Bruce Riedel rightly faults the U.S. for not meeting the ideological challenge that groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State pose, but then he advocates nothing new. Instead, he offers essentially what mainstream analysts on both the Left and the Right have advocated for years: establishing a State of Palestine, supporting “reform and justice” in Muslim countries, and working to end Sunni-Shi’ite sectarianism.
The problem is that these are solutions that have been tried, and they failed abysmally. Riedel is correct that the U.S. hasn’t countered the ideology of jihad groups, but he shows no sign of knowing what that ideology really is. In fact, he demonstrates that he shares the same false premises that have led the U.S. government to its abysmal failure in this regard. Both assume that the appeal to Muslims of the stated goals and motivations of jihad groups — establishment of the caliphate, destruction of non-Sharia regimes, and ultimately global Islamic dominance — can be blunted, if not extinguished altogether, by essentially giving jihadis and Islamic supremacists some of what they want. They assume that in that event, the larger aggregate of Muslims will respond the way Westerners in secular democracies would respond: by accepting the compromise and rejecting more extreme solutions.
We have the record of the last thirteen years and more to show that this assumption is false: it has been tried again and again, and it has never worked. More below on Riedel’s specific recommendations:
“Why’s Al Qaeda So Strong? Washington Has (Literally) No idea,” by Bruce Riedel, Daily Beast, November 9, 2014:
…And, yes, we have tried to counter the extremists’ ideology, but only very weakly.
At the core of al Qaeda’s narrative is the message that Islam is under siege by a ‘Zionist Crusader’ conspiracy. Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and Abu Musab al Zarqawi, founding fathers of today’s threat, all pointed to Israel as the premier example of the danger America allegedly poses to Islam. It has always given them their favorite recruiting tools. The three Gaza wars have been used by al Qaeda to galvanize anti -American hatred. On this front we are not just losing the battle of narratives, we are barely engaged in it.
To counter that narrative the United States and the international community argue in favor of a two-state solution and a just peace for both Israel and Palestine. That won’t change al Qaeda’s goal, which is Israel’s destruction, but would severely undermine its appeal and over time dry up its base. The two-state solution, if implemented, fundamentally discredits the whole concept of a conspiracy against Islam.
Unfortunately, for six years the Obama team has tried to push the two-state solution without any success. It rightly blames both Israeli and Palestinian intransigence for its failure. But the core issue is Israel’s refusal to end the occupation of the West Bank. There the problem is that the goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s team is to perpetuate the occupation, not to end it. They want a larger Israeli footprint in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Bibi’s grudging support for a two-state solution is rhetorical at best; much of the Israeli right does not even pretend to support a Palestinian state. The increasing tension between Obama’s team and Bibi’s reflects this basic divergence in interests. It will get worse. Rising tensions in Jerusalem will spur jihadist recruitment.
One word exposes the falsity of this analysis: Gaza. Anyone who still thinks after the Gaza withdrawal that a Palestinian state would bring peace between Israel and the “Palestinians” (and yes, I know they are legion, and in both parties, and in all the corridors of power in the U.S. and Europe) hasn’t been paying attention. We were told in 2005 that “occupation” was the problem, and if Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Gazans would turn to peaceful pursuits. Only a few people, including me, warned that Gaza would just become a jihad base for newly virulent attacks against Israel. Events proved us correct.
Now Riedel wants Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, and assures us that this withdrawal from this “occupation” is really the one that will finally bring peace and take the wind out of the jihadis’ sails. A Palestinian state, he says, will “severely undermine” al-Qaeda’s appeal “and over time dry up its base” — and he claims this even after acknowledging that “Israel’s destruction” is al-Qaeda’s goal. Why would the establishment of a Palestinian state now, after the Arab Muslims rejected it in 1948 and the “Palestinians” rejected it in 2000 (and other times) bring peace when the goal of Israel’s total destruction, which Hamas has repeatedly and recently reiterated, would remain? Why would another Israeli withdrawal accomplish what earlier Israeli withdrawals — not just from Gaza, but also from Sinai and southern Lebanon — did not?
Riedel doesn’t consider these questions. He can’t, because any honest answer would show his analysis to be false and based on wishful thinking.
