he tragedy of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent con-ceptualizing of the war on terrorism have presented a verydifficult problem to those responsible for framing the strat-egy. The basic problem has been one of defining the enemy.After four years, this problem still eludes a clear definition

although the national leadership has been care-fully moving toward a more definitive description.

The basic obstacle has been one of clearly describingthe enemy without seeming to single out the world’s secondlargest religion, Islam, as the cause or facilitator of this ter-rorism. To differentiate the radical forms of Islam from themainstream Islamic community, the word “Islamism” wascoined to describe an ideological movement using Islam asthe vehicle to power. Others term it political Islam, whilesome journalists and media types still refer to it as Muslimfundamentalism.

In actuality there is a wide gap between the fundamental-ists and Islamists. While the fundamentalists may acceptmany of the views of the Islamists, for example, the law ofthe land being the Sharia (Islamic law) primarily based on

January 2006 ■ ARMY 55

By Col. Norvell B. De AtkineU.S. Army retired

the Koran,(the sacred word of God delivered in Arabic toMohammed), and Hadiths (sayings and actions of theprophet Mohammed), they do not necessarily share theview that only violence will bring about the reestablish-ment of the Caliphate (the worldwide Islamic community).

The Caliphate existed in theory until 1923 when KemalAtaturk abolished the Ottoman Empire and established themodern state of Turkey. In actuality it had not existed as aviable entity for more than a thousand years. Petty Muslimstates fragmented the Caliphate around 1000 AD. Reestab-lishment of the Islamic Caliphate is one of the consistent

views of the Islamists—the concept of the entire Islamicworld stretching from Mauritania and Spain to Mindanao,under a ruler who would represent the spiritual as well asthe secular; an Islamic nation in which the tribal differ-ences, nationalities and other divisive factors have all beeneradicated. In the more ambitious scenario of the radicalglobal Islamists, sometimes referred to as jihadists,theworld will never be stabilized until Islam controls it, withthe absorption of the House of War (non-Islamic lands) bythe House of Peace (Islamic world). As part of this design,the concept of jihad has been elevated to a household wordwith very little understanding of its nature. Jihad has amuch more nuanced meaning than “holy war,” but inessence it conveys the manner in which the overall objec-tive of subjecting all the peoples of the earth to Islamwould be accomplished. In “Islam and the Modern Law ofNations,” The American Journal of International Law,April1956, reprinted by the Middle East Institute, Washington,D.C., Majid Khadduri explained jihad as an intensive reli-gious propaganda program that takes the form of a contin-uous process of warfare, psychological and political, noless than strictly military. Unfortunately, the same articledescribes “jihad as a weapon that has become obsolete.” Itwas a typical post-World War II belief.

In his October 6, 2005, address to the National Endow-ment for Democracy, President Bush made it clear that ter-

rorism is not the enemy, but rather Islamic terrorism, aconcept that had been clearly described in the 9/11 report.

The enemy is not just “terrorism.” It is the threat posedspecifically by Islamist terrorism, by bin Laden and otherswho draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within aminority strain of Islam that does not distinguish politicsfrom religion, and distorts both.

The President was even more specific:

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism;others, militant jihadism;still others, Is-lamo-Fascism. Whatever it’s called, itsideology is very different from the reli-gion of Islam. This form of radicalismexploits Islam to serve a violent, politi-cal vision: the establishment by terror-ism and subversion and insurgency of atotalitarian empire that denies all politi-cal and religious freedom.

While historically one can go back a very long way in Is-lamic history to trace the roots of this form of radical Islam,from the philosophy of Ibn Tammiya, the Salafiyah move-ment, evolving into the more fundamentalist Wahhabi doc-trine of Saudi Arabia, to the 1940s’ philosopher of violence,Sayed Ibn Qutb, its eclectic philosophy defies simplisticdefinition or description. In this era, the modern apostlesof violence, the Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, the Egyptian,Ayman Zawahiri, and the Saudi, Osama bin Laden, haveused religious texts, borrowing selectively and inventingwhere necessary traditional Islamic teachings. My inten-tion here is to analyze the current status of the Islamist andthe Islamic connection to terrorism and present the politi-cal military implications, rather than the theological andtextual evolution of global Islamism.

