Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom Chapter 7: The War of Ideas Download PDF

On February 24, 2004, Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveled to Princeton, New Jersey. The occasion celebrated the 100th birthday of George Kennan. In a long, effusive speech Powell praised Kennan for many things, but most of all for his understanding of “human nature” and how the human heart shaped power politics, wars, and the fate of nations. Kennan’s brilliance, Powell argued, was his ability to “get under the human skin of international politics, allowing us to see deeper into its very essence. Because George Kennan could see more deeply, he could foresee more accurately.”1 The capacity to grasp the human nature of conflict was, as Powell reminded us, the real genius of fighting the long war.

Powell reserved the remainder of his remarks to address the war on terrorism and, here too, he found Kennan uncannily relevant. “Few people ever find the right balance between the need to adopt a coldly objective attitude toward the world’s danger, and the equally important need to allow oneself to embrace and to be guided by ideals. George Kennan found that balance, and so must we,” the Secretary told the scions of Princeton. “We must acknowledge the power of ideas, and champion the nobility of democratic ideals, in our own times.”2 War is won in the minds of men.

Of the 8,000 words in Kennan’s Long Telegram, most are reserved for a discussion of the sources of Soviet conduct. Kennan wanted Washington to understand the ideas that animated the Communists. Determining how to best to defeat an enemy always begins with understanding who they are and why they fight. It is a time-honored component of strategy that one most know his enemies in order to understand the enemies’ strengths and weaknesses—and determine how to best defeat them.

There is, however, a second reason for understanding the enemy. All wars are wars of ideas. Both Kennan and Powell would readily have agreed with another conclusion in Clausewitz’s On War—that defeat is in the mind of the enemy commander. Such reminders mattered less in the short war, when the enemy commander would know his defeat well when his armies were scattered, his generals in chains, and his land occupied. Defeat in the long war, however—in which a climactic battle might never be fought, and where indeed armies might never fight—could mean something very different.

Winning the long war is all about winning the struggle of ideas, destroying the legitimacy of a competing ideology, and robbing the enemy of the support of the people. Such an effort implies some essential tasks: 1) understanding the enemy; 2) de-legitimizing its view of the world; 3) offering a credible alternative; and 4) demonstrating the will to prevail in the long conflict. A strategy of security, economic growth, and the preservation of civil society satisfies the last two of these tasks, but the strategy for a long war also has to address the first two: Long war strategy has to understand the enemy and do battle with its ideas. In large part, this was the important message Kennan hoped to convey in the Long Telegram. It was a message that Powell heard loud and clear more than fifty years later when he helped craft strategy for the global war on terrorism.

The Enemy of Mankind

Terrorists are the enemy of all humanity. One of the difficulties of this long war is that we may not always know who they are. Aum Shinrikyo will always serve as a cautious aide memoire that in this conflict new foes may rise up against us, perhaps without warning or reason. However, in the current campaign against transnational terrorism there is one present and implacable enemy that cannot be ignored—an evil that must be understood and discredited.

At the root of the current wave of violence against the United States and its allies is a blasphemous interpretation of religion, which sanctions the killing of Americans—and citizens of all nations and religions, even moderate and Orthodox Muslims who do not agree with the radicalization of their religion. Religious extremists (and the allies they have found among secular, radical Arab-nationalist movements) not only justify the murder and maiming of civilians, they glorify suicide bombings and other terror tactics.3 There appears to be no limit to their appetite for violence and the murder of innocents. They have tried to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction and they will likely continue to do so until they succeed or they are stopped.

The Nature of Evil

The terrorist interpretation of Islam is both universal and totalitarian. It brooks no argument and tolerates no differences—neither within the Realm of Islam (known as Dar-al-Islam) nor in the rest of the world (known as the Realm of War, or Dar ul-Harb). Just as Nazism, Japanese militarism, and Soviet communism were inimical to the values of Western democracy in general—and to American values in particular—so, too, are the values of the totalitarian Islamists who inspired al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other organizations of mass murder.

These voices are not practicing Islam—they are perverting it. As Angelo Codevilla wrote, “Murderous heresies arise as revolutionary movements. They take one, or more, of the faith’s central tenets and twist it into a warrant for overthrowing the norms and practices first of the ordinary faithful, then of mankind. This kind of heresy sets itself apart by entitling the heretics to do whatever they want. The heretics…slip the bounds of orthodoxy and endow themselves with boundless, revolutionary discretion.”4 Radical Islam is not ter-rorism in the name of religion; it is terrorism hiding behind a mask of religion.

The main perpetrators of anti-American and anti-Western jihad today are the radical Wahhabi/Salafi sects and their twentieth century mutations: The Muslim Brotherhood (which was founded in 1929 by an Egyptian, Hassan al Banna) and Jamaat-i Islami (started by Maulana Sayyid Abul-Ala Mawdudi in Pakistan in 1941). These are also extremist elements of Shia Islam, supported by the radical factions of the Iranian government.5

Why They Fight

Why these groups have embraced terrorism as their weapon of choice has been the subject of endless academic debates. In Europe, as in the American left, policy analyses of the root causes of terrorism range from neo-Marxist (exploitation) to economic determinism, and from “victimology” and anti-imperialism to “Orientalism,” a pejorative thrown out by the late Edward Said to denote what he considered the inadequate, misguided, and value-laden Western scholarship of the Middle East.6 Thus, the notion of a “war” on terrorism is derided, and policy prescriptions for responses to terrorist attacks range from rejecting violence to more economic development and health care to promoting the European Union constitution and addressing the Arab–Israeli conflict.7

The origins of terrorism, however, spring from the realm of ideas, not the material world. Poverty, frustration, and humiliation are not the driving forces behind militant extremists: Ideology is. This is nothing new. The origins of long wars are often found in evil ideas. Karl Marx’s Communist Man-ifesto, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and V.I. Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? were all about ideas. The spread of those ideas fueled the movements they spawned and brought hundreds of millions of people under their sway, leading their millions of victims to misery.

Bin Laden’s brand of terrorism has deep ideological roots, particularly in Wahhabism, the most fundamentalist interpretation of Sunni Islam. These roots date back to the very beginning of Islamic history and the Khariji sect in the eighth century A.D.8 The Khariji sect was responsible for killing of Ali bin Abu Talib, the fourth Caliph and the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, adopted son, and son-in-law—generating a split in the faith, which later became the Sunni/Shia schism.9 Khariji Islam, and the teachings of a fourteenth century Muslim scholar, Ibn Taymiyya (who justified the killing of Muslim rulers considered insufficiently pious), were both theologically extreme. The two have reincarnated into the Saudi state’s religious ideology, Wahhabism, which was developed by Abdul Wahhab in the Arabian Peninsula in the eighteenth century. Today, Ibn Taymiyya is particularly popular with al-Qaeda leadership.

