Reviewing 'If It Takes a Thousand Years' by Jesse Petrilla

Former US Army captain Jesse Petrilla is clearly a disciple of the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. A basic principle in Sun’s classic treatise The Art of War is “Know your enemy.” Petrilla has spent a decade getting to know the major enemy confronting the West – the Islamist extremists – and in his book If It Takes a Thousand Years, he presents in considerable detail what he has learned. His subtitle explains the scope and purpose of his book: “How the Jihadists Think & How to Defeat Them.”

The title itself he takes from a remark made to him when he was serving in Afghanistan, interrogating captured Taliban fighters. One told him: “My fight is over for now, but my children will fight you; and if they don’t win, their children will fight you. If it takes a thousand years, we will win.” The message stayed with him and, added to his long experience of dealing with Islamist extremists, helped him understand the jihadist mentality. His conclusion is that, whether the West realizes it or not – and Petrilla believes that in general, it does not – it is engaged in a generational war for its very survival.

He describes how the flame of jihadist philosophy is kept burning bright from generation to generation through the madrassas, the Islamic scholastic institutes that are spread in their tens of thousands across the Middle East (he points out that the word taliban actually means “student”). He also describes the extent to which Islamist ideas are being inculcated into American college students directly through Muslim influencers and indirectly by way of the madrassas that are being built across America. The same is true in Western democratic nations generally.

YOUNG PALESTINIANS take part in a summer camp organized by the Islamic Jihad, in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, last year. There is no comparison between this and young Israelis who dress in Purim costume as IDF soldiers, the writer stresses. (credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)

One perception in particular emerges from Petrilla’s in-depth survey and analysis of jihadism: Most political leaders and media commentators in the West are unaware that their enemies inhabit a world totally different from theirs. It is a world where both life and time are of very little importance – concepts alien to the Western mind. For the jihadists, says Petrilla, “religion is the ultimate priority in their life,” and not much else really matters. So the concept of martyrdom – death for the sake of the faith – is widely perceived as the very purpose of existence.

The nature of jihadism

The jihadist world is a world where tribalism and tribal culture prevail – a world where women and girls are chattel to be bought and sold as sex slaves, and family honor is a vibrant societal force. Petrilla quotes a detainee he once questioned who told him: “I have eight children; I once had nine, but one of my daughters dishonored the family, and so I killed her.”

“A story,” he comments, that “I unfortunately would hear similar versions of on more than one occasion from multiple detainees.”

Another aspect of jihadism that very few in the West know, writes Petrilla, is that Islamic extremists divide the world into two territories: Dar Al-Islam (the locations where Sharia law prevails) and Dar Al-Harb (the land of war, which effectively means the democratic West and much else of the globe). Their purpose is eventually to bring the whole world under the sway of Sharia law; and with their disregard for time and the intrinsic value of each human life, they are convinced that finally they will succeed.

Having set out what he has learned of the enemy that is intent on the destruction of the democratic world in general, and America in particular, Petrilla provides his reader with positive suggestions about the steps he thinks could be taken to counter the danger. He describes how the jihadist enemy uses the organs of American democracy to subvert it from within, and what the US needs to do to protect itself. What he says about the US is equally applicable to other democratic nations.

If It Takes a Thousand Years is a wake-up call to the leaders and opinion makers of the US and other democratic nations. Petrilla has learned by direct encounters, long experience, and interviews with experts about the mindset of the enemy they face. By describing it in detail, he arms those who hold democracy dear and will have to defend it sooner or later. This is indeed a book for the times. ■