Michael Axworthy Quotes
We should not need to displace the fact of their [the Iranians] bravery into categories like fanaticism and martyrdom in order to comprehend it… Governments and generals need naïve young men in order to fight for them.
Michael Axworthy, Head of the Iran section at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Revolutionary Iran, 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey recently described the Iranian leadership as “rational actors.” Lewis, the Western World’s greatest Islamic Historian, was advising regarding the Iranian effort to enrich uranium. The Iranians if they enriched enough could develop a nuclear weapon. Historically, nuclear powers have always been deterred by using them as the retaliation would wipe out most of their country and people. This Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) Lewis felt might not inhibit the Iranian leadership who have glorified suicide bombers and have sent tens of thousands of young people to their deaths (and immediately to Paradise) leading Iranian troops through Iraqi minefields in the Iran Iraq War. The national security question was should Iran be allowed to get a nuclear weapon?
Jinnah had whipped up his followers to violence so that Muslims were attacking Sikh and Hindu neighborhoods, burning them and murdering many occupants in different parts of India to intimidate the Indian Governmental Ruling Congress Party, The British Colonial Indian officials and the politicians in London to create a Muslim state—Pakistan—with all the territory that they demanded. Many Muslims were in turn killed in retaliatory attacks. The American diplomats and most English politicians tried to persuade Jinnah to compromise on the division of land and resources. Jinnah saw no reason at the time for compromise. However the internecine violence became so brutal and extensive that even Jinnah was shocked. The British would not be intimidated nor would the Indian Congress party and Jinnah was forced to compromise. Even with that, there were over 2 million Indians killed by the time the partition was complete. Jinnah and most other leaders were not willing to die themselves, but they were able to convince enough of their coreligionists to die.
Ataturk was a young major at the time commanding troops of a weak and corrupt Ottoman regime. However a combined English and French (the strongest military powers in Europe) invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula threatened to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Ataturk alone rallied the Turkish defenders and fought the invaders to a standoff in long drawn out battle with huge casualties on both sides. Ataturk became a national hero. Although Ataturk thereafter was very reluctant to use military force or endanger troops, the thing he always thought worth the supreme sacrifice (including his own) was the independence and sovereignty of the nation. See {584502} for his continuing belief in this type of sacrifice.
This quotation is often given by those who believe that nothing has really changed regarding the Arabs and non-Islamic Westerners in the last century. While the support of dictators, Israel and support for that democracy, the artificial Western imposed borders, 9-11, or the Iraq war is often cited as the cause of Arab hostility and murderous aggression, as this quotation demonstrates, the problems and attitudes and behaviors existed long before any of these occurred. The borders were not set until after WWI and all the other causes occurred almost 50 years later, Yet there was still the propensity for fanaticism and violence. Sikes actually was one of those who was to determine the Arab borders, making one of the first “suggested” maps of the area for the English.
Most Americans and Europeans and their governments feel that Muslim leaders and organizations have not done very much in terms of “drawing the line” and publicly condemning terrorism. However many of the critics did not understand the intimidation that exists in most Islamic communities where the fascist fundamentalists target any Muslim public critics as heretics and apostates themselves. Many have been killed or injured in assassination attempts.
As an educational and military leader, he saw the importance of each in a nation’s welfare.
A Fatwa is an Islamic theological legal ruling. Islam has no hierarchy. So this Fatwa is not necessarily binding on any Muslims who do not wish to be bound by it. This is one of the relatively few Islamic theological organizations who have taken a public stand against terrorism.
He wrote this in the midst of the Salmon Rushdie affair where some Muslim clerics had issued a fatwa calling for the murder of the author because in this view his writings offended Islam.
Michael George Andrew Axworthy FRSA, FRAS was a British academic, author, and commentator. He was the head of the Iran section at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office between 1998–2000.