The Ibn Saud tribe has created a political–religious alliance with Abdul Wahhab and his tribe and has appropriated his teachings. Wahhabism became the ideological justification for launching a self-proclaimed jihad and subjugating other Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula during the eighteenth century. This culminated in a war against the Ottoman Sultan, the Caliph himself, under British imperial tutelage from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Moreover, Wahhabi jihad, which justifies the murder of other Muslims and the plunder of their caravans and cities, provided perfect legitimacy for the Ibn Saud extended family business of tribal raiding. The combination of extreme Wahhabist ideology and the violence and determination of Ibn Saud overwhelmed the non-Wahhabi Muslim elements of the Arabian Peninsula. The region was almost cleansed of non-Wahhabi Muslims during the Wahhabi conquests in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Wahhabi doctrine also supplanted the traditional respect for “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians), declaring jihad against them and expelling them from the Arabian Peninsula as well.10

By the 1830s, Wahhabism had spread to the Indian subcontinent. In the early twentieth century, with British support, it overthrew Ottoman domination of the Middle East. The Saudi kingdom shifted its foreign patronage from the British Empire to the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1970s and 1980s, boosted by oil wealth and a tactical alliance with Washington, Wahhabism launched a global challenge to mainstream Islam and to the Soviet domination of Afghanistan, attempting to spearhead jihad against the Soviets in that country, which in fact was fought by traditional Sunni Afghans. With complacent and non-comprehending U.S. administrations, Wahhabism went on to spawn global terrorist movements backed by oil power and oil money.11

The xenophobic, extremist ideology of the Kharijis and Wahhabis developed new manifestations in the modern era with the Muslim Brotherhood (1929) and the Jama’at ul-Islam movement (1941) in today’s Pakistan, inspired by Maulana Mawdudi. The combination of radical Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the followers of Maulana Mawdudi gave birth to al-Qaeda, as well as to other Islamic terrorist organizations. All of these groups—the Khariji in early Islam, the Wahhabis beginning in the eighteenth century, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the followers of Maulana Mawdudi—have two totalitarian characteristics in common. First, they draw a strict line between themselves and all other Muslims, who are then labeled as unbelievers and designated targets to be converted or killed. The second distinction is between the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds—the Land of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the Land of War (Dar ul-Harb), which ultimately needs to be converted and subjugated.

Fanatics such as Ayman al-Zawahiri (leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization) and 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atef were both loyal Osama bin Laden deputies. Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad assassinated President Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 for concluding a peace with Israel and being “un-Islamic.” The Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda formally merged in 1998 to create the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.12 A crusader, of course, is an Islamist code word for Christians and for any West-ern presence in the Middle East—in particular, the U.S. military and energy industry support operations in Saudi Arabia.

Wahhabi-influenced and -funded groups include Hamas; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Gama’at al-Islamiyya); the Pakistan-based terrorist organizations that are now recruiting for resumption of jihad in Afghanistan, massacring Shias in Pakistan, and attacking Kashmir; the Chechen Wahhabi faction led by Shamil Basaev; the Islamic Front of Uzbekistan, which was connected to bin Laden and fought with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; Jama’at Islamiya of Indonesia, led by Muhammad Bakr El Bashir; and many others.13

Under the Banner of Jihad

The incitement of Muslims to hatred and violence, the plotting, and the killing are all being done under the banner of jihad—Holy War. The word jihad has two main connotations: that of personal self-improvement (the greater jihad) and of armed warfare against unbelievers (the lesser jihad).14 Traditional Muslims do not recognize military jihad to be legitimate unless it is called by a khilafa (caliphate) and fought between regular armies according to specific rules, including exemption of noncombatants from attack. Some argue that as the Caliphate no longer exists, therefore there can be no jihad. Others advocate defensive jihad waged by Muslim states against armed aggressors who prevent Muslims from practicing their religion, but still condemn the killing of civilians.

To close the gap between existing Islamic law and their own desire to wage terror, the Wahhabis, followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Pakistani Jammat i-Islami argued that, given the power and extent of the rule of the unbelievers, jihad can and should be waged by revolutionary means. These include militias and irregular forces utilizing terrorist tactics. This entire concept remains a fratricidal and dangerous heresy in traditional Sunni Islam. Nevertheless, it succeeded in generating an appreciative echo among Shia Muslims in Lebanon and Iran, where religion is suffused with a cult of death and sacrifice.15

Westerners often feed the perception of religious war by carelessly using the term jihad. Although they intend this to be a pejorative description of terrorists every time they use it, they are merely clothing their enemy with the robes of religious sanctity. The terrorists know this well.

Extremist clerics and terrorist leaders advocate the murder of innocent civilians and suicide bombings in the prosecution of jihad—notwithstanding the glaring contradiction between this practice and the traditional conception of jihad as waged by Muslim armies. Once again, the innovation came from the “modernist” views of the Wahhabis and Sayyid Qutb (who was executed for conspiracy to overthrow the Gamal Abd el-Nasser regime in 1966). It was Qutb who ruled, after Ibn Taymiyya, that not only infidels, but also “not sufficiently Islamic” Arab rulers, whom he labeled as equivalent to kuf-far (unbelievers), should be killed. Thus, violence is sanctioned against those Muslims who do not accept Islamist ideology. This premise was used to justify the 1952 killing of King Abdallah of Jordan, grandfather of the late King Hussein (and great-grandfather of King Abdallah II, the current monarch), by the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb and Maulana Mawdudi have influenced terrorists to declare that all Americans, British, Australians, Israelis, etc., are “combatants” and therefore legitimate enemies, or that all Americans pay taxes to support the armed forces and are therefore legitimate targets.

The essence of the conflict is this: “The Americans are fighting so they can live and enjoy the material things of life,” said Mohammad Hussein Mostassed, a Taliban official, “but we are fighting so we can die in the cause of God.”16 This motif infuses the rhetoric of jihadis in Afghanistan, Madrid, Chechnya, Gaza, and Kashmir. It also inspires the slaughter of “black-skinned indigenous animists and Christians” by the government-backed, Arabic-speaking radical Islamist Janjiweed militia of the Sudan. The terrorists do not lack for targets.

Terrorist Strategy

The terrorists have their own version of Clausewitz. They too have strategies of ends, ways, and means. Their end is to attain total domination of the Islamic religion and over Islamic politics and states. The goal is the establishment of a Caliphate—a militarist, nuclear-armed, global Muslim state, strictly governed by the Sharia law. The purpose of this Muslim super-state is to engage in jihad with the rest of the world in order to convert it to Islam. The ultimate goal, then, is a global Islamic religious government. This is an alternative view to globalization based on free markets, tolerance, and diversity promoted by proponents of global institutions and norm-based international politics.

