US must defeat the ideology.

By Ted Belman

In my article, America’s Limited Options, written in 2007, I wrote:

Bush has taken the first step by dropping the use of the phrase “war on terror” and now refers to the battle “as a global war of ideology against a network of terrorists”. He remains unwilling to finger the Saudi support for the Wahhabist ideology which leads to terrorism. To talk about root causes of terror, that has to rank way up there.

The Rand Corporation issued a major report, Building Moderate Muslim Networks in which they advocated that:

“the United States must do more to develop and support networks of moderate Muslims who are too often silenced by violent radical Islamists. 

“Instead of focusing on the Middle East, where most of the radical Islamic thought originates and is firmly entrenched, the report recommends reaching out to activists, leaders and intellectuals in Turkey, Southeast Asia, Europe and other open societies. The goal of this outreach would be to reverse the flow of ideas and have more democratic ideas flow back to the less fertile ground for moderate network-building of the Middle East.

”Partners in this network-building effort should be those who share key dimensions of democratic culture, the study says. The report recommends targeting five groups as potential building blocks for networks: liberal and secular Muslim academics and intellectuals; young moderate religious scholars; community activists; women’s groups engaged in gender equality campaigns; and moderate journalists and scholars”.

Daniel Pipes has long insisted that  “radical Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution”. In support of this report he wrote Bolstering Moderate Muslims and A Million Moderate Muslims on the March and he is joined by others in this opinion, including The Hudson Institute.

Having said that, there are many, including Andrew Bostom and Hirsi Ali, who discount the potential of this effort succeeding either because of intimidation or because the “moderates” are so few in number. (See also Alyssa Lappen’s Moderate and Radical Muslims: the Confused PBS View )

Perhaps the last word goes to Fjordman who in his column, Do we want an Islamic Reformation? wrote,

The only way you could, even theoretically, create a peaceful, tolerant Islam would be to permanently ignore all teachings, contained in the Koran, the hadith and the sira, originating from the violent Medina period. I doubt whether this is practically possible, and even if it was, it would mean that Muslims quite literally have to get rid of half of the Koran, which again means that Mr. Wilder is correct.

Nevertheless, I submit that such an effort as laid out by Rand Institute must be encouraged and supported with billions of dollars. But nothing short of a reformation of Islam will do. Islam must excise the odious (to the western mind at least) elements.

Secondly, it stands to reason that if the US is going to work actively to support the reformation of Islam, it must at the same time work to undermine contrary forces and influences. Laws must be passed which outlaws Islamists and the preaching of political Islam as subversive. Anyone or group advocating for political Islam must be imprisoned or deported. Political correctness shouldn’t prevent honest criticism of the objectionable aspects of Islam. The exercise of free speech shouldn’t be restricted if it is offensive.

In another article, the link for which I cannot find,I suggested that for the moderates to be the solution, the US government should ban CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and support a moderate Muslim organization such as one headed by Zuhdi Jasser and fund them to the tune or $100 million a year.

In Trump’s recent Foreign Policy speech he said:

“If I become President, the era of nation-building will be ended. Our new approach, which must be shared by both parties in America, by our allies overseas, and by our friends in the Middle East, must be to halt the spread of Radical Islam.

All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which shares this goal will be our ally. We cannot always choose our friends, but we can never fail to recognize our enemies.

As President, I will call for an international conference focused on this goal. We will work side-by-side with our friends in the Middle East, including our greatest ally, Israel. We will partner with King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Sisi of Egypt, and all others who recognize this ideology of death that must be extinguished.

Without mentioning Saudi Arabia by name, I think he put her in the cross hairs. Saudi Arabia cannot continue to support Wahabbism in the US and throughout the world and still be considered a friend of the US.

In support of this, he drew a parallel,

Just as we won the Cold War, in part, by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of Radical Islam.