And with true love and brotherhood,rnEach other now embrace.rnThis holy tide of Christmas,rnAll others doth deface.rnO tidings of comfort and joy.rnComfort and joy.rnO tidings of comfort and joy.rnTom Piatak writes from Cleveland, Ohio.rnFOREIGN AFFAIRSrnWho Needs IslamicrnFundamentalism?rnby Andrei ISavrozovrnAfter almost a century of dealing withrninternational terrorism—since communism,rnin practice as well as in theory,rnis hardly anything more complex thanrnterrorism on a global scale —Westernrndemocracies should have caught on tornthe fact that all social movements, particularlyrnthose perceived as spontaneous,rnare invariably organized, manipulated,rnand directed by those whose interestsrnthey ultimately serve. Do ordinar}- middle-rnclass Americans really get out of bedrnone day with the idea of sending moneyrnto arm the IRA? Do English roses call onrntheir local ironmongers before chainingrnthemselves to railings at nuclear installations?rnDo timid Chinese students userntheir life savings to hire buses and megaphonesrnfor a protest in I’iananmenrnScjuare?rnThus the West ought to have awakenedrnto the uneasy realization that blamingrnIslamic fundamentalism for the attackrnon Manhattan and Washington,rnD.C., is like accusing a gun of murder.rnThe fierce and determined faces of thernkillers, defying posterity in the newsrnpages, are the faces of history’s fall guys,rnclueless patsies whose eternal destiny it isrnto leave greasy fingerprints on die surfacernof world events. And the cjuestions thatrnthe West’s political and media establishmentsrnought to have asked are: Who isrnthe ultimate client and beneficiary?rnWho pulls the strings of these marionettes?rnWhere does the thread of knowledgernand responsibilit}’ lead?rnThat such a thread exists cannot berndoubted. We know that only four of thernterrorists had been trained as pilots,rnwhich means that the others, who believedrnthey were all in it together, mayrnnever have been told that theirs was a suicidernmission. What information hadrnbeen withheld from the four by the cellrnleader who had brainwashed, financed,rnand trained them? What informationrnhad been withheld from the cell, hiddenrnfrom the branch, concealed from the nahonalrnorganization, and not supplied tornthe international movement? It is equallyrnclear that the thread must have a beginning.rnYet the West’s political and media establishmentsrnhave time and again provedrndiemselves unable and unwilling to askrnsuch uncomfortably far-reaching questions.rnCentral as the causes of thisrnepochal failure are to my argument, inrnthe scope of this article I can do littlernmore than enumerate them.rnThe last serious effort in the West’srncentur’-long struggle to apprehend andrnreverse the global advance of totalitarianismrncoincided widi Hie Reagan presidency.rnAt diat hme, it was still possible for arndetached observer such as mvself to findrna common language with the times, ifrnonly because the context of the debaternleft blank some tolerably wide margins.rnEven in Washington, but certainly inrnLondon in those years, to be marginalizedrnfor criticizing the political, military’,rnor intelligence establishment—for theirrnmyopia, their wishfid thinking, and theirrnoverall inability to understand or to copernwith the Soviet threat—did not mean tornbe summarily silenced. It meant being arndissident, with all the advantages of beingrnpart of a legitimate political and intellectualrnminorit)’.rnThen everything changed. PresidentrnBush’s term in office coincided with thernsudden restructuring of totalitarianism inrnRussia, a geopolitical hurricane that blewrnaway all the trusty signposts upon which arnwar}’ West had relied for decades in thernabsence of any real knowledge or deeprnunderstanding of the enemy. Now therndissidents would no longer be heard inrnthe ensuing chorus of jubilant confusion:rnAmerica’s new foreign policy of self-congratidationrndid not leave us an’ margin atrnall. When, in November 1991, LordrnChalfont addressed tire House of Commonsrnwith a plea to reconsider “Ophonsrnfor Change” (Britain’s bumbling way ofrninaugurating die New World Order andrnpockefing the “peace dividend”), he wasrnreduced to quoting an article I had writtenrnin support of his claim that Russiarn”still has enormous military power.”rnWlien I saw that the defense of the realmrnhinged on the turn of a lone dissidenf srnpen, I realized that the game was up.rnEventuallv, I withdrew and moved tornItaly, but not before publishing a shortrnbook entitied The Coming Order: Reflectionsrnon Sovietology and the Media. In it,rnas in all the newspaper and magazine articlesrnthat I managed to publish duringrnthe last decade, I defended my view thatrnthe worldwide “collapse” of “communism”rnis a strategic maneuver; that “restructuring”rnin the “Soviet Union” is therntransfer of power from the old CommunistrnParty clique to the new secret-policernjunta; and that Western Sovietologists,rnpolitical scientists, and media commentatorsrnare more helpless and naive thanrnthey have ever been in the face of thisrnnew, and in all likelihood final, totalitarianrnchallenge.rnMeanwhile, the issue of Europeanrnunification had taken center stage inrnWestminster. With both “eommimism”rnand the “Soviet Union” safely buried,rneven the most hardened dissidents inrnBritain’s Euroseepfic movement—calledrn”bastards” by the prime minister for organizingrnparliamentary opposition to thernMaastricht Treat}—could not so muchrnas consider the view fiiat the driving forcernbehind the unification process was thernKremlin. The most outspoken amongrnthem pointed to Germany as the ultimaternbeneficiar}’, in terms of its eventualrnpolitical and economic dominance, andrnfound that troubling enough. None sawrnthat die restructuring of Soviet totalitarianism,rnwhose new foreign policy hadrnbeen launched with the reunification ofrnGermany and a call for a “common Europeanrnhome from the Atlantic to diernUrals,” would have been an absurdrnproposifion in the absence of just such anrnopportunit}’ for peaceful expansion westward.rnPeaceful because, at die end of thernday, Moscow would remain die only iiiilitar}’rnpower in a Europe that was unifiedrneconomically, tied to Russia and its longstandingrnsatellites politically, and decoupledrnfrom the United States militarily.rnPerhaps the Eurosccpties’ shortsightednessrnwas excusable, as not until Mayrn2000, for instance, did it emerge that HelmutrnKohl’s ruling party had long been financedrnby die Communist Part}’ of EastrnGermany with funds filtered throughrncommunist Hungary, meaning that, atrnthe time of Germany’s unification. Kohlrnwas literally in Gorbachev’s pocket. Thisrnand related money-laundering scandalsrnfinally cost the chancellor his job, but byrn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn