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Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
Michael Scheuer
Potomac Books, Inc., 2004 (new epilogue, 2005)
Imperial Hubris considers a predicament that the author sees has been brought about for the United States by the great sea-change in American outlook and policy that occurred in 1898. That was the year the U.S. went from (1) being a good world citizen but one that minded its own business, intervening very little in the affairs of other nations, to (2) carrying a Wilsonian torch that would make the United States the policeman and social worker to the world. Michael Scheuer sees that in a world full of untold complexities, animosities and dangers, a policy of minding everyone's business will predictably lead to embroilments, some of which, like "tar babies" that have been struck, simply won't let go.
One of those areas of complexity and danger is the Islamic world, which consists of 1.3 billion people. Scheuer doesn't much consider the demographic threat that mass Islamic immigration poses to Europe and thus he is far from taking a full view of the Islamic challenge to the West. What he does focus on is, however, important enough in itself: the threat that comes from the worldwide Islamist insurgency, led most especially by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. A point he emphasizes is that the threat to the United States from this insurgency is generated primarily as a response to American policies that are perceived by the Islamic world as threatening and that span several decades. (It is well to notice that this point about the reaction to American policies would not apply nearly as much to the demographic, cultural challenge from Islamic immigration.) These policies, in turn, have only partly been called into existence by the imperatives of American national interest. Mostly, he says, they have resulted from Americans' post-1898 and especially post-1989 mindset, which is messianic, interventionist, and mixed with a profound naivete, cultural ignorance, and presumption.
Who is Michael Scheuer and with what authority does he speak? The holder of two masters degrees and a doctorate in history, he was a career officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1982 until his resignation in 2004. Most to the point, his last...