{"id":1179,"date":"2012-01-11T21:01:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T21:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2013-03-06T21:04:16","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T21:04:16","slug":"far-from-the-madding-islamists-ignoble-strife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/far-from-the-madding-islamists-ignoble-strife\/","title":{"rendered":"Far from the Madding Islamists’ Ignoble Strife"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n

Jihad Watch<\/em><\/p>\n

Review of\u00a0Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat<\/em>\u00a0by Youssef Aboul-Enein (Naval Institute Press, 2010. 288 pp.).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein’s book,\u00a0Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat<\/em><\/a>, one can see why US leadership is far from “understanding the global threat”; why the Obama administration is\u00a0supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood<\/a>; and why so many US politicians rose up in condemnation when one obscure pastor threatened to\u00a0burn a Koran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the jacket cover, Aboul-Enein is “a top adviser at the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism” and “has advised at the highest levels of the defense department and intelligence community.”<\/p>\n

What advice does he give?<\/p>\n

He holds that, whereas “militant Islamists” (e.g., al Qaeda) are the enemy, “non-militant Islamists,” (e.g., the Muslim Brotherhood) are not: “It is the Militant Islamists who are our adversary. They represent an immediate threat to the national security of the United States. They must not be confused with Islamists.”<\/p>\n

This theme, sometimes expressed in convoluted language \u2014 at one point we are urged to appreciate the “nuanced” differences “between Militant Islamists and between Militant Islamists and Islamists” \u2014 permeates the book.<\/p>\n

Of course, what all Islamists want is a system inherently hostile to the West, culminating in a Sharia-enforcing caliphate; the only difference is that the non-militant Islamists are prudent enough to understand that incremental infiltration and subtle subversion are more effective than outright violence. Simply put, both groups want the same thing, and differ only in methodology.<\/p>\n

Whereas most of the book is meant to portray non-violent Islamists in a non-threatening light, sometimes Aboul-Enein contradicts himself, for instance by correctly observing that “the United States must be under no illusions that the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood includes limiting the rights of women” and other anti-Western aspects.<\/p>\n

How to explain these discrepancies? Is the Brotherhood a problem for the US or not?<\/p>\n

The book’s foreword by Admiral James Stavridis clarifies this question by stating that the book is a “culmination of Commander Aboul-Enein’s essays, lectures, and myriad answers to questions.” In fact, Militant Islamist ideology reads like a hodgepodge of ideas cobbled together, and the author’s contradictions are likely products of different approaches to different audiences over time.<\/p>\n

His position on appeasing the Muslim world \u2014 a fixed feature of the current administration’s policies \u2014 is clear. Aboul-Enein recommends that, if ever an American soldier desecrates a Koran, US leadership must relieve the soldier of duty, offer “unconditional apologies,” and emulate the words of Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond: “I come before you [Muslims] seeking your forgiveness, in the most humble manner I look in your eyes today, and say please forgive me and my soldiers,” followed by abjectly kissing a new Koran and “ceremoniously” presenting it to Muslims.<\/p>\n

Likewise, after rightfully admonishing readers not to rely on skewed or biased accounts of Islam, he presents Islamic apologist extraordinaire\u00a0Karen Armstrong<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 whose whitewashed writings on Islam border on fiction \u2014 as the best source on the life of Muhammad.<\/p>\n

Then there are Aboul-Enein’s flat out wrong assertions and distortions, examples of which this review closes with:<\/p>\n