My personal initiation into the terrorist world occurredin 1970 as I was preparing to depart Beirut after three yearsas a student at the American University of Beirut in theForeign Area Officer Program. The assistant Army attachéin Amman, Jordan, Maj. Robert Perry, was murdered in hishome by Palestinian thugs. I was sent as his replacement.During my time in Jordan, the Palestinian Front for theLiberation of Palestine hijacked four aircraft, landing threeon Dawson’s Field and holding hundreds of passenger’shostage, an event that culminated in the bitter conflict be-tween the East Bank Jordanians and West Bank Palestini-ans. Expulsion of the Palestinian Liberation organizationsfrom Jordan led to formation of the Black September orga-nization and a series of brutal attacks on Israelis and West-erners.

My next personal encounter with terrorism, this time Is-lamist rather than nationalist, was as a spectator at the Oc-tober 1981 Armed Forces Day parade in Cairo, Egypt. Sit-ting in the stands about 30 meters from President AnwarSadat, I observed the surreal assassination of the president

56 ARMY ■ January 2006

In actuality there is a wide gap between the

fundamentalists and Islamists … they do not

necessarily share the view that only violence will

bring about the reestablishment of the Caliphate

(the worldwide Islamic community).

COL. NORVELL B. DE ATKINE, USA Ret., served as an ArmyForeign Area Specialist in a number of Middle Eastern assign-ments, living in the area for eight years. He has traveled ex-tensively in the region for the past 15 years as an instructor ofMiddle Eastern political-military subjects for the U.S. mili-tary. Col. De Atkine graduated from the U.S. Military Acad-emy and obtained a master’s degree in Arab Studies at theAmerican University of Beirut. The opinions expressed in thearticle are those of its author.

January 2006 ■ ARMY 57

and monitored the subsequent abor-tive revolts in several Egyptian cities.Little did I know the spiritual mentorof that assassination, Sheikh AbdulRahman, would be before me in courtsome 14 years later.

Through a convoluted set of cir-cumstances, primarily as a result ofmy work association with the “GreenBeret” sergeant, Ali Mohamed, I wassubpoenaed as a defense witness at the trial of Abdul Rah-man and nine others at the “Blind Sheikh” conspiracy trialin 1996. Sgt. Ali Mohamed was not a Special Forces soldierbut had completed the Special Forces course as an Egypt-ian officer. He was not a defendant at the 1995 “BlindSheikh” trial, but was later arrested and convicted for hispart in the Kenya and Tanzania bombings in 2000. Hisrather strange career is told in the Raleigh News and Ob-server, October 21, 2001, “Al-Qaeda Operative dupes FBI,Army.” In preparation for the trial the defense lawyers hadbecome close to the defendants and were far more knowl-edgeable about the terrorist mind than many academicswho are considered experts. I was especially impressed bythe lawyer for El Sayyid Nosair. Nosair had previouslybeen tried for the murder of the radical Rabbi Meir Ka-hane. His lifestyle and personality, as his lawyer put it, wasthe personification of the famous term coined by HannahArendt, the “banality of evil,” a personification that ap-plies to the vast majority of Islamist terrorists.

The experience at this trial, brief asit was, allowed me some insight intothe terrorist mind-set. I continued tostudy the Islamist movement overthe years, and as a result, I haveformed some definite opinions onwho these people are and what theythink. It is in this context that I offermy analysis of the Islamist terroristmovement.

Islamism—What It IsIslamism is a totalitarian ideology

that seeks to use Islam as a vehicle to power. Its doctrine isa contrived mélange of fascist notions of racial superiority,Marxist techniques of human conditioning and capitalisticentrepreneurship. It conceives a government ruled by theimmutable word of God as contained in the Koran that dis-tinguishes it from “man-made” systems of governmentsuch as socialism, communism and democracy. It isequally opposed to nationalism, seen also as a Western im-port, and any belief or movement that tends to fragmentthe Umma (Islamic community). This would include vari-ous varieties of Pan-Arabism such as the Ba’athist move-ment and the Pan-Turanism of Turkey. In the Hadiths theProphet Mohammed spoke of the dangers of tribalism,which, in the modern interpretation, is meant to be anyideology divisive to the unity of the Islamic community

worldwide. Analysts should not make the mistake ofthinking, however, that ideological differences betweenArab nationalists and Islamists preclude alliances againstcommon foes. The current tacit alliance between remnantsof the Ba’athists and followers of Abu Musab Az-Zarkawiin Iraq is simply a tactical alliance, but nevertheless adeadly one, based on the premise that the “enemy of myenemy is my friend.”