Then Riedel goes on to advocate another failed remedy:
The Syrian conflict, meanwhile, holds a special ideological allure for the extremists because it is on the doorstep of Israel and Jerusalem. Under the self-declared Islamic State caliph, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the war has attracted thousands of foreign fighters in a fight against all who fail to follow their interpretation of Sunni Islam. That includes savage Alawite-controlled regime of Bashar Assad, but also Christians, Yazidis or fellow Sunnis who dare to oppose al Baghdadi’s diktats. Among those foreign fighters in Syria are many potential recruits for terror in the West. Indeed, the old al Qaeda leadership created a cell inside the Nusra Front group for just that purpose, and this so-called Khorasan group is a very dangerous threat.
The extremists’ narrative argues that only violent jihad can bring about change and justice in the Islamic world. They argue the Arab spring proves that peaceful protests and demonstrations, elections and democratic change don’t work in Arabia and the world of Islam. The failure of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt is cited as evidence that “moderate” Islam is too weak to fight the Zionist-Crusader conspiracy and it’s [sic] Quisling allies like Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian army.
Washington and other Western capitals recognize that their old goal of promoting stability in the Islamic world at any price is illusory. The police state system that propped up dictators from Algiers to Islamabad for decades was unsustainable. Trying to put it back together again, as the Saudis and other counter-revolutionaries would like, is a fool’s errand. It may buy time but it won’t work. The Arab spring failed, but it demonstrated the ancient regimes are doomed unless they change profoundly, which is very unlikely.
Chaos and failed states, not democracy, are what the foreseeable future holds for Arabia. But a Western policy that is blind to the urgent need for reform and justice is certain to end in catastrophe. More immediately, it cedes the ideological battle to al Qaeda’s simple solution that only jihad brings change. Close attachment to autocratic regimes by the West pays short-term dividends but will antagonize generations of Muslims.
This was precisely the Obama Administration’s policy when it turned against Mubarak and warmly endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. This was the analysis Obama was following when he aided the Libyan jihadis against Gaddafi and the Syrian jihadis against Assad (although in the latter case the rise of the Islamic State has exposed his Syria policy as confused and incoherent).
Riedel mentions the fall of the Ikhwan regime in Egypt as part of the jihadis’ recruitment rhetoric, but he misses its real import: when the U.S. followed his recommendations and stopped backing dictators in Muslim countries, favoring instead popular revolutionaries and the “democratic process,” the result was not stability and the weakening of jihad groups, but chaos and anarchy in Libya, unrest and instability in Egypt, and the strengthening of jihad groups the world over. The Brotherhood regime in Egypt fell because many secular Muslims don’t want to live under Sharia oppression. However, Sharia advocates are numerous in Egypt and other Muslim countries — so the result of backing “democracy” in Egypt and other Muslim countries was not the establishment of peaceful, stable Sharia regimes (which would not be a desirable outcome anyway, cf. Saudi Arabia and Iran), but more violence. The dictators were bloody and reprehensible; the “democratic process” in all too many Muslim countries has resulted in regimes that are scarcely less bloody and far less stable.
Nonetheless, Riedel says, “Full speed ahead.” What would he say if there were a free election in Iraq and Syria now and the Islamic State won, or even got a significant percentage of the vote? He seems to assume, as George W. Bush and so many others assumed, that elections in Muslim countries would lead to the establishment of pro-Western, secular, stable republics. It has never happened. Why will it happen next time?
The extremist message also encourages sectarianism and intolerance. The Shia are portrayed as false Muslims and brutally attacked to encourage Sunni-Shia hatred. Sectarian strife now empowers the civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and Al Qaedaism flourishes in the chaos. The West says far too little about the cancer of sectarianism….
Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this about it in 2007: “There’s still a tendency to see these things in Sunni-Shia terms. But the Middle East is going to have to overcome that.” The Bush Administration tried in numerous ways to help them overcome it in Iraq. It held one-person, one-vote elections that resulted in a Shi’ite regime in Baghdad — an outcome that was absolutely predictable, since Shi’ites are a majority in Iraq. That regime was supposed to include Sunnis. It was absolutely predictable also that it did not manage to do so, both because it didn’t want to and Sunnis didn’t want to participate anyway.
The Sunni-Shi’ite divide is 1,400 years old. The history of Islam is filled with occasions when it erupted into violence. The idea that the non-Muslim West can heal this or should even try to do so is as hubristic as it is myopic, and shows that Riedel (and Condoleezza Rice, and myriad others) have no idea of the history or beliefs of either group.
