The struggle we’re being drawn into is not a boxing contest and if we lose it, we won’t be offered a rematch

Islam’s Religious Exemption From Criticism 

By William Kilpatrick

During the financial crisis of 2008, one of the pressing questions of the day had to do with whether or not various giant corporations—AIG, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, GM, and others—were too big to fail. The consensus among policymakers at the time was that these companies had to be bailed out by the government, or else the global economy would collapse with them.

A similar question can be raised with regard to Islam. Is it too big to fail? Would its collapse bring chaos in its wake? Judging from their behavior, most policymakers seem heavily invested in Islam’s survival. Their reasoning goes roughly as follows: Islam is a religion; religion is a stabilizing force in society; therefore, the flourishing of Islam is vital to the stability of the Muslim world. Hence, the consensus view is (and has been for a long time) that it is desirable to prop up Islam and provide bailouts when needed.

The bailouts come in the form of financial and military aid to various governments in the Muslim world. The assistance also comes in the form of “vouchers” for Islam’s good character: assurances by world leaders that Islam is a peaceful religion, assurances by religious leaders that it is a model of interfaith tolerance, and assurances by educators that “jihad” is an interior spiritual struggle. Keeping Islam afloat has become such a high priority that Western critics of Islam often find themselves facing fines or even jail time. In most of Europe, you can safely wave a “Behead Those Who Insult Islam” poster in the face of a policeman, but if you are a non-Muslim and you observe that Islamic law allows for beheadings, you’ll be standing before a magistrate the next day on hate crime charges. For his own part, the President of the United States vowed to protect the good name of Islam from “negative stereotypes.”

Initially, the moral support went to Islam, and the financial and military support went to Muslim governments—many of which were not particularly religious. That changed with the Obama administration. The policy all along had been to support moderate, stabilizing governments, but with the advent of the new administration, the definition of “moderate” underwent a change. On the assumption that religion makes for moderation, the more religious factions—such as the Muslim Brotherhood—were now assumed to be the more moderate ones. Consequently, the Obama administration threw its support behind the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Brotherhood-type groups who were attempting to overthrow secular governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria. Likewise, the administration strongly supported the rule of Recep Erdogan in Turkey, even though Erdogan was in the process of transforming Turkey from a stable, secular state to an Islamic state.

Moderate? It doesn’t look that way now. As it turned out, the U.S.-backed Islamists quickly proved themselves far less adept at stabilizing their countries than the regimes they replaced. Whatever their drawbacks, the secular, authoritarian rulers appear, in hindsight, to have been the more moderating force; and one of the ways they maintained stability was by keeping Islam in check. They acted as a restraining force on the more violent manifestations of Islam with the result that Christians and other minorities enjoyed relative security.

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