How to Win a Cosmic War

Title: How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror
Author: Reza Aslan
Pages: 228
Rating: 5/5

How to Win a Cosmic War is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surveying the global scene from Israel and Iraq to New York and the Netherlands, Aslan argues that religion is a strong force today than it has been in a century. At a time when religion and politics increasingly share the same vocabulary and function in the same sphere, Aslan writes that we must strip the conflicts of our world – in particular, the War on Terror – of their religious connotations and address the earthly grievances that always lie behind the cosmic impulse.

First and foremost, Aslan is an excellent author. His books fly by and read more like fiction than non-fiction. If you’re someone who’s normally afraid of non-fiction because it can sometimes be so slow, dry, and boring, then you’d probably love either of Aslan’s books.

How to Win a Cosmic War is based off of the lecture I saw him give last winter (thought it might be more accurate to say his lecture is based off of the book), so a lot of it was very familiar to me. Aslan puts this “War on Terror” into a new, and in my opinion, more correct perspective. Aslan claims that after 9/11, Bush played right into the hands of bin Laden and did exactly what he wanted. He made this into a cosmic war by dividing the world into good and evil: if you’re not with the US, then you’re with the terrorists. So what is a cosmic war, exactly, and how do you win one? It’s a war where all parties involved believe God is on their side, and that they are fighting on behalf of God. It is good vs evil – Satan vs God – and the only way you can win a cosmic war is by refusing to fight one in the first place.

Surprisingly, a lot is covered in under 200 pages. Aslan gives the reader a short history on the “Jihadist” movement and what that word actually means, as well as a little bit of history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the rise of the Evangelical movement in the US, a bit of Old Testament history, and different fanatical factions of both Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It’s all very interesting, but I think the most important thing for readers to understand is how the “Jihadists” differ from the majority of Muslims, and what we can do to put an end to it. You can’t successfully fight them with weapons because there’s an infinite supply of soldiers. There’s countless angry, Muslim teens in the West who see the horrible things going on in Palestine, Iraq, etc. If Western governments address their legitimate grievances (and there are plenty of them), then people will stop being inspired to take up arms.

I can’t recommend this book enough, and I think it, just like No god but God, is a book everyone should read in order to gain a better and more accurate understanding of todays political climate, as well as the social, cultural, religious, and economic factors that brought us here.