Radical Islam

HE REASON AMERICA'S "WAR on terrorism" is imperiled is that there is no clear sense of our foe. Not only is the identity of the enemy obscure, many Americans also have no idea why the enemy is so murderously hostile to the United States. More than five years after 9/11, most people still have little sense of what would cause a bunch of men to want to blow themselves up in order to smash the Pentagon and topple the World Trade Center. The 9/11 Commission report, for all its length and lucidity, only describes how the grisly event occurred—it gives no coherent explanation for why it occurred. : WITHOUT RELIABLE KNOWLEDGE of what the enemy wants and how it intends to achieve its goal, it seems virtually impossible to have an effective counter-strategy, either at home or abroad. Therefore, the crisis of the "war against terrorism" is primarily an intellectual crisis, a crisis of understanding. To fight this war better it is necessary to understand it better, which requires challenging some of the core ideas put forth by the Bush administration and frequently endorsed, in one variation or another, by many people across the political spectrum. Here are three such ideas:

CMYTH NO. I: TERRORISM IS THE PROBLEM, Not so. Contrary to President Bush's repeated assertions, America is not actually fighting a war against terrorism any more than in World War II America was fighting a "war against kamikazism." In fact, Americas war was waged against the armies of imperial Japan. Kamikazism was merely a tactic that was used by the adversary.

So, too, terrorism is not the enemy but merely a strategy employed by the enemy. There are terrorist groups all over the world: the IRA in Northern Ireland, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the Maoist rebels in Nepal, the Shining Path guerillas in Peru. Is the United States at war with all these groups? Of course not. Even Al Qaeda should not be understood exclusively as a terror group or franchise. Primarily it is a combat training enterprise whose training camps in Afghanistan, the Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere were used to develop paramilitary fighters. Several of Al Qaeda's attacks, such as the bombing of the USS Cole, were clearly aimed at military targets and can hardly be called "terrorism" in any meaningful sense.

Even on 9/11 Osama bin Laden's goal was not to kill civilians per se but to strike out at the symbols of Americas economy (World Trade Center), Americas government (the White House or Capitol) and Americas military (the Pentagon). Although 9/11 is routinely described as a terrorist attack, it's hard to deny that the Pentagon was a military target. Yes, there were civilians on the planes, but the purpose of hijacking planes was not to kill the civilians on board but to use the winged juggernauts as flaming projectiles to destroy the intended symbolic targets. Whether those who were in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon happened to be civilian or military seems incidental to the planners. Would 9/11 have been less an act of war had the World Trade Center been unoccupied at the time of the attacks?

This is not to deny that bin Laden wanted to kill noncombatants. We saw him on the videotape rejoice over the large number of civilian deaths. Undoubtedly he would have been even more delighted had 30,000 rather than 3,000 perished in those attacks. I am not objecting to the characterization of 9/11 as terrorism. Instead I am focusing on the wider scope of Al Qaeda, and the fact that terrorism is simply one feature of its declared war against America. This is also true of the insurgency in Iraq. While they are quite willing to kill civilians, the insurgents would prefer to kill American soldiers. Their goal is not terrorism for its own sake but as a means to seize power, defeat the elected government and drive America out of Iraq.

A further problem with the war on terror is that it provides a misleading framework for understanding the post-9/11 world. In particular, this framework has encouraged the Bush administration and many conservatives to describe as "terrorist" causes that cannot be dismissed in this way, and thus to make enemies of people who pose no real danger to the United States. Since 9/11, whenever there is trouble in the world—the Bali bombings, the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Madrid bombing, the Chechen uprising, the Kashmir conflict, the London bombingthe Bush administration recalls 9/11 and cries out, "Terrorism!"

