After reading the first paragraph of Dr. Metz's commentary at Thinking Strategically blog, I quickly did a screen search to confirm whether the words "Palin" and "tea party" are employed. Thankfully, no. However, he does build the foundation of his argument with this simple, condescending proposition: Americans are stupid; therefore our grand strategy is dumb and getting dumber.
Americans are "vulnerable to exploitation..." to "pundits and politicians" who deviously want to manipulate the masses into a frothing frenzy. And the ultimate result of their Svengali powers is a "growing domestic hostility toward Islam that is undercutting the foundation of America's global strategy." Really? Please tell me where outside the Beltway you find any American who takes pundits and politicians seriously.
I don't disagree with Metz's characterization of the Bush grand strategy. However, I do take issue with his assertion that this grand strategy relied "on questionable assumptions formed in the traumatic months after September 11th and never seriously analyzed." Having worked in various analytical and strategic positions throughout the Bush years, I think I can say with certainty that the Bush grand strategy was never fixed. It evolved all the time, unfortunately. Grand strategies should be applicable and fixed for some time in order for it to be employed. That didn't happen in the Bush years. Some agencies, like the FBI, never really found a strategy of their own. Particularly after 2004, the administration seemed adrift, trying to create something cohesive enough to outlast the transition to a new administration.
If Dr. Metz had stopped there, then his essay would be okay -- just something else to read in an already busy news day. Unfortunately, he doesn't stop there. Remember, he's building off the idea that Americans are stupid. So here it comes. Not only are we stupid, but some of us are "simply hardwired to hate." Like…Ted Nugent. Really? He's a rock star and meat eater. Most people listen to him play a stringed instrument or watch him use one on a deer. Is The Nuge the only example you can find? No Jihad Watch? No World Net Daily?
Also on his list of manipulators are "journalists, pundits, and broadcasters" who fail to understand the nuances of secular and Islamic governance. What Dr Metz never explains is why these folks matter. The only people who matter in any administration's regional and grand strategy are the strategists, analysts, and policy wonks employed to craft and execute those plans. Public opinion rarely matters on these issues (sorry, Nuge) until those strategies fail, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.
It doesn't stop with Ted Nugent. Dr. Metz then builds into a crescendo of ill-placed outrage. Apparently, Americans are "divided on their attitude toward Islam." So says a Washington Post-ABC News poll last year -- "the highest on record." Well, actually, no it isn't the "highest on record," Dr. Metz. It was the highest in that polls' record which only goes back to October 2001. If you want to really do some strategic thinking on the topic, you should perhaps look back on the ISNA and Gallup polling done since the early 1990s. There's also the outrage and opposition over the Cordoba House in NYC. This, too, is a sign that Americans are worked up into a frenzy by Ted Nugent and "propagandistic bloggers."
All of these boiling passions are supposedly sending a bad signal to the Muslim world. Metz here employs that ever-so condescending concept of a "Muslim world," as if all of Islam exists as a single culture and place, with all its citizens, like an alien race, collectively exercising some preternatural connection with America's wacky subcultures and posturing politicians:
With widespread opposition to the planned Cordoba House Islamic center in New York City, demonstrations against mosques across the country, and Koran burning ceremonies by fundamentalist ministers, passions are boiling. Muslims abroad are well aware of this. This undercuts the idea that America’s war is only with terrorists and not all Muslims. They feed the narrative of al Qaeda and its sympathizers that America and the West are at war with Islam itself. Condemnation of the Cordoba House by well known figures, including a number of prominent political leaders with electoral ambitions, mosque attacks, and Koran burning make a major contribution to the strategic communication of al Qaeda and other extremists.
There should be little room in grand strategy for Muslim caricatures. The sooner we get rid of the concept of the Muslim world, the better we'll be able to think through some of the toughest questions of the 21st century.
For his finale, Dr. Metz sets up a false dichotomy and then proceeds to offer the last best hope for the future:
Today American strategy has hit the wall, crumbling in the face of growing public hostility toward Islam. There are only two solutions. One would be to try and re-cage the tiger by constraining domestic mistrust and hostility toward Islam at least enough to sustain the global strategy….The alternative is to accept the notion that irresolvable differences exist between the United States and the Islamic world, and that the clash of civilizations is a reality.
So we either (1) blame Republicans ("Republican leaders, in other words, would have to abandon a theme which energizes and excites their political base, and give up on the notion of reviving the emotions of September 11 as elections approach") or (2) disengage from the Islamic world ("…shifting to a close rather than forward defense against terrorism.").
Americans are so stupid that there are no other options? Really? How sad.
