Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq

393 Pages·2009·1.52 MB·English

by  Michael Scheuer

Also by Michael Scheuer
Imperial Hubris:
Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes:
Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America

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Copyright © 2008 by Michael Scheuer
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scheuer, Michael.
Marching toward hell: America and Islam after Iraq / Michael Scheuer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Islamic countries—Foreign relations—United States. 2. United States—
Foreign relations—Islamic countries. 3. United States—Politics and government
—2001–4. Afghan War, 2001–5. Iraq War, 2003–6. Islam—21st century. I.
Title.
DS35.74U6S34 2008
327.73056—dc22
2007043814
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6503-1
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6503-5
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and
do not reflect the official positions or views of the CIA or any other U.S.
Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or
implying U.S. Government authentication of information or Agency
endorsement of the author’s views. This material has been reviewed by the CIA
to prevent the disclosure of classified information.
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As always, for Beth and Bernice, those aging but still lovely cowhands, and for
the three beautiful, bouncing Beth’ettes. Happy trails to all of you.
For my sage and exacting Korean taskmasters, Amly and Elik, with all my love
and sincere thanks for graciously permitting me to chauffeur you around
everywhere…each day…all day…everyday…endlessly.
For L.B., a kind, brilliant, and generous man, who, if he is not careful, may
begin to give lawyers a good name.
For Lillian, a master teacher of humility, perseverance, and patience.
And for America’s best, the U.S. Marine Corps and CIA’s clandestine service,
men and women who know that the prayer “May God bless America” must
always be completed with the earnest plea, “and may He damn and help me
destroy her enemies.”
Acknowledgments
In writing this book, I had the indispensable help of several new and much-
valued friends. My book agent, Stuart Krichevsky, runs an impressively tight
business ship but is never too busy to talk through problems or compare notes
about the joys and agonies of watching our respective sons learn to play the
astoundingly difficult game of baseball. My publicist, Jenny Powers, is a marvel
at gently but effectively putting importuning journalists in their place, as well as
in getting me to the right place at the right time, and doing so with a smile even
when my forgetfulness is driving her to distraction. At Free Press, Dominick
Anfuso and Maria Bruk Aupérin worked with me patiently to tame a good deal
of vituperative prose that otherwise might well have prevented the arguments of
an already very much nonmainstream analysis from getting a decent hearing. I
offer my sincere thanks to each of them.
I also wish to thank a number of writers, historians, and commentators—
most of whom I have never met—who have had the moral courage to argue that
the status quo in U.S. foreign and military policy toward the Islamic world is not
adequately protecting America and must be changed. I do not agree with all of
what these men write, and, I am very confident, none of them will agree with all
I have written here, and several will disagree with a good deal of it. But be that
as it may, I have consistently learned from these men, they have caused me to
rethink my own positions many times, and they are driving a debate that may yet
save America and the West from their governing elites’ mulish, self-serving, and
ultimately self-immolating devotion to the status quo. May I offer my thanks and
admiration, then, to Ralph Peters, Mark Steyn, Tony Blankley, Abd al-Bari
Atwan, Peter Bergen, T. X. Hammes, Patrick Buchanan, Bruce Hoffman, Martin
van Creveld, Robert Pape, Robert D. Hormats, Omar Nasiri, Samuel Huntington,
Marc Sageman, and Walter A. McDougall.
And after spending a career focused on foreign states and entities, I am
slowly relearning and trying to apply the lessons taught by America’s founders
and their constructive successors—especially by George Washington, Alexander
Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and William T. Sherman—and by
the two Europeans who best taught Americans about the great difficulties in
founding and then enduringly protecting a republic, Niccolò Machiavelli and
Alexis de Tocqueville. The lessons these men taught are timeless; we ignore
them at our own and our children’s peril.
Finally, I alone am responsible for all that follows.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Author’s Note
Part I: Getting to 9/11
Chapter 1: Readying bin Laden’s Way: America and the Muslim World, 1973–
1996
Chapter 2: Fighting Islamists with a Blinding Cold War Hangover, 1996–2001
Part II: Six Years of War,
2001–2007
Chapter 3: Afghanistan—A Final Chance to Learn History Applies to America
Chapter 4: Iraq—America Bled White by History Unlearned
Chapter 5: And the Islamists’ Fire Quietly Spreads
Part III: Where Stands the War?
Chapter 6: “The bottom is out of the tub”: Taking Stock for America in 2008
Chapter 7: “O enemy of God, I will give thee no respite”: Al-Qaeda and Its Allies
Take Stock