Granted, some of these episodes—the bombings in Bali, Madrid and London—are terrorism in the classic sense. But there is a crucial distinction between those cases and the conflicts in Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir. These latter cases involve wars of selfdetermination, disputes over legitimate title to land and rule. In these situations it seems wrong to dismiss the merits of one side's claims by simply chanting "terrorism." No one can deny the horror of Palestinian and Chechen attacks on civilians, but these have to be measured against the state-sponsored terror on the other side: the bulldozing of Palestinian homes, the shooting of stone-throwing teenagers, the obliteration of the Chechen capital of Grozny (which killed innumerable civilians) by Russian troops. The issue here is not merely one of moral symmetry or the need to assess the culpability of both sides. It is that the Bush administration is making deadly foes of groups that have no reason to seek to harm America, until they discover that America is taking sides against them.

MYTH NO. 2: THE ISLAMIC RADICALS ARE "BACKWARD" MUSLIMS who are against science, capitalism and modernity. Almost without exception the major figures of Islamic radicalism and fundamentalism are Western-born, Western-trained or lived in the West. A good example is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the chief architects of 9/11 who studied in America in the 1980s at two different colleges in North Carolina. Radicals such as Mohammed typically do not have religious backgrounds but have been trained in science and engineering. Bin Laden studied civil engineering; Mohammed, mechanical engineering; Aymal al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's physician and confidant, medicine; and 9/11 leader Muhammad Atta, urban planning. It was in Germany, not in his native country of Egypt, that Atta reportedly joined the bin Laden cause.

The pattern extends far beyond 9/11. Ramzi Yusuf, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is an electronics engineer who graduated from the Swansea Institute in South Wales. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man who beheaded journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002, was born in England and studied at the London School of Economics. The shoe-bomber Richard Reid, sentenced to life in prison for attempting to blow up a U.S. jetliner in 2001, was also British-born. Zacarias Moussaoui, who got a life sentence in 2006 for plotting terrorist attacks in America, is a native of France. Jose Padilla, who trained at an Al Qaeda facility and was also implicated in terrorist plots and arrested in 2002, was born and radicalized in the United States. The perpetrators of the 2005 London subway bombings were native-born British Muslims.

Modern forms of media and communications are vital to the spread of Muslim fundamentalist ideas. The Iranian revolution was the first electronically driven revolution in history, and it was made possible by the cassette, the means by which Grand Ayatollah Khomeinis incendiary sermons were heard throughout the country. Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera uses the latest techniques of broadcast sensationalism to publicize the cause of bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Laden could never have functioned so effectively from Afghanistan without an operating network of satellite phones. Al Qaeda communicates with its followers—and with the worldby videotapes and Web sites.

The 9/11 attacks themselves showed all the hallmarks of modernity: not simply the use of the paraphernalia of modern technology to blow up the symbols of American modernity, but the entire stage management of 9/11, a special kind of "reality show" using martyrdom as a form of advertising and real people in the explosion scenes. It was TV that gave 9/11 its emotional impact. In the same manner the beheadings of Americans and American "collaborators" in Iraq are routinely videotaped and broadcast Over the Internet. Such propaganda is vital to the grisly enterprise. Without media these forms of terrorism would be much less terrifying.

Not only do Islamic radicals like science and technology—if only to further their purposes—they are also supporters of commerce and capitalism. Historically, of the three Mediterranean religions—-Judaism, Christianity and Islam—Islam is the most favorable to trade. The prophet Muhammad was, after all, a trader. Although Islam, like Christianity, condemns usury, unlike Christianity it has always looked favorably on profit and commercial activity. Islamic fundamentalists are generally pro-capitalist and some have adopted the very latest business models. The 9/11 Commission report terms Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a "terrorist entrepreneur," and the French scholar Gilles Kepel describes A Qaeda as a kind of terrorist "franchise" that does not orchestrate attacks so much as fund "startup" groups whose business plans it finds promising.

MYTH NO. 3: THE RADICAL MUSLIMS OPPOSE DEMOCRACY and hate us for our freedom. This is utterly absurd. The writings of Islarpic radicals contain no denunciations of freedom, although they contain many denunciations of the way that freedom is used in the West. Moreover, many Muslim radicals and fundamentalists have become supporters of democracy. To be sure, bin Laden and Al Qaeda are outspoken critics of democracy. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's former head of operations in Iraq, frequently railed against "this evil principle of democracy." But the main reason he opposed Iraqi democracy was that his group, the Sunni, is in the minority. (For the same reason, the Iraqi Shia, led by Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have become avid proponents of democracy. They are the majority group, and they realize that democracy means that they win.) Just as predictably, the ruling mullahs of Iran, who don't wish to risk their power in free elections, reject democracy.

