In an interview on War and Foreign Policy

Your third book is Winning the Unwinnable War by Elan Journo.

Journo has promoted a controversial thesis. He says that America has crippled itself in the war against terrorism by a failure to forthrightly identify its enemies, and to defend itself against them. He says this stems from altruism, which values others over self, which leads to the idea that America must not defeat enemies but rather bow down and appease them. He maintains that the war against terrorism is not unwinnable. The first step toward victory would be to name the enemy for what it is: Islamic Totalitarianism, a movement that aims to impose sharia [Islamic law] over a subjugated population. This failure to name the enemy has hamstrung the United States, and led us into an overseas war that is approaching a decade in length, and for which we see no end.

What do you think of his theory?

I think he is fundamentally correct. When I look at the history of World War II, I see that leaders such as Roosevelt and Churchill named the enemy as the adherents of Nazism and fascism in Germany and Japan. We have statements from Roosevelt which say (paraphrasing), ‘The people of Germany must understand that they have been involved in a conspiracy to subjugate and enslave others.’ These leaders pursued total victory over these enemies without compromise or appeasement. The results over two generations speak for themselves.

What stops America from pursing the same tactics today?

What stops American leaders is a certain sense of inferiority, drawn from multiculturalism and political correctness. American leaders are unwilling to accept that because the Taliban in Afghanistan forced women to live in seclusion, allowed them to go into public only with full body coverings, and shot them in the back of the head if they did not obey, the Taliban system is morally inferior to the West. Many Americans and Western Europeans are unwilling to state the fact that their systems are superior to such ruthless dictatorships and their supporters. Therefore, they are unwilling to pursue victory over these dictatorships should they threaten us. Multiculturalism sees us all as equal, and therefore makes it impossible to pursue victory.

But that kind of total defeat of a regime like the Taliban is difficult in that many of the people living in Afghanistan still support them. Ten years on, America and the West are losing the hearts and minds of the local people.

If they do support the Taliban, then they are the enemies of the US and should be treated as such. But where did this ‘hearts and minds’ stuff come from? When has such a strategy ever worked? In Vietnam? One does not win hearts and minds during a war: one defeats the enemy, or one is defeated by that enemy.

The government of Afghanistan has recently announced its intention to bring the Taliban into the government. Meanwhile our Afghani allies, who suffered under the Taliban and fought with us against the Taliban, are standing in opposition to this policy. Are the Americans going to abandon those allies in order to appease their enemies? Whose hearts and minds will be won with this strategy?

Do you think this is happening because America and its allies weren’t decisive enough when they invaded Afghanistan and Iraq?

Yes, but I don’t think we ever should have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq. Iraq was a secular dictator that did not represent the essence of the threat against the West, and was in fact restraining Iran. The biggest effect of the invasion of Iraq has been to empower Iran to rise into a nuclear power. Iran could not beat Iraq in eight years of war. We defeated Saddam Hussein’s regime in three weeks – which shows how powerful America is and how weak Iran is. But the result of overthrowing Saddam Hussein has been to remove Iran’s closest regional competitor and to empower Iran to rise to a nuclear power. So I would not have engaged in either of those wars. I think they were misguided and misdirected.