An Ayn Rand Institute Press Release:
Islamic Totalitarians’ Goal Is World Domination Under Islam
January 13, 2006IRVINE, CA–In a recent audio recording posted to the Internet, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq) laid down two conditions for giving up jihad.
“First, chase out the invaders from our territory in Palestine, in Iraq and everywhere in Islamic land. Second, install sharia on the entire Earth …. The attacks will not cease until after the victory of Islam and the setting up of sharia.”
Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, noted: “The goal of Islamic totalitarians is to smash Western civilization–founded on the values of science, individualism, freedom–and impose a global Taliban-style Islamic dictatorship.”
“The Islamic war against us has nothing to do with poverty or any alleged political grievances Muslims claim to hold against us. To the Islamic fanatics, all infidels are the enemy.
“To win this war, we must eliminate the regimes that sponsor Islamic terrorism, starting with Iran. We must instill fear in all who aid and abet or take up arms for Islamic totalitarianism. We must, moreover, defend the moral superiority of reason, individualism and freedom over religious totalitarianism.”
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Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a recognized Middle-East expert who has written and lectured on a variety of Middle-East issues and appeared on hundreds of TV and radio programs to discuss these issues, including FOX News (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN’s Talkback Live, CNBC’s Closing Bell and On the Money, and C-SPAN.
To book Dr. Brook for your show, please contact Larry Benson: 949-838-5137 (cell) 800-365-6552 ext. 213 (office) [email protected]
Copyright (c) 2006 Ayn Rand(R) Institute. All rights reserved.
Every time I see Yaron in television interviews, I marvel at his skill of clearly, forcefully, and politely arguing his fundamental points. I’m really quite excited that he’s teaching an optional course on The Rise of Totalitarian Islam at OCON this summer, although that means that I’m going to have to make a hard choice between Marc Baer’s Aristotle’s Ethics: Its Critics through History and Greg Salmieri’s Objectivist Epistemology in Outline. (I know that I want to see Yaron in person.) I’ll surely buy the recordings of whatever I miss, so I’ll hear them all eventually. I have similarly delightful problems in all of the other optional course slots: too much of interest!
Regarding the substance of the press release, I do wonder: Why isn’t Saudi Arabia identified as a major target along with Iran? Saudi Arabia is certainly a major ideological and financial fountainhead of militant Islam. As far as I understand, the internal political situation in the two countries is rather different. Iran is wholly dominated by militant Islamists, with strongly pro-Western dissenters totally excluded from government. In contrast, the government of Saudi Arabia is a mixture of militants and moderates–and the Saudi government itself has been a target of militant Islamic terrorism. Also, my impression is that the Iranian dissidents are genuinely pro-Western, whereas the Saudi moderates are only superficially so. In any case, Iran’s recent nuclear activity render it a far greater immediate threat than Saudi Arabia.
Still, I do wonder why ARI writers have placed so much emphasis on uprooting Iran’s theocracy, with comparatively little emphasis on the dangers of Saudi Arabia. I suspect that I just don’t know enough about the particulars, so I’d be happy to hear some arguments on that score. If I’m not satisfied, I’ll just have to ask Yaron in class this summer!
