Iqbal Ali Muhammad, son of Ali Muhammad
of the Kurdistan Islamic Union
SULEIMANIYA, IRAQ - When I went to the Middle East for a six-month extended visit I wanted to see if I could find a genuinely moderate Islamist political party, one that not only practices democracy but also believes in it. There was a slight chance Hezbollah might fit that description. Lebanon’s Party of God has mellowed somewhat with age and participates in elections. But Hezbollah, unfortunately, is psychotic as ever. Hassan Nasrallah and his goon squad are instinctively belligerent and authoritarian even if Lebanon’s post-war democratic culture keeps them in check. Hezbollah is liberal and even pacifist compared with Hamas and Al Qaeda, but they nevertheless are a violent warmongering proxy militia for two despotic regimes in the Middle East.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is better. They aren’t armed, they don’t even try to kill Israeli soldiers (let alone civilians), and they at least pretend to be opposed to terrorism. But they are only moderate compared with their violent fellow Islamists. Ideologically they don’t differ much.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union, though, does seem to be genuinely moderate. Its leaders appear to have more in common with conservative Christian Democrats in Europe than with any terrorist organization or Middle Eastern religious dictatorship.
I met with Ali Muhammad, Director of the Suleimaniya bureau of the KIU, Iraqi Kurdistan’s third largest (and growing) political party, in his office. He provided his own in-house translator, a plump woman in a dark brown abaya. My own translator, because he was a stranger, was not to be trusted.
Ali looked to be in his sixties. He wore a trimmed beard, glasses, and a distinctly unfashionable Western suit and tie. He greeted me warmly in English. I greeted him and thanked him in Kurdish. Then we spoke to each other through our translator.
"How do you feel about the U.S. occupation of Iraq?" I said.
“The West is a successful civilization," he said. "But we think it is too materialistic and technological. If the Islamic East united with the civilized West, all of humanity would benefit.”
Unite with?
"The West is not an enemy," he said. "We think about Western Civilization as part of the whole human experience. We would like to help you reform it, but we do not want to destroy it. We are not violent. We support civil mechanisms for change."
He wants to help us change?
For an Islamist, even (and maybe especially) a "moderate" one, politics is just war by other means. Uniting with the West and helping the West change were what what the Ottoman empire had in mind in 1683. This particular corner of the West still isn't interested.
I'm afraid there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist.
Look at Khatami in Iran. He was called a 'reformist' and a moderate among the Mullahs and the Ayatollahs of the IRI. For some 8 years he delivered absolutely nothing. His sole goal was to preserve the Islamic government by pretending to appease the West & fooling the people of Iran. Moderate Islamists are more dangerous than militant ones. At least with the militants you know exactly where you stand.
Katami was also developing atomic weapons for his entire term. Not as quickly or as loudly as the current madman, but developing all the same.