Bringing down moderate and pro-Western regimes in the Islamic world and replacing them with dictatorships is an interim objective of the jihadi movement. The terrorists have given themselves carte blanche to repress and kill those who challenge their political interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith (oral commentaries of the Prophet). Islamic jurisprudence, and pluralist, moderate, and secular Islamic ideas, leaders, and regimes are under threat.

The Word and the Sword

Terrorist strategy also is animated by ways and means. The physical instruments of terrorism are well-known, but the enemy has also turned words into weapons. Sheikh Yussuf Al-Qaradhawi, who resides in Qatar and runs a massive outreach program on television and the Internet, heads the Muslim Brotherhood. In concert with many radical religious authorities, he has adjudicated that Islamic law permits suicide bombings (“martyrdom operations”).

In truth, many traditional Sunnis do not accept this point of view, since Islam abhors suicide under any conditions. Militant Sunnis still use this reasoning to justify suicide bombings, and the intimidation and silence of those who disagree with them. Some of these militants include: Qaradhawi; Sheikh Mohammed al-Sayed Tantawi (the 43rd sheikh of Al Azhar Mosque in Egypt—the primary center of Sunni learning—who was appointed by President Hosni Mubarak); and Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro (the Grand Mufti of Syria).

The fact that their ideas are illegitimate, however, has not slowed the terrorist call to arms. A great number of radical preachers and terrorist ringleaders and their supporters have abused the freedoms found in the West to promote radical causes. Western legal systems fail to see that for terrorists, first comes the jihad of the tongue, then that of the purse, and finally that of the sword, which is supreme. Thus, jihad represents a continuum of action, not a single criminal act—a concept beyond Western jurisprudence and Western jurists’ understanding. The career of Abdurrahman Alamoudi, former Executive Director of the American Muslim Council and a former U.S. Department of State “goodwill ambassador” to the Muslim countries offers a case in point. He has consistently and publicly called for support of the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. Alamondi defended Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzuk, who was arrested by the FBI in 1995 and subsequently expelled from the United States. Alamoudi’s organization also arranged for fundraising visits for radical Islamic organizations such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.17 Until 2004, little has been done to disrupt these networks of mosque-based “charities,” which fund terrorist activities.18

There is a simple reason why the hijacking of Islam has brought terror to our doorstep. The voices of terrorism are being heard around the world. And people are listening. Anti-Americanism is predominant in the Muslim world. As a 2002 Gallup poll has shown, large majorities in the Islamic world (more than 80 percent), from Morocco to Indonesia, are strongly anti-American. They believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were unjustified and they maintain that Arabs did not carry out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.19 The poll indicates that there is a large gap between perceptions of reality in the Islamic world and those of the West.

Battling Bad Ideas

The United States has no choice but to engage in a war of ideas. We have been attacked and are continually attacked every day. The war of ideas must be joined and fought. In the struggle of ideas, failure is not an option. Neutralizing the militant ideology fueling terrorism is a key factor if the world— and moderate Islam—are to succeed in the current conflict.

It is encouraging that the first statements of U.S. strategy that came out after the 9/11 attacks committed the nation to an ideological battle as well as a contest of military force and diplomacy. The 2002 National Security Strategy calls for: 

• Using the full influence of the United States and working closely with allies and friends to make clear that all acts of terrorism are illegitimate so that terrorism will be viewed in the same light as slavery, piracy, or genocide—behavior that no respectable government can condone or support, and which all must oppose;
• Supporting moderate and modern governments, especially in the Muslim world, to ensure that the conditions and ideologies that promote terrorism do not find fertile ground in any nation;
• Diminishing the underlying conditions that spawn terrorism by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on areas most at risk; and
• Using effective public diplomacy to promote the free flow of information and ideas to kindle the hopes and aspirations of freedom of those in societies that are ruled by global terrorism’s sponsors.20

The bad news is that U.S. public diplomacy has been ineffective and unimaginative. The State Department hired a few Arabic speakers to handle media, and produced expensive TV commercials for Muslim countries hailing religious tolerance toward moderate Muslims and the United States. Commendable as such efforts might be, they are carried out on too small a scale to make a difference, and are too remote from real problems. Traditional public diplomacy, aimed at winning the media and elite opinion, needs to be supplemented by more innovative approaches, ones that combine public diplomacy as well as politically overt action (democracy promotion, education reform) and covert action—all aimed at discrediting terrorism.

In fighting the battle to loosen terrorism’s grip on the world, the United States need not reinvent the wheel. Credible spiritual and political alternatives to Islamist ideology already exist within the traditional Islamic global community, or umma—including the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and in the Muslim immigrant communities around the world.

It is highly significant that radical Islamists have thus far failed to obtain majority popular support even in the most traditional Muslim countries. Only Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan (behind the iron veil of the Taliban), and Sudan (under the rule of Islamists), can be described as exclusively Sharia states. Except for Saudi Arabia, the rest of the Gulf states maintain Sharia for personal and family law alongside Western commercial, civil, and criminal law. Qatar, for example, although it nominally maintains the Wahhabi or “reformed” Sharia as its official law, does not permit rulings of Sharia judges to take precedence over those based on Western law. Oman, which maintains a form of extremely conservative Sharia, also keeps Sharia separate from commercial, civil, and criminal law. This is, in fact, the model in place throughout the Islamic world, except in a number of provinces in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Malaysia, which have come under Islamist control in recent years due to the steady buildup of well-funded Wahhabi educational programs, institutions, and campaigns led by Wahhabi religious leaders with a definite mission to spread Sharia. Everywhere else (except in secularized Turkey), Sharia and Western legal models coexist.

The threat to states, as well as Muslim diaspora communities in countries throughout the world, is penetration of the institutions of worship and education by Wahhabi-directed organizations, missionaries, and funding. These ways and means are the taproot of terrorism. The results are known: radical mosques serving as safe havens and religious sanctuaries for the planners of 9/11 and for the recruitment of future generations of terrorists. Clausewitz called this the enemy’s “center of gravity,” a concept he wrote about extensively in On War. The center of gravity represented the hub of the wheel, the key source of power that enabled the enemy to act. In conventional war, the center of gravity might be a certain military unit or leader; in shadow war it could be some other animating feature. For the terrorists, it is their ability to harness the institutions of Islam to plan, organize, prepare, and kill.

The Need for Religious Pluralism

The problem with the war of ideas is that even after 9/11, the terrorist center of gravity remains largely unthreatened. Today, the voices of traditional, moderate Islam and of liberal secularism inside the Islamic world are seldom heard. Extremists dominate the Islamic discourse. While it is laudable that the Saudi state claims to have taken some steps to curb terrorist funding in the aftermath of al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the kingdom, and some religious authorities in Saudi Arabia were enticed by the state to distance themselves from bin Laden’s suicide attacks, Saudi Arabia continues massive funding of the global Wahhabi network of mosques and madrassas (religious schools). This infrastructure has been providing an enabling environment for jihad for at least 25 years.