What Islamism Is Not Islamism is not a movement that advocates a return to

the seventh century, not even in theology (although theydo present the façade of doing so). The Islamists haveproven themselves very adept in using the latest in tech-nology, particularly in information warfare and communi-cations. Their use of advanced media technology and so-phisticated communications to obtain support for theircause, and their meticulous keeping of records on themany laptops uncovered in Afghanistan, is indicative of

their heavy reliance on the latest in technology and the factthat many of the leadership are well-educated in hard sci-ences.

The Islamist movement is not monolithic; there is nopolitburo disseminating orders, but rather a generallycommon mind-set of injustice and hatreds with an embed-ded sense that only violence will bring about the Islamicstate. They are not united in organization or objectives, acontinuing issue being whether or not the first targetshould be the indigenous rulers of the Islamic world or theWest, particularly the United States. Moreover, the globalIslamists do not really have a clear-cut doctrine, especiallyone of framing the structure of a government or its domes-tic programs, relying instead on slogans like “Islam is theanswer.”

Islamism is a totalitarian ideology that seeks to

use Islam as a vehicle to power. Its doctrine is a

contrived mélange of fascist notions of racial

superiority, Marxist techniques of human

conditioning and capitalistic entrepreneurship.

Islamism is not a movement that advocates a

return to the seventh century, not even in theology

(although they do present the façade of doing

so).The Islamists have proven themselves very

adept in using the latest in technology,

particularly in information warfare and

communications.

Nor is the Islamist movement wildly popular in the Is-lamic world. A survey taken by the University of Jordanfound a wide majority of Muslims in the Levant and Egyptoppose a fundamentalist view of Islam.

Despite the incompetence and corruption endemic toArab regimes, there have been no popular Islamic upris-ings. When closely examined, even the Iranian revolutionof 1979 was a revolt of the bazaaris (middle class bour-geoisie shop owners) and disenfranchised clergy. More-over, the corruption and authoritarianism of the revolu-tionary government has cooled the enthusiasm for theIranian model even among Iranians themselves.

Islamist attacks in Egypt have alienated the public, andin Algeria, bloody and brutal warfare is winding downwith the Islamists reduced to sporadic murders. The popu-lar appeal of Hamas in Gaza is not replicated in the WestBank, and Hezbollah of south Lebanon has remained a basi-cally Shiite movement with its activities generally confinedto Lebanon.

On the other hand, it is incorrect to depict the terroristacts of the global terrorists against Western, particularlyAmerican, targets as unpopular. There is a widespreadfeeling of schadenfreude,a sort of “they had it coming tothem” attitude. As an emotional feeling this should be un-derstood, but not confused with actual support. Betweenthe emotion and the deed there is an immense gap.

Events and Trends Triggering the Islamist MovementThe path to Islamism began with the establishment of

the state of Israel in 1948, but to some extent the defeat ofthe Arab armies by the Israelis was attributed to corruptrulers and European support. Prior to 1967 Arab national-ism was seen by the Arab masses as the answer to the Is-raeli challenge. The subsequent massive build-up of theEgyptian and Syrian military establishments under Soviettutelage was envisioned by the Arab masses as the instru-ment to eradicate the Zionist State.

However, the 1967 humiliating de-feat of the Egyptians and Arabs, in-flicted by the Israelis in just six days,triggered an intense self-examinationand soul-searching, with the begin-ning of a call for a return to Islamicand Arab roots and a purging of allWestern influence. This brought withit the resurgence of militant Islam.

The catastrophic defeat of 1967 was the beginning of thedecline of the pan-Arab nationalist movement, the birth ofPalestinian nationalism and the belief among intellectualsthat the Arabs had lost their way. Seyyed Qutb’s writingsbecame immensely popular, advocating complete destruc-tion of existing Arab governments and rebuilding of Is-lamic societies, a view that got him hanged by the Nasserregime.

