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ALBUQUERQUE — Revving up a breakfast crowd recently in Alamogordo, U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce described in stark terms a dangerous world, suggesting dire consequences if U.S. military forces are withdrawn from Iraq.
Maybe impossibly dire.
According to a news story published Aug. 24 in the Alamogordo Daily News, Pearce predicted the following: “If the United States pulls out of Iraq, 50 countries will eventually fall to radical Islam.”
The story carried the headline, “Rep. Pearce hopes to trade U.S. House for Senate.”
The above quote paraphrased Pearce’s words, but when contacted by the Independent, campaign spokesman Rod Antone didn’t dispute the accuracy of the newspaper account.
Asked to name the 50 countries that the congressman believes might eventually fall to radical Islam if the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, Antone provided a statement directly from the Republican Senate candidate.
“These answers are from Steve himself so you can quote him,” Antone wrote in the e-mail before transcribing Pearce’s answers to NMI’s follow up questions.
“The Egyptians said they have signatures of 50 moderate Arab countries which face falling to the radicals if Iraq falls. They did not show the list but mentioned Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, etc.,” Pearce is quoted as saying. “I suspect a full list of all 50 would be available through the State Department.”
While the six countries directly cited here are indeed widely considered “moderate” Arab countries, there are definitely not 44 others.
In fact, the Arab League itself only counts 22 total member states stretching from northeast Africa to southwest Asia. The Muslim world — like the Christian world — is diverse. Iran, for example, Iraq’s neighbor, is not an Arab country, but Persian. Afghanistan is another country that is not populated by an Arab majority. The same can be said of Pakistan.
But if Pearce meant to say he believes 50 “Muslim” countries are at risk of falling to radical Islam, that scenario is at least mathematically possible.
Barely.
One list of countries with a Muslim majority currently puts the number at 52, although it defines Palestine and Kosovo as independent nations when neither is yet a designated member state of the United Nations.
For Pearce’s prediction to come true, even tiny nations like Brunei, Guinea-Bissau and Comoros would have to fall to al-Qaeda-like militants, a development that could seem far-fetched and is reminiscent of the domino theory, an argument used by American leaders to justify intervention in other countries during the Cold War, such as Vietnam.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference counts fifty-seven member states.
No matter how these numbers are presented, Pearce appears to be making an extreme assessment of failure in Iraq: that the balance of power in the vast majority of the Muslim world would tip in favor of militant Islamists if the U.S. withdraws its forces.
Another attention-grabbing comment in that same Alamogordo Daily News story seems to suggest the need for strong leaders to make bloody sacrifices.
Maybe literally.
“This election is about the people that will fight back,” Pearce, an ex-Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War, said in the Alamogordo newspaper. “You have got to be willing to shed blood.”
In his breakfast remarks, Pearce did single out Russia and China as potential global threats. But did he really mean that would-be U.S. Senators should re-enlist in the military to combat those threats or was the candidate speaking metaphorically?
“My statement was that you must be willing to shed political blood, whether it means fighting against your opponents or your own political party,” Pearce clarified in the statement sent to the Independent.
Continuing, he asserted that his Democratic opponent in the Senate race, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, is not willing to shed “political blood”:
You must be willing to fight for your constituents. For example, Tom Udall refused to fight for the funding and jobs at Los Alamos and instead went along with his party. Instead of fighting he made statements that he would depend on Pete Domenici to put the funding back. He took the backdoor out of the situation and now people in that area are suffering because of his lack of courage.
