[Dialogue] Finally, I begin to underswtand the Cartoon thing. Symbol is indeed key!

[KroegerD@aol.com]

The Cartoon Backlash: Redefining Alignments
By George  Friedman

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. We just  couldn't help but 
open with that -- with apologies to Shakespeare. Nonetheless,  there is 
something exceedingly odd in the notion that Denmark -- which has made  a national 
religion of not being offensive to anyone -- could become the focal  point of 
Muslim rage. The sight of the Danish and Norwegian embassies being  burned in 
Damascus -- and Scandinavians in general being warned to leave Islamic  
countries -- has an aura of the surreal: Nobody gets mad at Denmark or Norway.  Yet, 
death threats are now being hurled against the Danes and Norwegians as  
though they were mad-dog friends of Dick Cheney. History has its interesting  
moments.

At the same time, the matter is not to be dismissed lightly. The  explosion 
in the Muslim world over the publication of 12 cartoons by a minor  Danish 
newspaper -- cartoons that first appeared back in September -- has,  remarkably, 
redefined the geopolitical matrix of the U.S.-jihadist war. Or, to  be more 
precise, it has set in motion something that appears to be redefining  that 
matrix. We do not mean here simply a clash of civilizations, although that  is 
undoubtedly part of it. Rather, we mean that alignments within the Islamic  world 
and within the West appear to be in flux in some very important  ways.

Let's begin with the obvious: the debate over the cartoons. There  is a 
prohibition in Islam against making images of the Prophet Mohammed. There  also is 
a prohibition against ridiculing the Prophet. Thus, a cartoon that  ridicules 
the Prophet violates two fundamental rules simultaneously. Muslims  around the 
world were deeply offended by these cartoons. 

It must be  emphatically pointed out that the Muslim rejection of the 
cartoons does not  derive from a universalistic view that one should respect 
religions. The  criticism does not derive from a secularist view that holds all 
religions in  equal indifference and requires "sensitivity" not on account of 
theologies, but  in order to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. The Muslim view is 
theological: The  Prophet Mohammed is not to be ridiculed or portrayed. But 
violating the  sensibilities of other religions is not taboo. Therefore, Muslims 
frequently, in  action, print and speech, do and say things about other 
religions --  Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism -- that followers of these religions 
would find  defamatory. The Taliban, for example, were not concerned about the 
views among  other religions when they destroyed the famous Buddhas in Bamiyan. 
The Muslim  demand is honest and authentic: It is for respect for Islam, not a 
general  secular respect for all beliefs as if they were all equal.

The response  from the West, and from Europe in particular, has been to frame 
the question as  a matter of free speech. European newspapers, wishing to 
show solidarity with  the Danes, have reprinted the cartoons, further infuriating 
the Muslims.  European liberalism has a more complex profile than Islamic 
rage over insults.  In many countries, it is illegal to incite racial hatred. It 
is difficult to  imagine that the defenders of these cartoons would sit by 
quietly if a racially  defamatory cartoon were published. Or, imagine the 
reception among liberal  Europeans -- or on any American campus -- if a professor 
published a book  purporting to prove that women were intellectually inferior to 
men. (The mere  suggestion of such a thing, by the president of Harvard in a 
recent speech, led  to calls for his resignation.)

In terms of the dialogue over the  cartoons, there is enough to amuse even 
the most jaded observers. The sight of  Muslims arguing the need for greater 
sensitivity among others, and of advocates  of laws against racial hatred 
demanding absolute free speech, is truly marvelous  to behold. There is, of course, 
one minor difference between the two sides: The  Muslims are threatening to 
kill people who offend them and are burning embassies  -- in essence, holding 
entire nations responsible for the actions of a few of  their citizens. The 
European liberals are merely making speeches. They are not  threatening to kill 
critics of the modern secular state. That also distinguishes  the Muslims from, 
say, Christians in the United States who have been affronted  by National 
Endowment for the Arts grants. 

These are not trivial  distinctions. But what is important is this: The 
controversy over the cartoons  involves issues so fundamental to the two sides that 
neither can give in. The  Muslims cannot accept visual satire involving the 
Prophet. Nor can the Europeans  accept that Muslims can, using the threat of 
force, dictate what can be  published. Core values are at stake, and that 
translates into geopolitics.  