Seyyed Qutb was one of the most important of the lead-ing exponents of “offensive jihad.” In his book, Milestones,he made it very clear that there is no distinction between

“defensive jihad” (defending the Islamic world) and offen-sive jihad (Islamizing the entire world). His vituperationagainst the West was particularly venomous, based on hisexperiences while in the United States. He apparently suf-fered under the delusion that American women found himirresistible and were constantly seeking to undermine hismoral character.

While living in Egypt in the early 1980s, I remembertalking to Egyptian officers who related that following the1967 War, people would berate them if they wore their uni-forms in public.

A little known but equally humiliating defeat of Islamwas the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. In this war eastern Pak-istan was invaded by the Indian Army and broke awayfrom Pakistan to become Bangladesh. It was an inbred be-lief among the Pakistani officers with whom I associatedwhile stationed in Jordan that the Indians were a non-mar-tial race, and despite their numerical inferiority the Pak-istanis would prevail. The subsequent result of that warwas a searing humiliation for the Pakistani officer corpsand Islamic community.

Societal trends have also contributed to this resurgenceof a more militant Islam. Most important has been the in-creasing urbanization of the Islamic world. This continuingmovement of people from farm and village to the city isbreaking down the foundation of Arab society—the ex-tended family. A very high proportion of the people mov-ing into cities are young males who are particularly vul-nerable to radical philosophies.

An early view among social scientists was that thismovement to urban areas would result in an increasinglysecular and modern society, but this has proved to be to-tally wrong. The sense of alienation and isolation from theanchor of village life has resulted in a search for the famil-iar, and it was inevitably the mosque. Of course this waseven more pronounced for those young men studying in

the West. Unable to adjust to Western society and alienatedfrom their surroundings, they fell into small groups with aghetto mentality. The Hamburg terrorist cell is a perfect ex-ample of this. From a rather vital but mundane aspect oflife in the village, Islam became an all-consuming religiousideology separating them from “others.”

Second, the so-called globalization effect of world com-munications and real-time connection, also once consid-ered to be a force for modernizing, has turned out to be aforce for retrenchment. Rather than being an agent for inte-gration into a more liberal society, it has reinforced whatSamuel Huntington calls the kin country syndrome. For in-

58 ARMY ■ January 2006

The so-called globalization effect of world

communications and real-time connection, also

once considered to be a force for modernizing,

has turned out to be a force for retrenchment.

January 2006 ■ ARMY 59

stance, Arabs living in the West who were once watchingthe local and national news networks are now watchingAl-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. It has increased the divisions be-tween the civilizations, not closed them. And of coursewhat one sees on Al-Jazeera,despite a façade of sophisti-cated presentation of straight news, is a heavily overlaidbut subtle message of Sunni-centrism and radical Islam,prompting many Shiites in Iraq to term it “the Wahhabi net-work.”

Conditions within the Muslim, particularly Arab, worldhave also acted as a catalyst for the growth of Islamistmovements. Stagnation of the political environment, aswell as the economic environment, has contributed might-ily to the popularity of the Islamistmessage. Most of the Arab world isnow ruled by political dynasties,many rulers being old and/or bereftof any new ideas, other than those re-quired to keep themselves in power.Ironically, the decadence and incom-petence of most of the Arab leader-ship have prompted a major split instrategy among terrorist groups.

One wing of the Islamist camp ad-vocated attacking the local regimes.To the purists within the Islamist movement there are notrue Islamic governments in existence. The Iranian govern-ment is Shiite, a branch of Islam considered by the Is-lamists to be tifkar,a corrupted and heretical sect of Islamto be eradicated. Ironically, the Saud family of Arabia isseen as a corrupt puppet of the United States, despite theirefforts to spread the Wahhabibrand of Islam throughoutthe world. The group that proved to be ascendant focusedon Western targets. Palestinian and leading Islamist intel-lectual, Abdullah Azzam, was probably murdered becauseof his opposition to the Zawahiri philosophy of globalstrategy, which eventually was adopted by Osama binLaden.

