Rubin: ‘It Is Time For Matt Duss To Grow Up’

NRO’s Michael Rubin has written a long response to this post, in which I suggested that it was silly for someone like Rubin, who has a record of past attacks on others, to take issue with a little bit of name-calling.

After a delightful prologue in which he tells me to “grow up,” Rubin offers this rebuttal to my criticism of his presentation of the Islamic concept of taqiya:

Mr. Duss does not understand that religious concepts evolve with time and are seldom interpreted singularly. On May 19, 2008, for example, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi explained the concept of taqiya as “secret holy warfare, not conservatism, or fear, or evasion of responsibility.” Alas, perhaps the ayatollah does not pass Mr. Duss’s litmus test of what he learned at the University of Washington. Rather than take a sterile view of religion as it is interpreted in the ivory tower, it is important to understand what its practitioners define it as.

Alas, I do understand very well that religious concepts evolve with time. I picked this up during my stay in the ivory tower, where it is in fact the prevailing view. There’s actually a very rich academic literature regarding static versus dynamic representations of Islam and Islamic cultures, some of which Rubin would probably find interesting if he could tear himself away from trying to get the U.S. to attack Iran.

In regard to taqiya, I simply pointed out that Rubin’s dollar store definition of the concept as “religiously-sanctioned lying” was a transparent mechanism for crediting Iranian statements that bolster his thesis in favor of attacking Iran and discrediting those that don’t. Also, as I and others noted, it’s rather silly to devise ornate religio-cultural explanations for why politicians lie, unless of course the goal is to present a certain group of politicians as particularly dangerous liars.

In response to my claim that he suggested “that Middle East scholar Rashid Khalidi was ideologically sympathetic to Saddam Hussein’s attempted genocide against the Kurds,” Rubin writes:

Mr. Duss simply fabricates this and should apologize. What Duss actually refers to is a July 2004 book review. Nowhere do I claim that Mr. Khalidi is ideologically sympathetic to Saddam’s attempted genocide against the Kurds. Mr. Duss made that up. What I did write is this, “In his historical analysis, Khalidi demonstrates little understanding of Iraqi history, failing to mention Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons on the Kurds and the draining of the marshes. Rather, he implies that Arabs think with one mind and hold the Israeli-Palestinian dispute central to their identity.”

No, the passage to which I was actually referring — and to which I also linked, which in my view constitutes a huge hint — was this one:

[Rashid] Khalidi’s influence upon Obama might subordinate basic human rights to the virulent form of Arab nationalism that led to the Anfal.

I don’t think the comically awkward construction of Rubin’s attempted smear makes it any less clear, or any more forgivable.

Rubin’s defense of his work in the Office of Special Plans is actually very interesting. Rubin protests that “I did not report directly to Mr. Feith…the work on the Iraq-Al Qaeda linkage occurred before I was hired.”

Actually, I didn’t specify the Iraq-Al Qaeda linkage, Rubin volunteers that. But it’s good to have him on the record distancing himself both from Doug Feith and from the bogus “Iraq-Al Qaeda linkage.”

Ironically, Rubin also derides journalist Robert Dreyfuss — author of this piece on the OSP — for his past association with the LaRouche organization, but I would suggest that someone who works for Daniel Pipes and writes on a group blog with Michael Ledeen and Andrew McCarthy is really in no position to knock anyone for associating with kooks.