WHAT IF ISLAMISTS OVERTHREW THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT?

By Howard Rotberg

Dear me, I worry so much about the future of our freedoms in the West, as so many begin to “submit” to the values and demands of Radical Islam, or what is called “Islamism”.

The other day, I began to worry what would happen if the Islamists took over the American government and placed one of their own in the White House.

I started to think about the agenda that an Islamist President would fulfill.   Here are some of my thoughts:

1. He would make it clear that the American Constitution and the history of American freedoms were no more exemplary than the history of Islam.   He would argue that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.   Instead, he would say, they overlap and share common principles.  He would be clear in his moral equivalence between America and the totalitarian Islamic regimes.   He might go so far as to say the “common principles” were justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. And if he got away with comparing the American Justice system and the tolerance of most Americans with the totalitarian justice systems of the Islamic states and with comparing American tolerance to the intolerance of peoples who riot and kill if they think political cartoons are offensive, then he would go further: He would assure everyone that it is Islam that has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibility of religious tolerance and racial equality.   If the American people were too stupid to know about the persecution of Christians and Jews in Muslim countries (including the often-ignored fact of nearly a million Jews being expelled from Arab countries in the ‘40s and ‘50s), then that would just make his task all the easier.
2. He would as quickly as possible give out important awards, like the Medal of Freedom to those complicit with the goals of Radical Islam, who head NGOs and United Nations bodies that support the notion that the Israelis are the new Nazis and the Palestinians are the new Jews.   And he would announce such awards on a date of symbolic significance to the Jews – Tisha B’Av, the historic day of mourning for the loss of the Jewish temples and the occurrence of other national tragedies, so that the Jews knew that he was putting them in their place, for the sooner they got the message, the better.
3. He would make a quick symbolic snub to Eastern Europe so as to emphasize that the quid pro quo for Russian support of Islamists (outside the former U.S.S.R only of course) would be the removal of defensive missiles from Poland.   He would drive home the point by not informing the Poles very much ahead of the announcement and would make the announcement on September 17, 2009, which everyone in Central Europe knew was the 60th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, followed by the annexation of eastern Poland to the USSR. This would be another important symbolic act to show how in the future the world would be divided between Radical Islam, Russia and China.

4.     To further the goals of Radical Islam, the U.S. must be dramatically weakened from the inside, including its once strong and proud economy.  He would have to create unheard of budget deficits.  He would make a budget that spends more than any other in history, creates the largest deficits in history and imposes the largest tax increases in history.  He would spend over a trillion dollars more each year than he took in, and would project a cumulative deficit within ten years of $14.29 trillion – more than the country’s GNP.  That way, the U.S. would end up being owned by China and other foreign lenders and the American people would be so preoccupied with their economic woes, there would be little regard paid to the increasing rate of Islamification of its culture and freedoms.

5.     Any captured terrorists would be given civilian trials, with the same constitutional rights as American citizens, rather than giving them military trials like enemy soldiers receive. This would show that Islamic terrorists are really the same as American citizens and would make it difficult to secure convictions.  It would also make it difficult to keep anti-terrorist measures secret, because they would be subject to pre-trial discovery of civilian trials.

6.     He would change many of the terms that are meant to suggest American values are superior to Islamic values.  He would downplay any sense that America is at war with radical Islam.  In fact, he would avoid using the term "Global War on Terror" [GWOT] and instead use "Overseas Contingency Operation.”

7.     He would refer to any terrorists that kill dozens of Americans on American soil not as “terrorists” or “murderers” or “agents of Islamism” but as mere “extremists” – making such killers no more evil than, say, right-wing Republicans.   He would not do anything to stop Islamists infiltrating the American military.

8.     He would assure Americans that acts of terrorism that obviously should be caught by American authorities, were in fact business as usual, and if he was on vacation during such incidents, he would not bother to return to work.  That would show that not only were the terrorists winning but that was entirely normal.

9.     He would make it clear that Iran should be able to acquire nuclear weapons, which its leaders have been threatening to use against Israel since Rafsanjani in the late ‘90s.   He would promise to “engage” and talk and talk, even if the Iranians heaped scorn on his tactics and even when military intelligence made it clear that the nuclear program was absolutely for military and not just civilian purposes.  

10.  He would make it clear that Israel would be on its own (at least up until an Iranian first strike nuclear attack killed an estimated 200,000 Israelis) and he would delay the delivery of “bunker busting” bombs promised to be sold to Israel.  He would also delay delivery of helicopters and other military hardware so as to pressure Israel to do nothing in the face of a threatened nuclear war.

11.  He would make Israel the object of his demands, and demand nothing from Arab countries or the Palestinians.  He would try to stop all Israeli settlement even within established cities, if they were on “disputed” lands.    He would thus create a situation where the Palestinians had no interest in compromise, since all demands were only made on the Israelis.

12.  He would befriend radical Islamist professors and Americans with records of terrorist violence against American institutions, so young Americans would know who he deemed worthy of the respect inherent in friendship, and they would understand the way of the future.

13.  He would make it clear that the only “radical” part of Islam is Al Qaeda, and therefore there is no threat to America from any other Muslims, who after all, as pointed out in point one above, are tolerant and followers of justice just like all Americans.

Oh, dear.  I think we have a problem.

Howard Rotberg is a Canadian writer.  His latest book is TOLERism:  The Ideology Revealed.