Economically, the Arab world has dramatically retro-gressed. Subtracting oil as a factor from the equation, theentire Middle East of 260 million people exports fewergoods than the five million people of Finland. Everywherethere is a great deal of unemployment and even more un-deremployment. This is further aggravated by the highrate of population growth and the total inability of the ex-isting governments to provide an environment for eco-nomic growth. Meant to provide jobs, bloated governmentbureaucracies only deepen discontent and discourage out-side investment. On top of this bleak picture is the massivecorruption endemic to the Arab world and the inordinateportion of the national coin devoted to “national security,”most of which is simply largess to the military leadershipin order to maintain themselves in power.

The Underlying Context of Islamist AppealAs Bernard Lewis has written, “In the course of the 20th

century it became abundantly clear in the Middle East and

indeed all over the lands of Islam that things had indeedgone badly wrong.” Everyone with a cursory knowledgeof the Islamic world recognizes the immense contributionof the great Islamic empires to science and medicine, aswell as the arts. In fact our civilization, often referred to asthe Judaic-Christian civilization, would be more properlytermed the Judaic, Christian, Islamic civilization. Thegolden age of Islam from about 700 to 1000 AD includedan immense empire that stretched from Spain to India.Jewish physicians, Persian philosophers, mathematiciansand artists, as well as Turkish soldiers with a core of Arableadership formed a generally tolerant and highly ad-vanced society. A multitude of factors ended this golden

age, including a change in trade routes, decline in agricul-tural productivity, and the increasing factionalization ofthe Islamic empire, and finally the Mongol invasion withthe sacking of Baghdad in 1258. The great Ottoman Empirethat followed was Islamic and a great military state, butnever achieved the level of societal advancement of theearlier Islamic empires.

The Islamic impression of the West was largely influ-enced by their belief in the innate superiority of the Islamiccivilization, a belief buttressed by the very poor image anddemonstrated backwardness of the European powers dur-ing the nearly 200 years of the Crusades. With the expul-sion of the last of the Crusaders, Islamic society settled intoa comfortable isolation secure in the conviction of its moraland material superiority. Basically there was nothing to belearned from the West. The seemingly endless victories ofthe Ottoman Turks over the Europeans only strengthenedthis perception.

However, with the beginning of the Renaissance thisview of the West was out of date. The lack of trade, com-munication and interest of the Islamic world with Europeallowed the growth of European power to pass withoutmuch concern until 1798. The invasion of Napoleon’sFrench expeditionary forces, designed to cut off GreatBritain from its best routes to India, defeated the Ottomanarmy in a matter of days. The shock was tremendous—inboth the East and West. The myth of innate Islamic superi-ority was shattered. Shortly afterward what might be con-sidered the great European land grab began with the Euro-pean powers taking control of most of the former Islamiclands. This continued and accelerated following WorldWar I and the mandates awarded European powers over

With the rise of American power and its

increasingly close association with Israel after

1967, the West has come to mean the United

States.This intensified as the Arab nationalist

movement grew in the 1960s, becoming much

more virulent with the rise of the Islamists.

former Ottoman provinces. These various mandatesevolved into states, often with very little ethnic, religiousor even geographical factors involved in drawing theirboundaries. With the end of World War II these newly de-signed states became independent, along with the addedestablishment of the state of Israel.

To many Arabs it is a part of their embedded belief thatthis was all a colonialist plot to divide the Arab world andthe Islamic world into small, mutually antagonistic states,with Israel being referred to as the crusader state or Zionistentity. The concept of victimhood at the hands of the Westis a staple of their education system and state-supportedmedia, and is often reinforced by Arab governments seek-ing to project the blame game onto the always availablescapegoats.

With the rise of American power and its increasinglyclose association with Israel after 1967, the West has cometo mean the United States. This intensified as the Arab na-tionalist movement grew in the 1960s, becoming muchmore virulent with the rise of the Islamists. The primarilyleftist ideological underpinning of the relatively secularArab nationalist movement has been replaced by an injec-tion of the racist, pseudo-religious philosophy of the Is-lamists.

“Why has this decline happened?”the Islamists ask. The answer is sim-ple and very appealing to the people,especially intellectuals seeking an-swers that absolve themselves fromany responsibility. To the Islamiststhis long decline was a result of theabandonment of Islam and the impor-tation of alien Western ideologies. AsBernard Lewis wrote, the usual histor-ical scapegoats were resurrected—theTurks, the Mongols, the Jews, theAmericans.

