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Daniel Pipes- Contributor
Daniel
Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum, a member of the
presidentially-appointed board of the U.S.
Institute of Peace,
and a prize-winning columnist for the New York Sun and The
Jerusalem Post. His most recent book, Miniatures:
Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction
Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org,
the single most accessed source of information specifically
on
the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and a chance
to sign-up to receive his new materials as they appear. [go
to Pipes index]
 Washington
Finally Gets It on Radical Islam
The ideology front...
[Daniel Pipes] 4/27/05
Does the
Bush administration really believe, as its leadership has kept
repeating since
right after 9/11, that Islam is a "religion of peace" not
connected to the problem of terrorism? Plenty
of indications suggested that it knew better, but year
after year the official line remained the same. From the outside,
it seemed that officialdom was engaged in active self-delusion.
In fact,
things were better than they seemed, as David E. Kaplan establishes
in an important investigation in U.S. News & World Report,
based on over 100 interviews and the review of a dozen internal
documents. Earlier arguments over the nature of the enemy -
terrorism
vs. radical Islam - have been resolved: America's highest
officials
widely agree that the country's "greatest ideological foe is
a highly politicized form of radical Islam and that Washington
and its allies cannot afford to stand by" as it gains in strength.
To fight this ideology, the U.S. government now promotes a
non-radical interpretation of Islam.
In "Hearts,
Minds, and Dollars: In an Unseen Front in the War on Terrorism,
America is Spending Millions to Change the Very Face of Islam," dated
today, Kaplan explains that Washington recognizes it has
a security interest not just within the Muslim world but
within Islam. Therefore, it must engage in shaping the very
religion of Islam. Washington has focused on the root causes
of terrorism not poverty or U.S. foreign policy, but a
compelling political ideology.
A key document
in reaching this conclusion was the National
Strategy for Combating Terrorism, issued by the White
House in February 2003, which served as the basis for the bolder,
more detailed, Muslim World Outreach, completed in mid-2004
and now the authoritative guide. (A government discussion of
this topic, dating from August 2004, is available
online.) The U.S. government, being a secular and predominantly
non-Muslim institution, faces many limitations in what is at
base a religious dispute, so it turns to Muslim organizations
that share its goals, including governments, foundations, and
nonprofit groups.
The tactics
for fighting radical Islam and promoting moderate Islam vary
from one government department to another: it's covert operations
at the CIA, psyops at the Pentagon, and public diplomacy at
the State Department. Whatever the name and approach, the common
element is to encourage the benign evolution of Islam. Toward
this end, the U.S. government, Kaplan writes, "has embarked
on a campaign of political warfare unmatched since the height
of the Cold War." The goal is:
to influence
not only Muslim societies but Islam itself…Although U.S.
officials say they are wary of being drawn into a theological
battle, many have concluded that America can no longer sit
on the sidelines as radicals and moderates fight over the
future of a politicized religion with over a billion followers.
The result has been an extraordinary—and growing—effort to
influence what officials describe as an Islamic reformation.
In at least
two dozen countries, Kaplan writes:
Washington
has quietly funded Islamic radio and TV shows, coursework
in Muslim schools, Muslim think tanks, political workshops,
or other programs that promote moderate Islam. Federal aid
is going to restore mosques, save ancient Korans, even build
Islamic schools…individual CIA stations overseas are making
some gutsy and innovative moves. Among them: pouring money
into neutralizing militant, anti-U.S. preachers and recruiters. "If
you found out that Mullah Omar is on one street corner doing
this, you set up Mullah Bradley on the other street corner
to counter it," explains one recently retired official. In
more-serious cases, he says, recruiters would be captured
and "interrogated." Intelligence operatives have set up bogus
jihad websites and targeted the Arab news media.
In all, various
agencies of the U.S. government are active in this Islamic
activity in at least 24 countries. Projects include:
the restoration
of historic mosques in Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan.
In Kirgizstan, embassy funding helped restore a major Sufi
shrine. In Uzbekistan, money has gone to preserve antique
Islamic manuscripts, including 20 Korans, some dating to
the 11th century. In Bangladesh, USAID is training
mosque leaders on development issues. In Madagascar, the
embassy even sponsored an intermosque sports tournament.
Also being funded: Islamic media of all sorts, from book
translations to radio and TV in at least a half-dozen nations.