But the major organizations of radical Islam are "the loudest voices calling for greater democracy... in nearly every Muslim country," writes What We Owe Iraq author Noah Feldman. Once again, this is not because Islamic radicals have been reading philosopher John Stuart Mill or the Federalist Papers. Islamic radicals support democracy as a means for their group to win political power. In the early 1990s in Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front enjoyed stunning electoral success, routing the National Liberation Front that had led the fight for the country's independence. One of the groups leaders, Abbasi Madani, made it clear that his support for democracy was tactical. "Yes, the way is the elections," he said. "There is no other way at the present moment. All other ways have been obstructed by Allah." So alarming was the prospect of this fundamentalist group taking power that the ruling party nullified the election result, plunging the country into civil war.

Islamic radicals could hardly have missed the significance of their recent successes in Egypt and the Palestinian territories. In Egypt's 2005 parliamentary election the Muslim Brotherhood won five times as many seats as it previously held, making itself the leading opposition to President Hosni Mubarak's regime. No wonder that Mohammed Mahdi Akef, head of the group, speaks favorably about democracy. "The ballot box has the final say," he said recently. "We don't believe in any other means of taking power." In the 2006 Palestinian elections Hamas routed the candidates of the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party. Palestinian minister Sheikh Nayef Rajoub says that Hamas has learned that the way to take over the government is to play "the democracy game."

All of this places the Bush conservatives in an awkward situation. Are Bush and his conservative allies sincere in calling for democracy in the Muslim world? Consider the risk they are tak- ing. Quite possibly free elections would result in every pro-American ruler, including all of Americas major allies (Pervez Musharaff in Pakistan, Mubarak in Egypt, King Abdullah in Jordan and the royal family in Saudi Arabia) being ejected from power. "Across the Arab world, elections held tomorrow would probably bring to power regimes that are more intolerant, reactionary, anti-Western and anti-Semitic than the dictatorships currently in place," writes Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria.

Imagine a free election six months from now in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal family is voted out. Islamic radicals of the bin Laden stripe are elected by an overwhelming margin. They are now in control of Islam's holy sites as well as the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. Backed by the Saudi people, they announce their willingness to use their newfound power to wage more effective jihad against the United States. Would the United States be willing to live with this outcome? Of course not. Nor should it. So for the United States to let the Saudi people decide on their rulers is to risk an outcome that could be, from the American point of view, catastrophic. For this reason I think it is highly doubtful that the United States would hazard a Saudi election that might bring Islamic radicals and Al Qaeda supporters to power.

Finding Answers

THE BEST WAY FOR AMERICA TO WIN THE WAR ON TERROR is to make alliances with traditional Muslims to stem the influence of the radical Muslims. Traditional Muslims are the majority group in the Islamic world. They make up perhaps 65 to 70 percent of the population. But traditional Islam is also the recruiting pool for radical Islam. What this means is that America cannot win its battle with radical Islam simply through military means. The military strategy is indispensable, as in Iraq, but it needs to be supplemented by a political and diplomatic strategy. The reason is that no matter how many Islamic radicals America kills, the purpose is defeated if twice as many traditional Muslims sign up for the radical camp. Therefore it is imperative for America to drive a wedge between traditional Muslims and radical Muslims.

How to do this? Here's one important approach of the strategy I outline in my new book, The Enemy At Home. One of the biggest concerns of traditional Muslims is that they want to live in societies that defend Muslim interests and uphold Islamic values. They are not in a position to do this because most of the regimes in the Middle East today are secular tyrannies. Some examples of this are Egypt under Mubarak, Jordan under Abdullah, and the Gulf kingdoms. American conservatives tend to support these regimes because they are pro-American, and American liberals tend to support them because they are secular. Against secular tyranny the radical Muslims offer their own alternative: Islamic tyranny. Iran is a perfect example of this, and an Iran-style theocracy is what bin Laden would like to see throughout the region. While traditional Muslims don't like Islamic tyranny, they detest secular tyranny. Given the bleak choice between these two, we should not be entirely surprised that some Muslims—even traditional Muslims—might opt for Islamic tyranny. If we're going to have tyranny, they reason, let it at least be Islamic.