In one sense, there is nothing new or interesting in intellectual  
inconsistency or dishonesty. Nor is there very much new about Muslims -- or at  least 
radical ones -- threatening to kill people who offend them. What is new is  the 
breadth of the Muslim response and the fact that it is directed obsessively  
not against the United States, but against European states. 

One of the  primary features of the U.S.-jihadist war has been that each side 
has tried to  divide the other along a pre-existing fault line. For the 
United States, in both  Afghanistan and Iraq, the manipulation of Sunni-Shiite 
tensions has been  evident. For the jihadists, and even more for non-jihadist 
Muslims caught up in  the war, the tension between the United States and Europe 
has been a critical  fault line to manipulate. It is significant, then, that the 
cartoon affair  threatens to overwhelm both the Euro-American split and the 
Sunni-Shiite split.  It is, paradoxically, an affair that unifies as well as 
divides.

The  Fissures in the West

It is dangerous and difficult to speak of the  "European position" -- there 
really isn't one. But there is a Franco-German  position that generally has 
been taken to be the European position. More  precisely, there is the elite 
Franco-German position that The New York Times  refers to whenever it mentions 
"Europe." That is the Europe that we mean  now.

In the European view, then, the United States massively overreacted  to 9/11. 
Apart from the criticism of Iraq, the Europeans believe that the United  
States failed to appreciate al Qaeda's relative isolation within the Islamic  
world and, by reshaping its relations with the Islamic world over 9/11, caused  
more damage. Indeed, this view goes, the United States increased the power of al 
 Qaeda and added unnecessarily to the threat it presents. Implicit in the  
European criticisms -- particularly from the French -- was the view that  
American cowboy insensitivity to the Muslim world not only increased the danger  
after 9/11, but effectively precipitated 9/11. From excessive support for Israel  
to support for Egypt and Jordan, the United States alienated the Muslims. In  
other words, 9/11 was the result of a lack of sophistication and poor policy  
decisions by the United States -- and the response to the 9/11 attacks was  
simply over the top.

Now an affair has blown up that not only did not  involve the United States, 
but also did not involve a state decision. The  decision to publish the 
offending cartoons was that of a Danish private citizen.  The Islamic response has 
been to hold the entire state responsible. As the  cartoons were republished, 
it was not the publications printing them that were  viewed as responsible, but 
the states in which they were published. There were  attacks on embassies, 
gunmen in EU offices at Gaza, threats of another 9/11 in  Europe. 

>From a psychological standpoint, this drives home to the  Europeans an 
argument that the Bush administration has been making from the  beginning -- that 
the threat from Muslim extremists is not really a response to  anything, but a 
constantly present danger that can be triggered by anything or  nothing. 
European states cannot control what private publications publish. That  means that, 
like it or not, they are hostage to Islamic perceptions. The threat,  
therefore, is not under their control. And thus, even if the actions or policies  of 
the United States did precipitate 9/11, the Europeans are no more immune to  
the threat than the Americans are.

This combines with the _Paris  riots_ 
(http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=258222)  last November and the generally deteriorating 
relationships between  Muslims in Europe and the dominant populations. The 
pictures of demonstrators in  London, threatening the city with another 9/11, 
touch extremely sensitive  nerves. It becomes increasingly difficult for 
Europeans to distinguish between  their own relationship with the Islamic world and 
the American relationship with  the Islamic world. A sense of shared fate 
emerges, driving the Americans and  Europeans closer together. At a time when 
pressing issues like Iranian nuclear  weapons are on the table, this increases 
Washington's freedom of action. Put  another way, the Muslim strategy of splitting 
the United States and Europe --  and using Europe to constrain the United 
States -- was heavily damaged by the  Muslim response to the cartoons.