Madrassahs,
or Islamic schools, are a particular concern, for these train
the next generation of jihadis and terrorists. Washington
deploys several tactics to counter their influence:
-
In Pakistan,
U.S. funds go discreetly to third parties to train madrassah
teachers to add practical subjects (math, science, and
health) to their curriculum, as well as civics classes.
A "model madrassah" program that may eventually include
more than a thousand schools is also now underway.
-
In the
Horn of Africa (defined by the Pentagon as Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen), the U.S. military
finds out where Islamists plan to start a madrassah, then
builds a public school in direct competition with it.
-
In Uganda,
the U.S. embassy has signed
three grant awards to fund the construction of three
elementary-level madrassahs.
Kaplan quotes
one American terrorism analyst saying, "We're in the madrassah
business." But not all aid has an explicit Islamic theme. American
money is partially funding a satellite version of the Sesame
Street in Arabic stressing the need for religious tolerance.
Funds for
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has nearly
tripled, to more than $21 billion; and of this, more than half
goes to the Muslim world. In addition to the familiar economic
development programs, political projects involving Islamic
groups, such as political training and media funding, are moving
to the forefront. Spending on public diplomacy by the State
Department has risen by nearly half since 9/11, to nearly $1.3
billion, with more expected. This largess has funded, among
other programs, the Arabic-language Radio Sawa and Alhurra
Television. Despite many complaints, Kaplan says they are showing
signs of success. Plans ahead include making Alhurra available
in Europe, and expanding programming in Persian and other key
languages.
Comments:
1. Working
to change how Muslims understand their religion, of course,
raises some difficult implications. It is one thing to want
to help moderate Muslims and quite another to locate them.
As I noted in "Identifying
Moderate Muslims," there is great confusion over who really
is a moderate Muslim and the
U.S. government so far has a terrible record in this regard.
I sure hope those implementing the Muslim World Outreach agenda
are engaging in the necessary research to get it right.
2. The
possibility exists that U.S. taxpayer dollars funding Islamic
media, schools, and mosques will beef up their capabilities,
for influencing Islam and promoting Islam are
easily melded, especially given the
pro-Islamic attitudes of American political leaders. (For
this reason I have criticized the
building of a mosque in Iraq and madrassahs in Indonesia.)
To promote Islam contravenes the First Amendment ("Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion")
and one constitutional expert, Herman Schwartz, deems the sponsorship
of Islamic institutions to be "probably unconstitutional." This
again points to the need for extreme care.
3. I
heartily endorse the Muslim World Outreach approach;
this is hardly surprising, for it closely aligns with my own
recommendations. Here are excerpts from my January 2002 article, "Who
Is the Enemy?":
The United
States, an overwhelmingly non-Muslim country, obviously cannot
fix the problems of the Muslim world. … But outsiders, and
the United States in particular, can critically help in precipitating
the battle and in influencing its outcome. They can do so
both by weakening the militant side and by helping the moderate
one…Weakening militant Islam will require an imaginative
and assertive policy, one tailored to the needs of each country.
But let
us not delude ourselves. If the United States has over 100
million Islamist enemies (not to speak of an even larger
number of Muslims who wish us ill on assorted other grounds),
they cannot all be incapacitated. Instead, the goal must
be to deter and contain them…That is where the moderate Muslims
come in. If roughly half the population across the Muslim
world hates America, the other half does not. Unfortunately,
they are disarmed, in disarray, and nearly voiceless. But
the United States does not need them for their power. It
needs them for their ideas and for the legitimacy they confer,
and in these respects their strengths exactly complement
Washington's.…
[T]he U.S.
role is less to offer its own views than to help those Muslims
with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations
with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women
and minorities. This means helping moderates get their ideas
out on U.S.-funded radio stations like the newly-created
Radio Free Afghanistan and, as Paula Dobriansky, the Undersecretary
of State for global affairs, has suggested, making sure that
tolerant Islamic figures—scholars, imams, and others—are
included in U.S.-funded academic- and cultural-exchange programs.
4. It
is very good that David Kaplan has made available the outlines
of Washington's efforts to fix Islam. This is a project too
large for the government alone to work on; the body politic
as a whole needs to argue it out.
tRO
This piece
first appeared in FrontPageMagazine
copyright
2005 Daniel Pipes
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