The much-advertised calls for moderation in Saudi Arabia must be taken in context. The House of Saud is well aware that the United States, and the West in general, may justly lay the blame for support of terrorism upon a number of prominent individuals and “charities” operating freely within the kingdom. For example, the wealthy Muwafaq Foundation, run by prominent Saudi businessman Yasin al-Qadi and the bin Mahfouz family, has been accused of channeling funds to terrorists. According to the New York Times, this charity, which works openly in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, has been placed on the U.S. Department of State’s list of terrorism-sponsoring organizations.21 Charitable entities such as the Muwafaq Foundation have funded extremism, including those who have long been linked with terrorist masterminds—and continue to do so even in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.22 Other example of international charities with alleged terrorist links are Moslem World League, the World Association of Muslim Youth, the International Islamic Relief Organization, and al-Haramain.23

The majority of Muslims around the world may not support terrorism against the United States. Their voices, however, are not heard. Neither is the voice of another important minority—that of progressive liberals, who recognize the need to integrate their countries into the global community, which shares democratic and human rights values and recognizes that a sophisticated market economy is the most viable pathway toward economic development and increased living standards.

Media, Education, and Political Mythology in the Islamic World

Lack of education for tolerance, pluralism, human rights, and gender equality may be the Achilles’ heel of Greater Middle Eastern and South Asian societies. Even though radicals blast “apostates” and “non-believers” (including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews) for everything they consider to be wrong in the world, most practicing Muslims do not read classical Arabic, and therefore cannot read the original Qur’an. In addition, tradition dictates that the faithful are dependent upon clerics and the media for interpretation of the scriptures.

It is the governments, especially their information/propaganda ministries, the mosques, and the media, which largely determine the attitude of the “street” by issuing guidance to the muftis, editors, and censors. Because many preachers, journalists, and editors in the Muslim world are either government employees or work within the narrow confines of state censorship, they cannot openly criticize their domestic regimes or challenge the dogmas of Islam. Still, many of them are aware of the economic backwardness, educational failures, and lack of human rights that characterize their respective societies.24 They air their frustrations in the only fashion allowed: by attacking the United States, the West, and Israel—and their alleged conspiracies against the Muslim world. They support jihad against the West, fanning the flames of terrorist activities.

Most government-sponsored and opposition media in the Islamic world were vehemently anti-American before 9/11. However, the reaction of the media to the attacks brought their anti-U.S. and anti-Western bias into sharp focus. Many columnists proceeded to lay the blame on everyone but the real culprit. Samir Atallah, a columnist for the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat wrote, “I have a sneaking suspicion that George W. Bush was involved in the operation...as well as Colin Powell.... Every George Bush in the family has his own world war.”25 The journalist went on to claim that President Bush had little popular support before 9/11, but received bipartisan backing thereafter.

The journalists take their cues from higher ups: In the aftermath of the May 1, 2004, attack on Western workers for the oil industry in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia claimed that he is 95 percent sure that Zionists were behind the attack.26 After al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Yanbu operation and a similar attack in Dhahran almost one month later (in which 22 Westerners were murdered),27 he refrained from repeating such claims.

As if these conspiracy theories were not enough, some Arab media also suggested that U.S. militias may have committed the 9/11 attack by hacking into air traffic control computers,28 or that perhaps it was Japan—in revenge for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,29 or Russia, China, or anonymous opponents of globalization who did it.30 Khalid Amayreh, a Palestinian Islamist journalist, published an article in the London-based Palestine Times, entitled “Why I Hate America.” He writes, “I do hate it (the American government) so really, so deeply and yes, so rightly.... America is the all-powerful devil that spreads oppression and death.... America is the tyrant, a global dictatorship that robs hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims of their right to freely elect their government because corporate America dreads the outcome of democracy in the Muslim world.... It is almost impossible for me, as indeed is the case for most Palestinians, Arabs, or Muslims, not to hate America so much.”31

The Hamas terrorist organization’s weekly publication went so far as to praise the anthrax attack on America, and to advocate wreaking further damage by introducing anthrax bacteria into the U.S. water supply.32 However, the problem of anti-American influence in the Muslim world—and even in the United States—does not start with the adults who read newspapers. Unfortunately, it is inculcated much earlier—at the elementary and secondary school level.33

Poverty remains extreme throughout the Islamic world. Religious schools, or madrassas, are often the only sources of free education for the poor. However, many of these schools often fail to teach marketable skills, such as math and computers, but are instead focused on arms training and religious hate indoctrination. Tens of thousands of mosques and madrassas throughout the Islamic world and the West have been overtaken by radical Islamists and turned into schools for terrorists, funded directly or indirectly by nationals and foundations from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. The massive involvement of Saudi charities in funding terrorist education (including in the United States) is well known and amply documented.34

The phenomenon is most pronounced in the Sunni world, but applies to the Shiites in Iran and Lebanon as well.35 In Pakistan, the madrassas were turned into factories to prepare “holy warriors” to fight first against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and later against the Indians in Kashmir. Today, the jihad seminaries also target “battlefronts” in the United States, Central Asia, Turkey, Russia, and Israel by sending recruits to fight far and wide. In April 2001, the Pakistani government acknowledged that the schools had become a serious security threat, but no decisive action was taken to stop their practices. In December 2001, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf finally ordered the former interior minister to investigate the madrassas’ connection with the Taliban—with no significant results.36

During the last two decades, between 15,000 to 25,000 madrassas in Pakistan alone have churned out 4 million alumni of these terrorism training grounds, and between 500,000 to one million students are currently in their classrooms, according to veteran journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave, who traveled in Pakistan to study the phenomenon.37 Dar-al Ulum Haqqania (University for Education of Truth) in Akora Khatak counts nine out of ten of the Taliban leaders among its alumni.38 According to Arasiab Khattak, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, “The madrassas indulge in brainwashing on a large scale, of the young children and those in their early teens.”39

Nor is the penetration of educational institutions a problem only for the greater Middle East. In the fall of 2003, the United States expelled over a dozen Saudi clerics and propagandists, traveling on Saudi diplomatic passports, for engaging in Wahhabi Islamist “education” in a religious college in Northern Virginia (the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies). The institute trained scores of members of the U.S. armed forces to be chaplains.40 Two similar institutes that train U.S. military and prison clergy are the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council (which Alamoudi founded) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and its Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences. These institutions have ties to Saudi Wahhabi operatives, including Alamoudi, who served as ISNA’s regional representative.41 These activities are a terrorist time bomb waiting to explode. The education factor, much like the prolific anti-American media, will prove to be a challenge in the war of ideas, but this does not suggest that the fight is unwinnable.

