, The New York Review of Books, September 27, 1990
- Khomeini’s Forerunners, The New York Review of Books, June 25, 1992
- Islam and Liberal Democracy, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1993
- The Enemies of God, The New York Review of Books, March 25, 1993
- Why Turkey Is the only Muslim Democracy, The Middle East Quarterly, March 1994
- The Middle East, Westernized Despite Itself, The Middle East Quarterly, March 1996
- What does it mean to be haunted by one’s past?, MEF Wire, October 1, 1996
- “Islam and Liberal Democracy: A Historical Overview,” Journal of Democracy 7.2 (1996) 52-63
- The West and the Middle East, Foreign Affairs, January 1997
- Muslim Anti-Semitism, The Middle East Quarterly, June 1998
- The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, MEF Wire, November 16, 1999
- Iran in History, Middle Eastern Lectures, 2001
- Jihad vs. Crusade, The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2001
- The Revolt of Islam, The New Yorker, November 19, 2001
- What Went Wrong?, The Atlantic Monthly, January 2002
- A War of Resolve, The Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2002
- Deconstructing Osama, The Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2002
- Targeted by a History of Hatred, The Washington Post, September 10, 2002
- Time for Toppling, The Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2002
- A Question, and Answers, The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2003
- “I’m Right, You’re Wrong, Go To Hell,” The Atlantic Montly, May 2003
- Put the Iraqis in Charge, The Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2003
- King and Country, The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2003 (with R. James Woolsey)
- Democracy and the Enemies Of Freedom, The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2003
- An excerpt from his book, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Oxford University Press, 1994
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