Edward N. Luttwak is one of the foremost strategic thinkers of our time, a far-sighted man given to challenging conventional wisdom in a manner guaranteed both to get public attention and generate controversy. This one-time enfant terrible of strategic analysis, author of such classic works as Coup d'Etat, A Practical Handbook, Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union, The Pentagon and the Art of War, and his masterwork, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, has a penchant for seeing things that others miss, and pointing this out with such logic and clarity that, in retrospect, it seems strikingly obvious.
Thus, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Francis Fukuyama was declaring the End of History, and Thomas Friedman was discovering that The World is Flat, Luttwak wrote the book Turbocapitalism (1999) in which he pointed out that economic globalization, while bringing a multiplicity of benefits to many people around the world, has not been an unalloyed good, and was creating problems of social alienation, resentment and radicalization that had the potential to stir ethnic and religious conflict around the world. But of course!
By way of disclosure, Edward Luttwak has been a friend and mentor to me; he was my teacher at Georgetown University, he gave me my first real job, and once upon a time, we wrote a book together. That does not mean, however, that we are attached at the hip. We have had some pretty furious disagreements, most notably about the First Gulf War. I did not buy into a lot of his theories on "geo-economics" as presented in Turbocaptialism. More recently, I have had cause to disagree with a number of his editorials and articles related to the Middle East and the ongoing war on terrorism. But whether I agree or disagree, when Edward Luttwak speaks, I pay attention, because what he has to say is always thought provoking and frequently brilliant.
Luttwak stirred up a tempest in a teapot with his recent op-ed in the New York Times, provocatively entitled "President Apostate?" Luttwak writes that Barak Obama, running as a charismatic candidate, has generated in his supporters some very high expectations which he may have problems in meeting. "A case in point," writes Luttwak, "is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world." It is said that just as Obama's being "half African" stirs up enthusiasm in that region, so his being "half Muslim" will win over people in the Muslim world. But Luttwak rightly points out that in Islamic eyes, there is no such thing as "half Muslim"--one either is or is not. One's status as a Muslim is determined either by conversion or by birth, and under Islamic law, reflected in the civil law of most Islamic countries, a child automatically receives the religion of his father. Thus, Obama's father being a Muslim automatically makes Obama a Muslim according to Islamic law.
That Obama's father later abandoned Islam, and that Obama from his youth was raised as a Christian, holds no water under Islamic law. Once a Muslim, always a Muslim. Those who abandon the faith are, as Luttwak correctly points out, apostates (Arabic irtidad). All of the major schools of Islamic jurisprudence are unanimous in determining that under Sharia, a man who abandons Islam in word or deed should be punished by death (on the fate of a female apostate, there is a division of opinion, some jurisprudents opting for death, others for imprisonment). While only a few Islamic countries have embedded this in their civil law, in most countries the civil law does not protect freedom of conscience, and the civil authorities have, in general, not gone out of their way to protect people who convert from Islam to other faiths.
Indeed, in March 2005, an Afghan named Abdul Rahman was condemned to death for apostasy, and only through the strenuous intervention of the U.S. government was he finally released and allowed to go into exile in Italy. Death threats continue to be made against him to this day. In November 2005, an Iranian convert named Ghorban Tourani was abducted and murdered by "unknown assailants" in Iran. Converts have also been threatened, beaten and killed by Islamic zealots in Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia, and Kenya. In none of these cases have the perpetrators ever been brought to justice.
It would seem, then, that Luttwak is merely stating the obvious when he notes that Obama is likely to be seen as an apostate in radical Islamic circles and that this could cause difficulties in our relations with some Islamic countries. Those who share the Taliban's or al Qaeda's worldview are not likely to view with favor someone who in their eyes has committed one of the cardinal sins under Islamic law. So what is the big deal?
Apparently a lot, to the febrile minds over at the Daily Kos, who have gotten their knickers in a knot over this. According to them, it's all part of a vast right-wing plot to portray Obama as a crypto Muslim:
"Even if all the above were true (which it's not), 1) it's absurd to think that any minor has any religion in the first place; can they comprehend what all that entails? and 2) why should we limit our own freedom of conscience and belief based on what some fundamentalist of any stripe dictates?"
Such rants reflect only the author's ignorance of Islamic societies, or rather, their utter solipsism and parochialism: they assume that their values are normative for the whole world, and therefore, any divergence from those values can either be ignored or denigrated. True to form, the Daily Kos goes on to denigrate Luttwak personally by pulling out of context an item from Luttwak's Wikipedia entry and finishes up with a dismissive "Nice guy, that Luttwak. . . ," which both misrepresents Luttwak's actual views and also manages to avoid dealing with the issues raised in his op-ed.
The left would seem to be deeply conflicted over the entire matter of Obama's Muslim background. On the one hand, they vociferously deny that Obama is now, or ever was a Muslim, and on the other hand, bend over backwards to assert that, even if he was, it isn't relevant. To paraphrase Seinfeld, "Obama is not a Muslim. . . not that there's anything wrong with that".
The right seems to be having its own problems dealing with this. Even at the National Review Online, Jim Geraghty, normally a bastion of good sense, misses the point by remarking that whether Obama was or was not a Muslim is irrelevant, since once elected and sworn in, he becomes "our president, and the Muslim world risks unleashing a thundering wave of American wrath if they tried to kill him for apostasy." Further, he says, "Americans who hesitate to vote for their preferred candidate because they fear the reaction of the Muslim world is creating a de facto 'Islamic veto' to our political process."
Neither of which is germane to Luttwak's point that those who think Obama's "half Muslim" background somehow gives him a leg up in dealing with the Islamic world are probably deluding themselves. Geraghty tries to discredit Luttwak's basic assertion that Obama is technically an apostate by citing the authoritative Robert Spencer:
"So is Obama under a death sentence? Probably not. As far as I know Obama has never explained when he left Islam and became a Christian. This is a crucial point, for according to Islamic law an apostate male is not to be put to death if he has not reached puberty (cf. 'Umdat al-Salik o8.2; Hidayah vol. II p. 246). Some, however, hold that he should be imprisoned until he is of age and then "invited" to accept Islam, but officially the death penalty for youthful apostates is ruled out."
Which seems like cold comfort, especially since, as Geraghty himself notes, "From Obama's descriptions in Dreams From My Father, he talks about embracing his Christian faith at (sigh) Trinity United, upon hearing Jeremiah Wright's preaching. So he probably would say he became a Christian as an adult . . . but he turned away from whatever interest he had in Islam after his religious teaching at the madrassa in Indonesia."
Andrew Sullivan, at least, seems to get it:
"I'm just glad that the meme that Obama is still a Muslim is no longer currency in informed circles. Luttwak's point would still hold, of course, if enough Muslims believed it. And the level of paranoia and stupidity in some areas of the Middle East eclipses that in Harlem or West Virginia. But what can anyone do about people willingly believing demonstrable lies?"
