This morning, the New York Times hammered another nail in the coffin of its journalistic integrity by publishing a lazy and poorly researched bit of Muslim-baiting by Edward Luttwak. Despite being based on a series of unsupported assertions, the piece has won praise from the National Review and even some Obama detractors at DKos, all of whom grasped onto Luttwak's flimsy speculation like a last piece of oppo research crack rock tumbling towards the sewer grate (where it rightfully belongs). However, despite all the self-serious posturing from Luttwak's newfound apologists, there were obvious holes in his editorial, and over at HuffPost, Ali Eteraz has definitively refuted many of his claims.
The gist of Luttwak's editorial was that an Obama presidency would prove a crippling liability for U.S. soft diplomacy since the vast majority of the Muslim world would "react with horror" to learning that he is, according to Luttwak, a Muslim convert to Christianity. He writes:
More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.
Luttwak offers no evidence, scriptural or otherwise, that this sentiment is shared by the vast majority of Muslims. He simply makes an assertion and hopes that the appearance of authority, hunger for negative attacks on Obama, or both would lend it credibility to an audience poorly informed about the Muslim world.
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.
Of course, it is not known whether Obama's father was ever anything more than a nominal Muslim. Barack Jr.'s grandfather had, at some point, converted from Catholicism to Islam, but Barack Sr. was an atheist by the time he reached adulthood. Thus, it was Obama's father who could be most accurately classified as "apostate." Barack Obama Jr. was neither born to a person of the Islamic faith nor was he born into a household that practiced it. Obama is, at most, an apostate by association, a dubious claim that is most certainly not a reflection of what Luttwak calls "universally understood" Islamic law.
In his response, Eteraz further fills in the blanks to point out that the Muslim world is not nearly as strict and fanatical as Lutwakk would have the New York Times' readership believe. Eteraz notes, first of all, that even in the Muslim world, it is recognized that Islamic law can only be applied under an Islamic state. Thus, the following ludicrous claim:
Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.
At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards.
is wholly irrelevant since Obama would have to prosecuted as an apostate before it would be an alleged "sin" to provide him with security. Lutwakk, of course, is primarily interested in portraying Muslims as lawless savages, so it's not surprising that he ignored this minor detail.
But beyond even this, Eteraz notes that Lutwakk's conviction of Obama as an apostate-by-association does not reflect any opinion held in the Muslim world. In fact, there are numerous cases where individuals have been excused from, not just failing to practice the faith, but leaving it altogether.
Third, people that appear to be Muslims, but don't follow Islam and choose another religion, are permitted under Islamic law to leave Islam without penalty. A major case in Malaysia recently handed down -- a woman who was Muslim for some time in order to marry an Iranian was permitted to go back to Buddhism -- is an example. Obama, unlike the Malaysian woman, didn't even make a profession of faith to Islam, so it makes even less sense for him to be considered an apostate.
However, it is also the case that Islam specifically excuses a child who has been abandoned by his biological father (even if that biological father, as was not the case with Barack Sr., was a practicing Muslim):
Islamic law recognizes abandonment by the biological father. Obama's Kenyan father abandoned Obama. As such, any religious imprimatur he may have had over Obama -- which is already a stretch since the man was an atheist -- is null and void. In such a situation, Obama's mother's religion is controlling. She was not Muslim. Even if someone makes the argument from patriarchy: that Obama's paternal grandparents were his rightful guardians, that would fail since they also constructively abandoned him.
Again, Luttwak, in his lazy attempt to smear Obama as both a Muslim-by-association and a liability for U.S. foreign policiy, has demonstrated that his view of Islam is a grotesque distortion, likely reinforced by his Muslim-baiting think tank buddies like David Horowitz. As his chain e-mail level understanding of Obama's background indicates, Luttwak is less interested in the truth than he is in bashing Muslims. It is worth noting, however, that Luttwak is a proponent for withdrawal from Iraq. This has won him a few fans among his progressives, but as his past writings have made clear, rather than being a progressive himself in any sense, he holds this position on the basis of a tremendous disdain for the people of the Muslim world. In 2006, in fact, he advocated for a preemptive strike on Iran's nonexistent nuclear weapons program in the Wall Street Journal. It is difficult, then, to say what Luttwak's primary motivation was with this peace. It seems to me, though, that perpetuating false information about Obama was only incidental to stoking fear of Islam. However, as Eteraz points out, he is not interested in opening a serious dialogue about the diplomatic ramifications of an Obama presidency:
Luttwack and the other fake experts promoting this new smear do not understand Islam. Religion is not hereditary as it is in Judaism. Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father -- which, again, Obama didn't -- doesn't mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim. At the time of birth, Muslims engage in a symbolic act -- of saying the Call to Prayer in the child's ear -- that renders a child Muslim. If Obama's father was agnostic/atheist, then he wouldn't have done such a thing.
No call to prayer in the ear, not raised as a Muslim, born to an atheist father, and then abandoned to a Christian mother both by father and his family, equals not Muslim. Obama is right to say he had no religion until he became a Christian.
The question, then, is why would the New York Times choose to post such tripe? And why were so many people, not just at the National Review and on FreeRepublic, but here at at DailyKos, inclined to embrace it?
Now, some attempted to argue that Luttwak was merely speaking of a minority of extremists, but Luttwak explicitly states that he is referring to, I quote, "most citizens of the Muslim world." He even goes so far as to argue that security forces in places like Jordan and Saudi Arabia would deliberately conspire to assassinate Obama.
Of course, one of the key lessons of Bush's disastrous debacle in Iraq was that America's foreign policy elite has little grasp of the prevailing opinions and beliefs in the Muslim world. This, to no small degree, has been a central facet of America's failure to reverse the expanding influence of Islamic fundamentalism. With that said, as the attacks on Obama grow more sophisticated, it will not be enough to merely throw Islam under the bus. We cannot afford to blindly accept the caricatures that leak out of Washington think tanks, because these will be used to attack Obama from any available angle. Even the pages of the New York Times will be used as a platform by fake "experts" to tie Obama, not to Islam, but to a distortion dreamed up by the very minds that now lust for war with Iran. Actually learning the facts, not just about Obama, but about the Muslim world, will be critical to refuting the right's insidious campaign against him.
And as Hooman Majd reported to Salon, the only grounds for outrage that the Muslim world sees in Obama is a potential symbol of America's fundamental hostility to anything even remotely related to their faith:
When I was in Tehran, Iran, a year ago, I was asked by several senior government officials, including former President Mohammad Khatami, what to make of Barack Obama's candidacy for president of the United States. The young senator from Illinois was still barely on the international radar then. My response was that I couldn't see Americans nominating, let alone electing, a black man whose middle name was Hussein. My answer, clearly wrong in hindsight, stirred smiles and raised eyebrows among the Iranian leaders because they'd had no idea that Obama had a Muslim father. Even more surprising to them was that he carried, apparently without shame, a Muslim name. From Khatami this elicited an "Ajab!" -- Farsi for, essentially, "You've got to be kidding!" There were also many nods of agreement with my conclusion about Obama's chances.
EDIT: The New York Times has now published responses to Luttwak's article. Here is what actual Muslims think of his erroneous claims.