The “Successes” of the Islamist MovementThe growth of the Islamist movement was greatly accel-

erated by the perceived successes of a religiously-based,militant form of Islam, particularly against the West andrulers seen as puppets of American power. To many, the in-creased emphasis of President Anwar Sadat on Islam, par-ticularly in comparison to his predecessor, Abdul Nasser,resulted in the victory of the 1973 War. Ironically, the assas-sination of Sadat in 1981 was seen as a great victory of theIslamists over the Munaafiqun (hypocrites). Early in hispresidency Sadat had released many of the Islamic funda-mentalists as a buttress against the left wing of the Free Of-ficers who constituted a threat to his regime.

Much more galvanizing was the 1979 ouster of the Shahof Iran by Ayatollah Khomeni. This was continued withthe ouster of the Russians from Afghanistan by the Muja-hadeen in 1989 and was accentuated by the victory of theTaliban over the warlords and the institution of an Islamicgovernment in Afghanistan. The militancy of the extrem-

ist Hezbollah continued this string of successes, claimingcredit for the withdrawal of the Israelis from Lebanon in2000. This was recently reinforced by the withdrawal ofthe Israelis from the Gaza strip, which was claimed as avictory for the militant terrorist Hamasorganization.Whether true or not, there can be no doubt that both evac-uations are perceived to be victories brought about by Is-lamic militants, a feat the secular Arab nationalists wereunable to do.

Nevertheless the Humiliation ContinuesDespite these “successes,” the sense of humiliation con-

tinues with more recent developments such as the collapseof the Taliban against the American attack and the twoGulf War debacles with the conventional Iraqi army dis-solving in the face of the American invasion. Even thoughthe Islamists considered Saddam an enemy, the invasionby American forces was a violation of Islamic land, makingSaddam a lesser evil. The idea recently promoted that re-moving Saddam was in effect a victory for Islamist terror-ism is long on political agenda and short on historical andcultural knowledge, however. As described in the 9/11 Re-port, while there was no operational support for al Qaeda,

there were a series of meetings and offers of assistance in1997 and 1998. The close cooperation between the Al-Zarkawi jihadists and the secularist Ba’athists in Iraq todaybelies the conventional wisdom that they are ideologicallyincompatible. This was also true in the 1960s between theMuslim fundamentalists and the Communists. Facile state-ments such as “Islam and Communism are incompatible”proved to be wrong.

Other perceptions and conditioning that continue tofeed the gnawing sense of humiliation are the views thatmost Islamic national rulers are American stooges, contin-ued Indian rule over Kashmir, and the existence of theState of Israel, with implications across the Islamic world.

Who Are the Islamists?Comprehensive studies done by Marc Sageman in his

book Understanding Terror Networks on the beliefs and per-sonalities of the terrorists have refuted many conventionalbeliefs about the substance of their grievances and ratio-nale for their actions. One argument frequently heard is

60 ARMY ■ January 2006

The close cooperation between the Al-Zarkawijihadists and the secularist Ba’athists in Iraqtoday belies the conventional wisdom that theyare ideologically incompatible.This was also truein the 1960s between the Muslim fundamentalistsand the Communists. Facile statements such as“Islam and Communism are incompatible”proved to be wrong.

January 2006 ■ ARMY 61

that the gap between rich and poor in the Middle East drives many of the Islamists to action. Untrue, says Sage-man, who found that most of the leadership and Arabswere of the upper or middle socio-economic class. Most ofthe core leadership were well educated, came from func-tional families, were not products of an Islamic schooling(meaning not a private religious school), evidenced no par-ticular pathologies, and most were not single young males.Most had families.

There are several common factors, however, one in par-ticular being the factor of relative deprivation. Over 70 per-cent were recruited from countries other than their origin,many recruited in Europe, such as the previously men-tioned Hamburg cell members. Many of the perpetratorsof the World Trade Center attack, including MohamedAtta, were members of this cell that coalesced around a

mosque and a radical view of Islam. They were usuallylonely, not integrated into local communities, not fully em-ployed at their educational level and socially isolated.