That is no surprise. The real reason why the U.S. and the West in general hasn’t confronted the ideology of jihad groups is because they refuse to admit that it even exists. They insist that Islam is peaceful and that groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have nothing to do with Islam. They don’t have any curiosity about how this supposed misunderstanding of Islam came to be so widespread and powerful, and they have never pressed Muslim groups that ostensibly reject it to do anything to blunt its appeal for young Muslims.
So Riedel is right: Washington has no idea why al-Qaeda is so strong. Neither does he. And here’s why: Bruce Riedel is senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project. Brookings is a Qatar-funded group that publishes justifications for jihad terror and gives jihad terror supporters and enablers access to the world’s most powerful people. It also is strongly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel. This article is just another small contribution to its larger goals.
Jay Boo says
The lie that still stinks today of ding, dang, dank yesterday as well stank.
Salah says
“..the appeal to Muslims of the stated goals and motivations of jihad groups …can be blunted, if not extinguished altogether, by essentially giving jihadis and Islamic supremacists some of what they want.”
How stupid!
You don’t feed a dangerous beast, you starve it to death.
No compromise, no concession, ne appeasement, no negociation with Islam. Islam must and will be completely annihilated.
wildjew says
Spencer: “So Riedel is right: Washington has no idea why al-Qaeda is so strong. Neither does he. And here’s why: Bruce Riedel is senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project. Brookings is a Qatar-funded group that publishes justifications for jihad terror and gives jihad terror supporters and enablers access to the world’s most powerful people. It also is strongly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel. This article is just another small contribution to its larger goals….”
Do you think Riedel is compromised? Jew-haters the world over are more than willing to sell-out Israel hoping against hope it will appease the America-hating Muslim world.
Riedel wrote one thing that has the ring of truth: “Bibi’s grudging support for a two-state solution is rhetorical at best; much of the Israeli right does not even pretend to support a Palestinian state….”
Indeed, Israel is under tremendous Administration pressure to give rhetorical support for what she knows will be her demise.
Here is something I have tried to impress upon our self-professed Israel supporting friends, officers in Christians United For Israel, etc., but to no avail. They say, “Bibi (Israel’s government) supports a two-state solution, why should we go against the wishes of Israel’s government?” Mitt Romney’s people trafficked in this idea that the government of Israel supports a Palestinian state to further Romney’s policy aims.
Buraq says
Countering the Islamic ‘narrative’ is simple!
Before Islam, there were no infidels or kuffar. Islam invented them. If you had talked about infidels and kuffar before Islam, you would’ve got a blank look. It would be like talking about ‘hard disks’ and the ‘Internet’ before the invention of the computer. Context lends sense to what we say.
So, why did Islam invent the infidel and the kuffar? To justify its own belief system, to give it an enemy and a persecutor. So, after inventing the infidel and the kuffar, Islam became the ‘victim’ of these straw men.
So, to counter the Lefty / Islamic narrative, you explain that the supposed opposition to Islam was invented by Islam … like Tell Mama inventing anti-Muslim hate crimes. Then these straw men will self-combust and Islam’s excuses for violent jihad and victimhood will be seen for the sham they are.
Riedel’s a clown!
mortimer says
FACILE. Simple-minded. Cultural Marxists. Unaware. Unacquainted with Islam’s source texts or ground doctrines such as supremacism and JEW-HATRED.
Naïve, gullible, unread, unschooled, self-satisfied know-nothings.
rage against injustice says
I knew it!!!! It had to be the jew’s fault!!!!! It’s always the jew’s fault, it’s not obama who armed these men when they were “moderate” if they misunderstood islam’s it’s because of the jews!!!….
Maybe it was the jews the ones that armed the mexican cartels too in “operation fast and furious” and not obama!!!!! ….
Maybe it was the jews the ones that plotted 9/11, and forced those poor peaceful muslims to crash those 4 planes…….. Ohhhh those “evil Zionists” they are behind all the bad thing that happen. The muslims are just peaceful people!!!!!!
katarzyna says
“Israel’s refusal to end the occupation of the West Bank”
what about the occupation of Spain, India, Chechnya and the Caucus Region etc?
isis wants to liberate all these places from non-muslim occupation as well.
Omar BEDDALI says
Israel calls itself a jew state that’s the reason why others call themselves islamic state.
Buraq says
@ Omar Bedalii
The reason why Israel is a Jewish State is because there is a people called the Jews. However, there isn’t a people called the Islams, hence no Islamic State. So, your comparison makes zero sense.
Thinking the way you do is what makes you a wire-wigged, baggy-trousered, red-nosed clown!
gravenimage says
Omar BEDDALI wrote:
Israel calls itself a jew state that’s the reason why others call themselves islamic state.