Europe shares America’s problem. Recently several British Islamic officials complained that the mosques in that country have lost control over teaching religion to youngsters. Leading British Muslims decried the proliferation of jihadi extra-curricular instruction, which is used, as in from Pakistan to Lebanon, to recruit terrorists. Muslim officials also admitted that “volunteers” enter Britain from the Middle East to engage in brainwashing the youth.42 Muslim leaders in the United Kingdom lobbied the Cabinet to forbid the “weekend imams” to jet in from the Persian Gulf to deliver incendiary ser-mons and radical religious training. They also requested that only British Mus-lim clerics engage in education, while banning extremist religious instructors who promote terrorism.43

Winning Hearts and Minds

The key to overcoming the rhetoric and practice of terrorism justified as religion is to empower moderate Muslims and secularists who consider Islam a personal religion, and Islamists who strive for the creation of a Caliphate and world domination. Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America and a profound authority in Islamic law, is promoting Islam that is tolerant, engaged in genuine dialogue with other faiths, and opposed to violence.44

Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, the Secretary General of the Italian Muslim Association, is one of the most coherent critics of the radicals. He provides learned criticism of the radical interpretations of Islam.45 In addition to Sheikh Hadi Palazzi, there are many others calling for co-existence and mutual respects inside various Islamic communities and between religions, for observance of democratic norms, and for respect of human rights.

The Ibn Khaldoun Society, led by Dr. Fatima Mernissi of Morocco, is calling upon the West to cease supporting backward governments in the Arab world that violate the rights of women and minorities. While sometimes critical of Western policy towards the Middle East, Dr. Mernissi a unique perspective on the Islamic world as seen from inside, and has become an outspoken advocate of women’s rights in the Muslim world.46

A Canadian of South Asian origin, Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble with Islam, has exposed the suffocating atmosphere in Islamic educational institutions and strongly advocates a significant change in the status of women in the Muslim world, including the use of micro-loans to allow women to start small businesses, thus taking a first step toward liberating themselves and their families from chattel status within their societies.47 Others, such as Ibn Warraq, call for reconciling Islam with the modern world, and publicized stories of Muslims who chose to leave their religion—a “sin,” which in some places even today can be punishable by death.48

Professor Muqtedar Khan termed the 9/11 attacks “a horrible scar on the history of our religion,” while calling upon Muslims “to remember the verses in the Qur’an in which Allah says in unequivocal terms that to kill an innocent being is like killing humanity itself.” Khan reminded his fellow Muslims that Israel treats its one million Arab citizens with greater respect and dignity than most Arab nations show to their own people, and he pointed out the double standard of the Islamic world, which remains silent when fellow Muslims are murdered or treated harshly by the regimes of Islamic countries: Iraqi Kurds, the Bengalis under Pakistani rule, or the Afghans under the Taliban.49

Abd al-Hamid al-Ansari, dean of the faculty of Islamic Law at the University of Qatar and a prominent Islamic scholar, has called for deep changes in school curricula, as well as educational and media reform, to oppose the current trend toward justifying and training for terrorism. Al-Ansari and others compare today’s radicals with the ancient terrorist sect of Khariji, which is blamed for the death of the imam Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and which pioneered the political killing of Muslims who were considered heretics. Professor al-Ansari has openly criticized the Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel for opening the airwaves to al-Qaeda supporters, Taliban fans, bin Laden loyalists, and other propagandists of violence. He believes that the terrorism in the prevailing culture is “rooted in the minds of those who suffered from a closed education that leaves no room for pluralism.”50

The Islamic world, however, is still waiting for the emergence of a robust liberal intellectual movement and media, which would promote toleration and ask the difficult questions in a language that key Islamic target audiences, including traditional believing Muslims, can appreciate and understand. Just as Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 in then-Czechoslovakia benefited from Western assistance and support, reformers in the Muslim world are awaiting a helping hand from the free world. Yet before we can help, we need to understand what we are doing and who we are talking to.

It is totally erroneous to view the Muslim world, and particularly the Middle East, as a single monolith of “Arabs” or “Muslims.”51 The majority of the world’s Muslims reside in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—not in the Arab countries. Writers and broadcasters must differentiate target audi-ences by their levels of education and religious observance. The Middle East is home to many ethnic groups, languages, religions, and denominations— from Assyrians to Zoroastrians—who are oppressed.

According to a Freedom House report, seven out of ten of the least-free countries in the world are predominantly Islamic. These are: Afghanistan (under the Taliban), Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Turkmenistan. They achieved Freedom House’s lowest rating of “unfree” in a 2001 global survey of political rights and civil liberties.52 Thus, radical Islamism or Arab nationalist/socialist ideology (in the case of Libya and Syria) are a driving force behind oppression in this century.

The Islamic world is socially and economically diverse. In designing communications strategies and messages, this must be kept in mind, as well as the fact that many of these groups have different (often competing) interests. It is in America’s interest to promote debate and plurality of opinions, and to appeal to those who are likely to receive and disseminate U.S. messages.

Among the primary audiences for U.S. public diplomacy and information should be:

Women. The role of women and discrimination against them in Islamic societies is a well-known phenomenon, one that has tremendous potential for furthering the debate about the nature of Muslim societies, the role of Sharia, the necessity of reform, and the constitutional rights and underpinnings of Islamic states. After all, women comprise half of these societies, but they generally suffer from inequality and oppression. Given the opportunity, they may emerge as the best allies of those who support freedom. As mothers, they influence the next generations of Muslims. For example, the majority of women passionately hated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and many express their disapproval of the religious dictatorship in Iran.

The Business and Entrepreneurial Class. The business community has little influence in many Muslim countries, especially in the most authoritarian ones, where power belongs to the royal families and military rulers. Chambers of Commerce, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs are mired in corruption, over-regulation, and extortion by officials. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom puts many Islamic countries in the category of “mostly unfree.”53 Elevating considerations of economic reform in the decision making process may encourage governments to curb radical activities.

Ethnic Minorities and Guest Workers. In many countries of the Middle East, ethnic minorities are denied linguistic, cultural, and religious rights. For example, the Berbers in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have fought for their rights—to no avail—for decades. The Kurds have been brutally persecuted in Iraq and Iran. Over 20 million Shi’a Turkic Iranians are indistinguishable from their brethren in Azerbaijan, but are denied linguistic and cultural autonomy, as are the Turkmen who live in Iran and Iraq.