Among the many global terrorists Sageman examined inhis study, none were Palestinians. This finding is particu-larly revealing in that it is a mantra frequently espoused byWestern Middle Eastern scholars that a simple change ofU.S. policy toward the Palestinian question would some-how eliminate the underpinnings of global terrorist move-ments. Even one of the leading founders of the jihadistglobal movement, Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, gave upthe specific Palestinian cause for a more general jihadagainst enemies of Islam. More troubling for those whoposit a solution to the Palestinian problem as the solutionto the radical jihadist terror campaign is the fact that noth-ing short of the total destruction of Israel and its peoplewould satisfy them. The idea of a greater balance in U.S.Middle Eastern policy as a solution to the Islamist threat isa chimera.

Islam and the IslamistsAs mentioned in the opening paragraph, the most deli-

cate issue in this is the connection, if any, between Islam,the religion, and Islamism, the radical ideological move-ment. To what extent is Islam amenable to terrorist move-ments? Are there aspects of Islam that lend it to extrem-ism? Unfortunately these crucial questions have beenrelegated to evasive phraseology designed to avoid the po-litical minefield of being religiously insensitive, or beinglabeled an Islamophobe. From the outset it can be plainlystated there is nothing intrinsically violent about Islam.

Upon my arrival in the Middle East to study at the Ameri-can University of Beirut, some of my professors urged meto devote more time to the new ideologies sweeping acrossthe Arab world, particularly socialism. Islam was seen as areligion in eclipse, a result of increasing urbanization, edu-cation and secularism. I always felt it was a rather quietistreligion, certainly less outspoken than my Baptist upbring-ing. Being unfamiliar at the time with Islamic culture I mis-read the power of Islam in an Islamic society, underesti-mating its fundamental appeal and strength.

There are those who will boldly state that Islam is theproblem. Muslim-born Salman Rushdie, author of the Sa-tanic Verses, opines that until Muslims understand that theproblem is within the Islamic community and until theyrestore religion to the personal sphere, depoliticizing it, itwill remain an obstacle to modernization and continue to

foster extremism.On the other side, there are far more

writers, generally academics, whotend to cast a hagiographic net aroundIslam. Books have proliferated since9/11 ostensibly to correct an anti-Is-lamic attitude on the part of theAmerican public, an attitude forwhich in my experience, little evi-dence exists. Typical of this genre was

the book Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations byMichael Sells, which was required reading for Universityof North Carolina freshmen. Unfortunately, books of thissort are a part of the problem. They are essentially disin-genuous in their portrayal of Islam, omitting certain pas-sages of the Koran or Hadiiths, and creating the impressionthat Islamist terror is somehow simply an aberration inwhich the primary practitioners just happen to be Mus-lims.

In fact there are aspects of Islam as practiced today thatdo factor into Islamic terrorism. First of all, the Koran isviewed as the uncreated, inalterable word of God forwhich interpretation, at least within the Sunni community,is not allowed, although, to be sure, the Islamists use thetafsir (details or explanation) in a very innovative way tomake their points. Therefore the so-called “sword” verse,which implies unremitting warfare against the unbeliev-ers, reducing them to “tolerated” communities subject tothe vagaries of Islamic law as enforced by the variousrulers, cannot be reinterpreted as were many of the JudaicOld Testament stories. While this verse can be explained ina kinder, gentler way, it can just as easily be explained ex-actly as it reads, which is what the Islamists do.

Second, and probably most important, Islam, particu-larly Sunni Islam, has no central repository of religiousdoctrine. The leading scholar of Sunni Islam, the Sheikh ofSheikhs, the rector of Al Azhar in Cairo, has in actualityvery little authority on the burning questions of the day,such as the religious legality of suicide bombings. Combin-ing that with the fact that most Muslims cannot read theKoran in Arabic, even those that can have great difficulty in

The leading scholar of Sunni Islam, the Sheikh

of Sheikhs, the rector of Al Azhar in Cairo, has

in actuality very little authority on the burning

questions of the day, such as the religious legality

of suicide bombings.

understanding the context in which the events depicted inthe Koran occurred. For example, the extremely hostile atti-tude of the Koran toward Jews is used by the modern dayIslamist ideologues to bolster their view of Jews as inferiorbeings. In reality these passages reflect the bitter in-ternecine wars between the contending Arab tribes of theArabian Peninsula. The fact was that the Jews of the Arabpeninsula were Semitic tribes like all the others, but hadadopted Judaism as their religion. The militant clerics andIslamists of today fuse the Arab Jewish tribes of the sev-enth century to the Israeli Jews of today in a sort of racistmythological trace reminiscent of the Nazi theories of race.

