by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n Ten years after 9\/11 many politicians and pundits continue to misinterpret Islamic jihadism. Typical is the following comment from Senator Joseph Lieberman\u2019s\u00a0essay<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/em>, in which he speaks of \u201can ideological struggle within Islam, waged between an extremist minority that seeks to enslave the world and a moderate Muslim majority who want the same freedoms and opportunities that we all desire.\u201d In this view, bin Laden and his ilk are outliers, fringe figures exploiting the lack of political freedom and economic opportunity among Muslims, particularly the young men who fill the jihadists\u2019 ranks. This was the view of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0right after the attacks, in an editorial opining that \u201cthe disappointed youth of Egypt and Saudi Arabia turn to religion for comfort.\u201d In other words, we have interpreted jihadism through our own categories and concepts, dismissing the history and theology of Islam with which most Muslims are intimately familiar.<\/p>\n Indeed, this misapprehension began long before 9\/11. The Iranian Revolution and its leader the Ayatollah Khomeini were analyzed from the perspective of Western notions. Khomeini, a revered and respected Islamic scholar, was dismissed by\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine as \u201ca fanatic whose judgments are harsh, reasoning bizarre and conclusions surreal.\u201d The revolution was seen not for what it was, a restoration of Islam\u2019s political and social preeminence diminished by the modernizing secularism of the Shah, but as a nationalist, anti-colonial movement for which, Barry Rubin writes, \u201cIslamist rhetoric was seen as a mask, as a convenient vehicle for expressing accumulated economic, political, and social grievances.\u201d Mistaking a religious movement for a Western political one, the US was caught unprepared for the theocratic regime that has for thirty years been the premier state supporter of jihadist terror, and today is actively seeking nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n Despite that mistake, our reaction to the latest phase of jihadism has been equally myopic. The 14-centuries-long doctrine of violent jihad against the unbelievers \u2014 copiously documented in the Koran, hadiths, and Islamic theology and jurisprudence, and written on every page of history \u2014 is dismissed as irrelevant compared to the Western ideals we assume drive all peoples: political freedom and material prosperity. Religious belief is either a Marxist opiate or a Freudian illusion, a relic from our benighted past that progress will reduce to what it is in the West today: a mere lifestyle choice with no greater claim on the public square or political policy than any other. The jihadists are thus \u201cdistorters\u201d of Islam, disguised \u201cfascists,\u201d would-be tyrants exploiting religious beliefs in order to seize power for themselves. And this \u201cextremist\u201d minority stands in opposition to that alleged moderate majority, whom it is our duty to aid in their struggle for human rights, freedom, and all the goods we enjoy.<\/p>\n What is curious, however, is that for the last decade, the thousands of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims, the violent riots over trivial \u201cinsults\u201d to Islam, the murders committed by Muslims like the Fort Hood killer are never met with global widespread protests on the part of all those Muslim \u201cmoderates\u201d presumably outraged by this \u201cextremist\u201d distortion of Islamic doctrine. Muslim opinion did turn against bin Laden, but that came only after the al Qaeda jihadists began killing fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Formulaic \u201ccondemnations\u201d of terrorism are indeed trotted out by Muslim leaders after an attack, but always as the prelude to the demonization of Israel and American foreign policy, to whose depredations the attacks are an understandable response. I\u2019ll believe in Senator Lieberman\u2019s \u201cmoderate majority\u201d when hundreds of thousands of ordinary Muslims march in protest against the next jihadist attack on Westerners.<\/p>\n Having created this \u201cmoderate minority,\u201d for the last decade we have anxiously monitored our public statements about Islam in order not to alienate all those Muslims we think are outraged by the jihadists\u2019 \u201cdistortions.\u201d Thus we have heard from Republican and Democratic administrations alike all about the \u201creligion of peace.\u201d According to President Bush in the aftermath of 9\/11, Islam\u2019s \u201cteachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.\u201d Nearly a decade later, John Brennan, Obama\u2019s assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, repeated the same received wisdom: \u201cNor does President Obama see this challenge as a fight against \u2018jihadists.\u2019 Describing terrorists in this way \u2014 using a legitimate term, \u2018jihad,\u2019 meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal \u2014 risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve.\u201d Unfortunately for this sort of thinking, the evidence for understanding jihad as the violent defense of Islam against its enemies is overwhelming in Islamic religious writings. Khomeini certainly thought so: \u201cIslam is a religion of blood for the infidels but a religion of guidance for other people,\u201d he proclaimed. And so did Muslim Brothers founder Hassan al-Banna, who wrote, \u201cFighting the unbelievers involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their idols.\u201d<\/p>\n Failing to see the legitimate Islamic roots of jihadist terror has distorted our foreign policy by shackling us to a \u201chearts and mind\u201d campaign we think will win over all those outraged moderates who just want to live as we do \u2014 a belief that has driven our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, where after ten years of occupation and nation-building the jury is still out on what sort of regime will be left after we depart. Yet despite these efforts at liberating Muslims from tyrants and providing them with democratic freedom, majorities of Muslims all over the world\u00a0still don\u2019t like the United States<\/a>\u00a0and still oppose most of our efforts to destroy the jihadists. Worse yet, this flawed assumption has compromised our response to the so-called \u201cArab spring.\u201d Lieberman\u2019s essay is typical of this belief: \u201cNow, throughout the Middle East, we see the narrative of violent Islamist extremism being rejected by tens of millions of Muslims who are rising up and peacefully demanding lives of democracy, dignity, economic opportunity, and involvement in the modern world. Indeed, the Arab Spring and its successes thus far are the ultimate repudiations of al Qaeda and everything Islamist extremism stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n