Intelligentsia and the Artistic Community. The ability to dream, write, publish, and express oneself in art and film is cherished among intellectuals. U.S. and Western policies against censorship and in favor of freedom of expression may also strengthen dissent and provoke debate about modernization, including questioning and redefining the role of Islam in a modern state as a private religious practice, not a totalitarian and oppressive doctrine.

Youth. Because the economies of most Islamic countries (with the exception of Malaysia) are stagnant and their populations continue to grow rapidly, the quality of life in many of these lands deteriorates from year to year. Often, youth in these countries are the most frustrated with the status quo, specifically the corruption and lack of popular participation in government and politics. In some countries, such as Pakistan, Central Asia, and the Arabian peninsula, young people easily fall prey to totalitarian Islamic preachers. However, in Iran, the youth are the ones who strive for a chance to pursue a meaningful career and to access the knowledge and the opportunities offered by the globalizing world. These are tomorrow’s leaders for change, whether through peaceful evolution or violent revolution. The terrorists understand the importance of gaining the allegiance of the youth, and actively recruit their cadres, including terrorists and suicide bombers, from among the madrassa students. Moderate Muslims and the West have to beat them at their own game.

The Next Steps

The 9/11 attacks on the United States were a clarion call to engage in battle for the hearts and minds of the peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia; however, it is now three years after 9/11 and the West has yet heard the call. The war of ideas will require presidential leadership and a comprehensive strategy, including the development and mobilization of area and linguistic expertise and a long-term investment of wealth and stamina, comparable to that of the Cold War. This consideration extends well beyond any U.S. war against Afghanistan or Iraq. To be victorious, knowledge of history, religion, languages, economics, and politics must be combined with operational political skills aimed at changing the opinion of elites and the broader public in key areas from Marrakesh to Mindanao.

Thus far, attempts within the Department of State, the Pentagon, and the White House to launch successful public affairs operations aimed at foreign audiences have lacked leadership, area skills, or intellectual heft. Unsurprisingly, these campaigns have met with limited success at best. Institutional capabilities and budgets were slashed in the aftermath of the Cold War, public servants with expertise retired, and the federal government rarely rewarded language and area expertise. Above all, no one expected that the United States Information Agency, which had a Cold War mission, would be so necessary once again—and so soon.

The creation of effective mechanisms to fight this war, the recruitment of personnel, and the formulation of key messages combined with their successful delivery to target audiences around the world are some of the greatest foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.

The United States should not go it alone. Some states will be more willing to work with America than others. This is an area in which coalition-building with the European Union, Russia, Turkey, and even with China and Japan, is feasible. Although the elements of civil society in some Muslim regions may for now be anti-American, it is important to develop indigenous institutions that can work with American bodies.

The war of ideas will aim to undermine and destroy the credibility of those who use and support the use of terrorism against the United States and its allies. The battle for hearts and minds is not a short-term campaign, but a protracted conflict that will take years, decades, and possibly generations. It should be guided by an integrated strategy of public diplomacy and politically overt and covert action, something that the United States has not attempted for half a century, ever since the early stages of the Cold War. This will be a campaign in the information and media battlefields, fought not against a state or a coalition of states, but against an array of radical organizations and the governments and sub-rosa institutions and networks supporting them.

The nature of the enemy, the spectrum of threats, and the environment in which the conflict is waged require that the war of ideas be conducted overtly when possible, and covertly when necessary. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations operate by stealth. So do the funders who subsidize radical Islamic brainwashing in the guise of religious “education.” The boards of madrassas do not post their curricula and audits on the Internet. Foreigners are not allowed to participate in religious seminars in Pakistan and the Gulf, where agent penetration is required. Regimes in Iran, Libya, and Syria do not welcome the U.S. Foreign Service officers with public diplomacy expertise who explain American values to their domestic audiences. Thus, the CIA’s political action capabilities need to be rebuilt, or another agency capable of handling the job needs to be created.

During the Cold War, the United States cooperated with its allies in developing and waging the war of ideas against communism. Similarly, today’s United States should reach out to the countries of Europe and beyond, including moderate segments in the greater Middle East (e.g., Turkey and Morocco) to cooperate in formulating and disseminating the ideas of moderate Islam and other non-threatening forms of personal faith, including secularism.

Although the U.S. Constitution prohibits the “establishment” of religion domestically, this does not apply abroad. Nor is this clause relevant to the implementation of U.S. foreign and security policy. Some believe that the United States should not pick and choose religious faiths. However, a distorted and hijacked “faith” that has turned into a threatening political ideology and a component of warfare needs to be dealt with—preferably before it acquires weapons of mass destruction. U.S.-funded programs should prioritize moderate Sufi and Ismaili Islam in their assistance programs; moderate schools of both Sunni and Shia; the Bahai faith; and universal and tolerant forms of Christianity, both indigenous to the region and those willing to expand there. The United States should support secularization of curricula in the Muslim world, the introduction of programs that teach tolerance and diversity, and the introduction of American studies and Holocaust studies into middle school, high school, and college curricula. America and its allies should actively promote the universal values of tolerance, human rights, gender and religious equality, and ideas of economic and personal freedom, secularism, and faiths indigenous to these troubled regions.

The main weapon of the United States in the battle of ideas should be truth— truth about America, the societies of the greater Middle East and South Asia, including their social problems, their rulers, and the terrorist leaders who prey on them. The truth should be disseminated through open channels where possible, and covertly where necessary, but the promotion of individual freedom and respect for other peoples’ lives, faiths, and property must remain at the heart of the suggested strategy. The United States has to set the record straight about American achievements, values, and policies— including its protection of Muslims in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.54

We must formulate strategies to engage radicals and extremists who support terrorism, discredit their basic premises, and dismantle their organizational infrastructure. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the United States Information Agency, which was created to counter Communist propaganda, was collapsed into the U.S. Department of State. Many public diplomacy functions were dispersed throughout the regional units or integrated in the Public Diplomacy Bureau at the State Department. Many important initiatives, such as storefront libraries and book translation programs were cancelled or de-funded. International broadcasting suffered drastic cuts.

In a post-9/11 world, the State Department Arabic media initiatives, which brought from retirement a few Arabic-speaking former U.S. Ambassadors, and launched stolid, text-heavy Web sites, will simply not be enough.55 The Middle Eastern Broadcast Network has turned out to be exceptionally slow to launch. Whereas the Voice of America got on the air in February 1942, three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the new Arabic radio network was not broadcasting even six months after the 9/11 attacks. The Arabic TV channel Al-Hurra was launched in 2004—three years after 9/11. Additionally, questions have been raised by international broadcasting professionals about the efficiency of editorial control over radio talent locally hired in the Muslim world.56

Leadership in the effort to win hearts and minds will require humility and realism, as well as the talents and skills of dedicated linguists, writers, editors, and public affairs and area experts. Changing hostile perceptions will not be easy.