Third, as structured, the Koran lends itself to widely dif-fering views on basic issues. Many passages are highly al-legorical with mystical references, and in a number ofplaces they are contradictory. Some Muslim scholarswould address this by saying the latter revelations su-percede the earlier ones. The problem here is that the Koran

is not structured chronologically, but rather in terms oflength of chapters, and there is no absolute agreementamong the scholars on the chronology of the variousverses.

The second most important source of Islamic law, theHadiths,is much more a source of dispute. Supposedly,these stories about what the Prophet said or did wereorally transmitted until about 250 years after his death.There is no one set of common Hadiths accepted by allMuslims. The Shiites do not accept many of the Hadiths ac-cepted by the Sunnis. Originally committed to memory bycompanions of the Prophet, very few Hadiths have beentransmitted in exactly the same way. For instance, one Ha-dith in which the Prophet allowed them to write downwhat he had said has 30 different versions, not to mentionthat some of the early companions of the Prophet wereconvinced that they were forbidden to record anything, be-lieving these stories to be a forbidden rival to God’s wordin the Koran.

This leaves the field open to the local imams, many withlittle religious education, self-promoters like bin Laden,and others who, with a distorted or very narrow under-standing of the essence of Islam, impart their political andideological half-baked versions of Islam on their local fol-lowing. In other words, the understanding of Islam formost Muslims depends on what they hear from their localreligious authorities, including those with little or no cre-

dentials or with political ambitions. For women, whorarely attend religious studies, their knowledge is drawnfrom home education and popular religious columns in thenewspapers or Islamist television personalities.

ConclusionUltimately, like all totalitarian movements whose ap-

petites grow by what they feed on, the global Islamist ji-hadist movement is expansionist, not just to defend the re-vived Islamic world, but in fact to subdue the House ofWar, meaning the entire non-Muslim world. Ali Mohamed,the Islamist terrorist I unknowingly worked with for anumber of months, was deadly serious when he kept re-peating his stock mantra that the world will never bepeaceful or fulfill God’s plan until the House of Peace ab-sorbs the House of War. Having spent a number of years inthe Arab world, I had become used to the Arab penchantfor bombast and blood curdling rhetoric. This is the way I

perceived much of what Ali Mo-hamed said. But he was serious, andthe jihadists are serious and must betaken as such.

While there are many things we cando in the field of information warfareand cultural diplomacy, our main taskis to contain the expansionist drivewithin the Islamist movement. As his-tory has shown again and again,when totalitarian movements are con-tained they tend to implode. The radi-

cal Islamist worldview can offer nothing to fellow Muslimsexcept promises of renewed glory. Its decline and ultimatedemise will not be the result of some hearts and mindscampaign or a more balanced policy in the Middle East. Itwill be brought about by a steadfast United States with atough policy that does not bend to intimidation, nor allowthe facilitators of violence in the Western intelligentsia tominimize Islamist outrages and endemic brutality. Theseare the same sort of intellectuals who believed the totalitar-ianism of fascism and communism would bring about theideal society in which they would (supposedly) enjoy anelitist status, isolated from the brutish realities outsidetheir centers of learning and university campuses. Mostimportant, it is incumbent upon a world Muslim commu-nity to recognize the immense harm the Islamist move-ment has brought to their hopes of a better, more securelife.

In this regard I conclude with a passage from an articleby the late Ambassador Hume Horan, the preeminent Ara-bist of the U.S. Foreign Service, who wrote:

Young Arabs, moreover, are failed by their intellectual lead-ers. Where are the Arab Reinhold Neibuhrs, Christofer Daw-sons, Karl Barths, Martin Bubers? Where are the politicallyengaged intellectuals who can help a young Arab make co-herent, responsible sense, of a troubling modern world?They scarcely exist in the Arab world. ✭

62 ARMY ■ January 2006

Ultimately, like all totalitarian movements whose

appetites grow by what they feed on, the global

Islamist jihadist movement is expansionist, not

just to defend the revived Islamic world, but in

fact to subdue the House of War, meaning the

entire non-Muslim world.