…………………………..
What rot. The Islamic State is not named in reference to Israel; it is so named because of the imposition of Islamic law there.
Israel is a secular democracy, not a theocracy.
The Islamic State—Daesh—is the reconstitution of the Caliphate, and says so explicitly. The Caliphate much predates modern Israel—it has existed in some form from the time of the vile “Prophet” Muhammed until the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.
Muslim calls for the revival of the Caliphate began almost immediately—that was the sole purpose of the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s, just a handful of years after end of the Ottoman Empire, and decades before the founding of Israel.
And other Muslim states have declared themselves specifically Islamic—Iran’s full name is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And note what Omar Beddali is comparing—civilized Israel, which is a full democracy, with full rights and seats in the Knesset for non-Jewish minorities, including Muslims; with the sanguinary Islamic State, which is enslaving and committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and even “other sect” Muslims like the Shia, and beheading and crucifying any “apostates” who dare to question their savagery. *Ugh*.
Jay Boo says
Let’s not forget that the Jewish people had a thriving culture despite persecution long before the idol worshipping Muslims swooped in like vultures to scavenge.
Islamic State?
Islam is in a permanent state ….. of denial.
Wellington says
I was going to reply, Omar BEDDALI, to your simplistic, if not idiotic, statement but Buraq and gravenimage have pretty much covered all the territory that needs to be covered to refute you completely. Care to respond to their refutations? I bet you won’t but I hope you do, and here’s why: Virtually no defense of Islam and its goals makes any real sense. Everytime one shills for Islam, whether a Muslim or clueless dhimmi is doing it, it has the effect of revealing Islam yet again for the freedom-crushing, self-pitying, desultory, destructive ideology that it is. Yes, there really is no defense of Islam, just as there is no defense of Nazism.
Your turn if you can. Your turn if you dare.
gravenimage says
Daily Beast: Why are jihad groups so strong? Because of Israel
………………………..
My God, what idiocy. If the “two state solution” were implemented, it would only give “Palestinain” Muslims a firmer base from which to wage violent Jihad against Israel, as Gaza has already done.
As for the “occupation” of the “West Bank”, this was because prior to 1967 Muslims used this as a base from which to—of course—wage violent Jihad against Israel.
And, of course, Islam is metastasizing all over the world, in many places that have absolutely nothing to do with Israel.
Are Muslims in western China knifing Infidels to death because of Israel? Is Boko Haram kidnapping Christian school girls because of Israel? Is the Islamic State committing genocide against the Yazidi because of Israel? Is Sudan enslaving Christians and animists because of Israel?
It is a ludicrous argument—but one that useful idiots often parrot.
albert says
The liberals big idea “destroy the only democracy in the middle east” and that will bring peace. Jerks.
Jay Boo says
“Bruce Riedel is senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project.
Brookings is a Qatar-funded group”
————————
He might as well be getting all his information by watching “The View”
KiwiKaffir says
Each muslim country need a strongman to govern it, a theocratic dictator or otherwise. Until they fight it out and get that strong man we need to leave them to it!
If the West stops sending money to these countries the sooner they will sort it out!
Larry A. Singleton says
Read Caroline Glick’s The Israeli Solution.
cs says
Blame the Jews discourse. Still strong today.
Bonnie Loranger says
The two sate solution is a very bad idea. There is only one solution and one state: Israel.WE have seen it with Gaza. The fight is NOT about land but about erasing israel out of the map.The so called Palestinians want all Jews dead.And I will add all Muslims want Jews dead.
CogitoErgoSum says
Christy, if my religion teaches me to love my neighbor as myself and I curse and mistreat my neighbor because he is not like me, am I following my religion? No, in this case I am the threat, not my religion. If my religion teaches me that I should hate my neighbor if he is not a follower of my religion and I therefore curse and mistreat my neighbor because he is not like me, am I following my religion? Yes, and in this case both I and my religion are a threat. To say Islam is not a threat is stupidity. Islam IS extremism and intolerance. Some followers of Islam are simply more enthusiastic about their religion than others. Educate yourself a little more on this subject.
My Shari'a Moor says
Yes, thanx to Robert Spencer, etc., we ALL now know (for the last fortnight, at LEAST!) that the Brookings Inst. has been BO’T OFF by Qatar (& OTHER petroBUX-interests in the ME!)!
So, who’d-a thunk it?!
(sarc/OFF!)!