The Administration must re-evaluate, revive, and upgrade its public diplomacy “tool box,” as well as invent new and specific tools for fighting aggressive, anti-Western sentiment among fundamentalists. The overarching principle and the key to disarming an ideological enemy is changing the perception of the elite—through publications of new ideas in their languages, broadcasting, personal contacts and exchanges, and other means.

The dissemination of information within oppressed societies, countries, and targeted communities will be vital to ensure understanding both of where extreme Islam went wrong (in its advocacy of violence and terrorism) and what the West truly stands for. In order to do this, it will be necessary to expand funding for, and further develop, the Al-Hurra TV channel and possibly to launch privately owned channels aimed at Islamic audiences. Programming for Radio Sawa (Arabic) and Radio Farda (Farsi) as surrogate AM/FM broadcasting, similar to the short wave Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty of the Cold War era should be improved and expanded. However, innovative approaches to cooperation with privately owned Muslim TV channels and radio stations and indigenous print media need to be developed beyond today’s renting of airwaves.

The U.S. government and private foundations should expand the publication of books, journals, and newspapers that promote views opposing radical Islam and provide the truth about America—in languages of the greater Middle East and South and Southeast Asia. In the realm of education, diplomatic action should be initiated against the state-supported incitement to violence prevalent in mosques, education systems, and Islamist media under the banner of jihad. The State Department has to play a pro-active role in stopping hatred, which breeds terrorist violence. Demands should be made for Islamic states to reform educational systems and develop new curricula for both religious schools and colleges, as well as for public schools. Another beneficial change would be to expand inter- and intra-confessional religious dialogue, identifying and cooperating with moderate clerics. The United States and other states which would confront the spread of religious intolerance and incitement to violence should identify and recruit talent for the new war of ideas by utilizing the talents of people from the Islamic world residing in their countries.

The Banner of Freedom

In July 2004, Colin Powell celebrated another hero of the Cold War, George Marshall. Marshall, like Powell, had traded in an Army uniform and desk in the Pentagon for a desk at State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom. Marshall’s greatest achievement as Secretary—the Economic Recovery Plan for Europe (popularly known as the Marshall Plan)—proved to be one of the most decisive instruments of the Cold War. The Marshall Plan was an embodiment of the instruments Kennan had called for in the Long Telegram. It was more important than the economic aid it provided. In fact, Marshall Plan funds were only a fraction of the monies used to rebuild Europe. It was the “idea” of the Marshall Plan that proved most decisive—the idea of American commitment to an investment in democracy that wedded Europe and the United States together for the remainder of the Cold War. The Marshall plan proved, perhaps more than another American initiative, that ideas really mattered.

The plan was, as Powell noted in his speech at the opening of an exhibit crediting Marshall’s achievement, a remarkable feat. There were lessons that could be learned. “The first,” Powell contended, “is that the character of the solution to any problem has to fit the problem. If you’ve got a big problem, you need a big solution. If you’ve got a novel problem, you need a creative solution. George Marshall recognized that the Western democracies were in uncharted waters after World War II, with both dangers and opportunities ahead. He had a vision that was built to scale for the challenges of that moment in history. He wasn’t afraid to think boldly. He was afraid of what would happen if we didn’t think boldly.”57 Powell’s advice could serve as well to describe the challenge facing America in the war of ideas. We know it is a struggle we must engage in. We know we don’t have the instruments or the programs to do it right. We know we must act boldly—or the banner of freedom will never supplant the face of terrorism.

1 Colin L. Powell, “Remarks on the Occasion of George Kennan’s Centenary Birthday,” February 4, 2004, at www.state.gov/secretary/rm/29683.htm (September 20, 2004).

2 Ibid.

3 Andrew C. McCarthy, “The War That Dares Not Speak Its Name,” National Review online, May 13, 2004, at www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/ mccarthy200405130837.asp (September 20, 2004). McCarthy led the prosecution in the case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was accused of masterminding the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

4 Angelo M. Codevilla, “Heresy and History,” The American Spectator, May 14, 2004, at www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=6564 (September 20, 2004).

5 For information regarding Wahhabi Islam, see Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), pp. 101–136. It is particularly relevant that the Wahhabi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood were established during the same decade that saw the of?cial dismantlement of the Caliphate (which represented the religious dimension of the Ottoman Empire) by Atatürk, Turkey’s great national leader. Atatürk saw the next step for Turkey as the creation of a strong secular state.

6 See Edward Said, “Orientalism: A Brief De?nition,” taken from Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979), at www.65.107.211.206/post/poldiscourse/ pol11.html (September 20, 2004). See also “Orientalism,” at www.emory.edu/ ENGLISH/Bahri/Orientalism.html (September 20, 2004).

7 Ariel Cohen, “Targeted Killings,” The Washington Times, March 26, 2004, at www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040325-091452-7923r.htm (September 20, 2004). These were prescriptions promoted by European Union President Romano Prodi, former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, and French President Jacques Chirac.

8 Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History, (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), pp. 35–47, 87.

9 Campus Program.com, “Ali bin Abu Talib,” at www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/a/al/ali_ben_abu_talib.html (September 20, 2004).

10 Codevilla, “Heresy and History,” quoting Dore Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishers, 2003).

11 Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam, pp. 96–121, 172–195; and Codevilla, “Heresy and History,” pp. 4–5.

12 Michael Dobbs, “A Few Loyal Men Direct bin Laden’s Sprawling Network,” The Washington Post, September 27, 2001, p. A1.

13 For the full list of terrorist organizations, see U.S. Department of State, Of?ce of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 2001 Report on Foreign Terrorist Organizations, October 5, 2001, at www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rpt/fto/2001/index.cfm?docid=5258 (September 20, 2004).

14 Timothy Appelby, “Jihad: Not Just a Word for War,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), September 20, 2001, www.theglobeandmail.com/special/attack/pages/other_0920_a8_5.html (September 20, 2004).

15 Interestingly, Stephen Schwartz noted that in Khomeini’s revolutionary struggle against the Shah, the Ayatollah himself never declared a jihad, and in the Bosnian defensive war against the Serbs, no jihad was declared.

16 John Dawson, “The Bali Bombers: What Motivates Death Worship?” Capitalism Magazine, October 19, 2003, at capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3000 (September 20, 2004).

17 Lawrence Auster, “The Clintons, Abdurahman Alamoudi, and the Myth of ‘Moderate’ Islam,” NewsMax.com, at www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/6/170946.shtml (September 20, 2004).

18 “Hardline Cleric in London Rejects ‘Terrorist Mastermind’ Charge,” The Guardian, August 10, 1999, at www.guardian.co.uk/yemen/Story/0,2763,202941,00.html (September 20, 2004). This was confirmed in a personal interview conducted by the author with a House of Lords staff member who requested anonymity, Washington, D.C., November 21, 2001.