So the way for America to build bridges to traditional Muslims is to cautiously and prudentially support democracy in the Middle East. I underscore the terms "cautiously" and "prudentially" because I am not calling for a global democracy initiative of the type that President Bush has previously extolled. Yes, democracy is our ideal, but that does not mean we should support democracy everywhere or in every single case. When should America support democracy? When it is in Americas interest to do so. Iraq is one such case. Saudi Arabia is not.

Incredibly, many Americans think that Islam is somehow incompatible with democracy, or that traditional Muslims don't want democracy. In reality, a majority of the worlds Muslims today live under democratic governments—in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Turkey as well as Muslims living in Western countries. There is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic tradition that forbids democracy.

But America cannot support democracy while telling the Muslims whom to vote for. In the Palestinian election America openly lobbied for the candidates of Fatah, the party of Arafat. Not surprisingly, a majority of Muslims voted for Hamas, which presented itself as the party that would fight for Muslim interests. Similarly in Iraq, America initially wanted the secular, liberal fellow Iyad Allawi. The Iraqis decided on the more religious candidates, first Ibrahim al-Jafaari and now Nouri al-Maliki. Typically America interferes in Islamic elections because it wants Muslims to adopt the kind of secular, liberal democracy that most Muslims emphatically reject. Muslims are generally religious and socially conservative, and they fear secular liberalism as a threat to their core values.

Should we permit traditional Muslims to establish Islamic societies under sharia if they wish? Yes, we should. This is the essential meaning of democracy—Muslims must choose their own way. Iraq is the test case for this. If the people of Iraq want Islam to be the state religion, we should allow it to happen. If they want sharia, let them have it. There's no reason to try to turn Baghdad into Boston. Just as democracy has enabled Japan to establish a very different kind of society than France or America, so This is multiculturalism in its truest and best sense, and it deserves American support. Democratization does not mean Westernization.

Support for democracy does not mean that America needs a worldwide campaign to overthrow unelected regimes. While democracy is desirable as a long-term goal, it is not always to Americas benefit to have democracy now. Foreign policy is not philanthropy, but rather a way for America to promote its interests worldwide. America is not obliged to use its resources to produce anti-American outcomes. There are hereditary monarchs in the Middle East, as in the Gulf kingdoms, who are pro-American and enjoy fairly high levels of popular esteem. It would be imprudent under current circumstances to pressure these kingdoms to democratize or liberalize. (They are already quite liberal by Middle Eastern standards.) Nor should America seek to coerce tyrants such as Musharaff, Mubarak and the Saudi royal family to become more liberal or secular. If they do, they will become further alienated from their people and more vulnerable to being overthrown.

When there are democratic results, as with the election victories of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, America must recognize the legitimacy of the peoples choice. But this imposes no obligation on the United States to provide aid or support to regimes that oppose American interests and attack American allies Iraq represents Americas initiative not to establish democracy everywhere but to establish democracy somewhere.

The radical Muslims want America to fail in Iraq not because they fear democracy per se but because they fear pro-American democracy. This is something truly new in the Middle East, and despite the difficulties in Iraq we should give it a chance to work. It would be of incalculable benefit to America to show that democracy can succeed in the Middle East, even in the face of violent opposition. Then we can let the traditional Muslims pursue it for themselves. In this way the traditional Muslims can be our unlikely allies in countering the influence of radical Islam.

OT ONLY DO ISLAMIC RADICALS LIKE THEY ARE ALSO SUPPORTERS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,COMMERCE AND CAPITALISM.

There is nothing in the koran or THE ISLAMIC TRADITION THAT FORBIDS DEMOCRACY

DLNESH D'SOUZAS new book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, has just been published by Doubleday. D'Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at StanfordUniversity.