The Intra-Ummah Divide

But  so too was the split between Sunni and Shia. Tensions between these two  
communities have always been substantial. Theological differences aside, both 
 international friction and internal friction have been severe. The Iran-Iraq 
 war, current near-civil war in Iraq, tensions between Sunnis and Shia in the 
 Gulf states, all point to the obvious: These two communities are, while both 
 Muslim, mistrustful of one another. Shiite Iran has long viewed Sunni Saudi  
Arabia as the corrupt tool of the United States, while radical Sunnis saw 
Iran  as collaborating with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The  cartoons are the one thing that both communities -- not only in the 
Middle East  but also in the wider Muslim world -- must agree about. Neither side 
can afford  to allow any give in this affair and still hope to maintain any 
credibility in  the Islamic world. Each community -- and each state that is 
dominated by one  community or another -- must work to establish (or maintain) its 
Islamic  credentials. A case in point is the violence against Danish and 
Norwegian  diplomatic offices in Syria (and later, in Lebanon and Iran) -- which  
undoubtedly occurred with Syrian government involvement. Syria is ruled by  
Alawites, a Shiite sect. Syria -- aligned with Iran -- is home to a major Sunni  
community; there is another in Lebanon. The cartoons provided what was  
essentially a secular regime the opportunity to take the lead in a religious  
matter, by permitting the attacks on the embassies. This helped consolidate the  
regime's position, however temporarily. 

Indeed, the Sunni and Shiite  communities appear to be competing with each 
other as to which is more offended.  The Shiite Iranian-Syrian bloc has taken 
the lead in violence, but the Sunni  community has been quite vigorous as well. 
The cartoons are being turned into a  test of authenticity for Muslims. To the 
degree that Muslims are prepared to  tolerate or even move past this issue, 
they are being attacked as being willing  to tolerate the Prophet's defamation. 
The cartoons are forcing a radicalization  of parts of the Muslim community 
that are uneasy with the passions of the  moment.

Beneficiaries on Both Sides

The processes under way  in the West and within the Islamic world are 
naturally interacting. The attacks  on embassies, and threats against lives, that are 
based on nationality alone are  radicalizing the Western perspective of 
Islam. The unwillingness of Western  governments to punish or curtail the 
distribution of the cartoons is taken as a  sign of the real feelings of the West. The 
situation is constantly compressing  each community, even as they are divided. 

One might say that all this is  inevitable. After all, what other response 
would there be, on either side? But  this is where the odd part begins: The 
cartoons actually were published in  September, and -- though they drew some 
complaints, even at the diplomatic level  -- didn't come close to sparking riots. 
Events unfolded slowly: The objections  of a Muslim cleric in Denmark upon the 
initial publication by Jyllands-Posten  eventually prompted leaders of the 
Islamic Faith Community to travel to Egypt,  Syria and Lebanon in December, 
purposely "to stir up attitudes against Denmark  and the Danes" in response to the 
cartoons. As is now obvious, attitudes have  certainly been stirred.

There are beneficiaries. It is important to note  here that the fact that 
someone benefits from something does not mean that he  was responsible for it. 
(We say this because in the past, when we have noted the  beneficiaries of an 
event or situation, the not-so-bright bulbs in some quarters  took to assuming 
that we meant the beneficiaries deliberately engineered the  event.) 

Still, there are two clear beneficiaries. One is the United  States: The 
cartoon affair is serving to further narrow the rift between the  Bush 
administration's view of the Islamic world and that of many Europeans.  Between the Paris 
riots last year, the religiously motivated _murder_ 
(http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=238837)   of a Dutch filmmaker and the 
"blame Denmark" campaign, European patience is  wearing thin. The other 
beneficiary is Iran. As Iran moves toward a  confrontation with the United States over 
nuclear weapons, this helps to rally  the Muslim world to its side: Iran 
wants to be viewed as the defender of Islam,  and Sunnis who have raised questions 
about its flirtations with the United  States in Iraq are now seeing Iran as 
the leader in outrage against  Europe.

The cartoons have changed the dynamics both within Europe and the  Islamic 
world, and between them. That is not to say the furor will not die down  in due 
course, but it will take a long time for the bad feelings to dissipate.  This 
has created a serious barrier between moderate Muslims and Europeans who  were 
opposed to the United States. They were the ones most likely to be willing  
to collaborate, and the current uproar makes that collaboration much more  
difficult. 

It's hard to believe that a few cartoons could be that  significant, but 
these are.  
Send questions or comments on this article to _analysis at stratfor.com_ 
(mailto:analysis at stratfor.com) .

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