19 Reuters, “Muslims Doubt Arabs Mounted September 11 Attacks,” February 27, 2002, at www.serve.com/Lincolnheritage2/Articles/The_Address__Article_Search/ Address_Articles_since_1997/Address__1997___National_Secur/ Muslims_doubt_Arabs_mounted_Se/muslims_doubt_arabs_mounted_se.html

(September 20, 2004).

20 White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 20, 2002, p. 6, at www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf (September 20, 2004).

21 Jeff Gerth and Judith Miller, “Philanthropist, or Fount of Funds for Terrorists,” The New York Times, October 13, 2001, p. B3.

22 Dave Eberhart, “Hamas Touts Untouchable ‘Secret’ Funding Sources,” NewsMax.com, December 5, 2001, at www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12/4/175008.shtml (September 20, 2004). See also John K. Cooley, “Islamic Terrorists: Creature of the U.S. Taxpayer?” March 13, 1996, at www.webcom.com/hrin/magazine/july96/hamas. html (September 20, 2004).

23 Stephen Schwartz, “Wahhabism and Islam in the U.S.,” testimony before the Sub-committee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, June 30, 2003, at www.defenddemocracy.org/in_the_media/ in_the_media_show.htm?doc_id=180218 (September 20, 2004).

24 See United Nations Development Programme, Arab Human Development Report 2002, at www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/english2002.html (September 20, 2004) and Arab Human Development Report 2003, at www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/english2003.html (September 20, 2004).

25 Middle East Media Research Institute, “Terror in America (4),” Special Dispatch Series No. 270, September 20, 2001, at www.memri.org/bin/articles. cgi?Area=jordan&ID=SP27001 (September 20, 2004).

26 Adnan Malik, “Gunmen Kill At Least Six at Saudi Oil Facility,” Associated Press, May 1, 2004.

27 CBS, “Al-Qaeda Claims Saudi Strike,” June 13, 2004, at www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/29/terror/main620280.shtml (September 20, 2004).

28 The Middle East Media Research Institute, “Terror in America (4).”

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Middle East Media Research Institute, “Terror in America (28),” Special Dispatch Series No. 303, November 27, 2001, at www.memri.org/bin/articles. cgi?Area=middleeast&ID=SP30301 (September 20, 2004).

32 Middle East Media Research Institute, “Terror in America (24),” Special Dispatch Series No. 297, November 7, 2001, at www.memri.org/bin/articles. cgi?Area=jihad&ID=SP29701 (September 20, 2004).

33 For more about culture clash in Muslim education in the United States, see Valerie Strauss and Emily Wax, “Where the Two Worlds Collide: Muslim Schools Face Tension of Islamic, U.S. Views,” The Washington Post, February 25, 2002, p. A1.

34 Republican Policy Committee, “The Need for U.S.–Saudi Cooperation to Win the War on Terrorism,” June 2, 2003, pp. 7–12.

35 The reported pro-American sentiments among the less religious, middle-class Iranian urban youth can be seen as a protest against the ruling clerics and do not contradict the phenomenon elsewhere.

36 Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Holy Warriors of Pakistan,” United Press International, December 28, 2001.

37 Ibid.

38 Barry Shlichter, “Inside Islamic Seminaries, Where the Taliban Was Born,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 25, 2001, p. A23.

39 Rick Bragg, “Nurturing Young Islamic Hearts and Hatreds,” The New York Times, October 13, 2001, p. A1.

40 Glenn R. Simpson, “Diplomatic Visas of Saudis Revoked for Preaching Wahhabism at Virginia Schools,” The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2004, p. A4.

41 Frank Gaffney, “Preaching Terror,” Center for Security Policy, Decision Brief No. 03–D39, October 10, 2003, at www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index. jsp?section=papers&code=03-D_39 (September 20, 2004). Captain James Yee, a military chaplain at Guantanamo, accused by the U.S. military of major security violations and later acquitted on a technicality, was trained in one of these institutions, as well as in Syria.

42 Daniel McGrory, “Militants Outside Control of Mosques Target Teenagers,” The Times of London, December 28, 2001, at www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001570018-2001602324,00.html (September 20, 2004).

43 Author interviews with members of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords who requested anonymity, January 2003.

44 J. Michael Waller, “A Resounding Voice in Traditional Islam: Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani” Insight Magazine, October 1, 2002, at www.iwp.edu/news/ newsID.93/news_detail.asp (September 20, 2004).

45 Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, “Radical Islamists Have Perverted the Traditions of Islam,” October 10, 2001, at members.xoom.virgilio.it/amislam/kabbani2.htm (September 20, 2004).

46 Ted Thornton, “History of the Middle East Database,” at www.nmhschool.org/ tthornton/mehistorydatabase/fatima_mernissi.htm (September 20, 2004).

47 Irshad Manji, The Trouble With Islam, A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), chapters 1 and 6. See also Muslim-Refusenik.com, “The Official Site of Irshad Manji,” at www.muslim-refusenik.com/ (September 20, 2004).

48 Ibn Warraq, Leaving Islam (New York: Prometheus Books, 2003).

49 Muqtedar Khan, “Muslims Condemn Israel But Ignore Their Own Crimes,” The Daily Telegraph, November 17, 2001, at www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F11%2F17%2Fwkhan17.xml (September 20, 2004).

50 The Middle East Media Research Institute, “The Fight Against Terrorism Must Begin With Curricular, Educational, and Media Reform in the Arab World,” Special Dispatch Series No. 307, December 4, 2001, at www.memri.org/bin/articles/cgi?Area=persiangulf&ID=SP30701 (September 20, 2004).

51 Robert Satloff, “Devising a Public Diplomacy Campaign Toward the Middle East,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch No. 579, October 30, 2001, at www.washingtoninstitute.org/watch/Policywatch/policywatch2001/579.htm (September 20, 2004).

52 Adrian Karatnycky, “Essay: The 2001–2002 Freedom House Survey of Freedom: The Democracy Gap,” at www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2002/akessay.pdf (September 23, 2004).

53 Miles, Feulner, and O’Grady, 2004 Index of Economic Freedom, passim.

54 Satloff, “Devising a Public Diplomacy Campaign Toward the Middle East.”

55 Alexandra Starr, “Charlotte Beers’ Toughest Sell,” BusinessWeek www.businessweek. com/@@*f5NQYQQo6iUuAsA/magazine/content/01_51/b3762098.htm (September 23, 2004).

56 Interviews by author with Voice of America personnel, January–February 2002.

57 Colin L. Powell, “The Marshall Plan: The Vision of a Family of Nations,” July 13, 2004, at www.state.gov/secretary/rm/34374.htm (September 20, 2004).