In an attempt to retain some credibility, though, Mr Auster quickly turned face and began to assail President Bush and lampoon the preposterous idealism of the Neocons who believe that "democracy" in Iraq is possible. He also began to develop an obsessive hatred for Islam and now paranoidly fears that Muslims are trying to get the entire world to submit to the Sharia -- and the time is coming soon.
It didn't take long for the world to discover that the Iraq war was just a monumental fraud. Where are the WMD? Where are the operational connections with al-Qaida? The Iraq war did serve the interests of Israel and its partisans in the United States e.g. Lawrence Auster because it did result in a large U.S. presence in the Middle East.
So now it seems Lawrence Auster is back to his old bag of tricks. On May 15th he had a blog entry entitled The Taliban-Iran Threat about the possibility that Pakistan's nukes may fall into the hands of a "Sharia regime," and that this must not be allowed to happen. He was back to the same hyperbole that was common when he was warning about Saddam threatening the world with nuclear weapons. But now it appears the circumstances are even more dire, "...an electromagentic pulse...would essentially destroy the United States, causing the deaths of most of its people within a year..."
In case you don't know a "Sharia regime" is simply any regime that doesn't support Israel, and let's me clear: Mr Auster has no compunction about launching another war to slaughter tens of thousands of Muslims, possibly thousands of Americans, to serve the geo-political interests of Israel. He simply conjures up a threat that Muslims may attack the United States, and then uses that as a rationale to launch an actual war, with actual costs, and real deaths.
But how realistic is this scenario? He argues that if the Taliban acquired nuclear weapons they could sell them to Iran. Perhaps Mr Auster doesn't know, but the Taliban and Iran are enemies and, in fact, in 1998 were on the brink of war.
Iran says that thousands of Shiite Muslims were massacred in Mazar-i-Sharif when the Taliban took the city from Afghan forces opposed to the Taliban. Amnesty International and the United Nations have supported the Iranian claim.
The Iranians are predominately Shiite Muslims while the Taliban group which has been conquering Afghanistan over the past several years is a Sunni Islamic group which is less tolerant in its attitudes than most Sunnis. The conflicts between the Sunni and Shiite divisions of Islam are considerable, and along the Iran-Afghanistan border they involve ethnic or tribal differences as well.
This is a quote from CNN news article dated September 15th 1998. Exactly why would the Taliban provide nuclear weapons to one of its enemies? Mr Auster doesn't want anyone to understand the complexities and incongruities of the Islamic world. He wants everyone to view the Islamic world as a monolith, with millions of crazed jihadists ready to march on the West the moment they get orders from their -- I suppose -- invisible Sultan. Mr Auster's view of the Islamic world is just as imaginary as the kingdom of Prester John.
Iran was dissuaded from war with the Taliban in 1998 because their political leaders tend to be rational when pursuing the national interest, and are not the crazed apocalyptic visionaries portrayed in Neocon periodicals. Mr Auster's real fear is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons Israel can no longer be the bully of the Middle East, and will have to acquiesce to diplomatic solutions.
Lawrence Auster adds a few more comments at the end of his entry about how conservatives keep using terms like "Islamists" or "radical Islamists" to describe those we are at war with. Mr Auster will have none of it and says "Islam is the problem." What problem, though, is Mr Auster really talking about? Until the creation of Israel Islam was hardly a problem for the United States.
But don't tell Mr Auster. He'll start calling you names.
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