Supporting liberal forces in the Islamic world to defeat jihad

Hamas’s devastating surprise attack on Israel and the global crisis it has precipitated dramatically highlights the extreme dangers of complacency in safe havens for terrorists, a lesson learned from 9/11. It was to be forever etched into our consciousness from then on.

More than 20 years of shocking experience has proven that the threats they pose must be taken with equal seriousness, whether they lie next door or across distant mountains and deserts. Masu.

But on a deeper level, the scale and severity of the atrocities make clear that the broader phenomenon from which they emerged, Islamic extremism, is a growing and potentially enduring global force. Did. In the multiple wars waged since the 9/11 attacks on America, it has clearly not been defeated or even weakened.

The only way to defeat jihad is to understand what mistakes the United States has made in these conflicts, something President Biden mentioned without naming names in his address to the nation. That understanding must begin with an understanding of how this epidemic arose in the first place and end with a compelling vision that goes beyond mere military force to combat it.

While the crisis has generated much discussion about the need to balance Israel’s right to self-defense with Palestinians’ right to self-determination, and the evocation of past traumas endured by both peoples, the October 7 attack was simply It wasn’t a bloody affair. in the long unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict. But its supposed “unprecedented” nature was in fact a characteristic outburst of jihadist anger, similar to 9/11, the genocide committed by Pakistani forces in Bangladesh in 1971. Similarly, Taliban atrocities were committed throughout the period, showing no restraint in targeting large numbers of civilians. It ruled Afghanistan, and the Islamic State’s depredations reached a climax.

In all these cases, the ideological and psychological justification was that everything was permissible and even compulsory against those considered to be enemies of God.

How could the faith of our nation’s founding prophets, whose stricture was that there should be no coercion, be used to provoke such contradictory and heinous behavior? In addition to the eternal possibility that the message of benevolent faith will be distorted by fanatics, certain tragic historical trajectories over the past century have brought about continued catastrophe in our time. And sadly, the United States and other liberal, secular, modern Western countries have played a powerful enabling role in this drama.

At the end of World War I, British hero TE Lawrence offered a vision to guide Muslims as they struggled in the dim light of the post-war world. He advised us to embark on a “pilgrimage of return”, “exchanging ideals for ideals and faith in freedom for faith in past revelations”.

This was not a call to abandon their faith, but rather to reconcile Islam with modernity. And for much of the 20th century, the most dynamic leaders from Egypt to Afghanistan heeded this policy in everything from economic development and legal reform to education and women’s rights. This program made great strides toward liberating the region from esoteric lifestyles and ideas that kept people poor and ignorant and fearful of new ideas and people different from themselves.

But within this brightening landscape, there were two violent resistances. Their malign and powerful influence ultimately proved decisive in reversing the progress of the entire Islamic world.

Saudi Arabia is using its economic power and Pakistan’s military power to oppose modernizing socio-economic changes that would harm the feudal elite. Under the cry that “Islam is in crisis,” these closely aligned Sunni theocratic regimes have sought to protect the poor, ignorant and fearful people who would benefit most from such a change. During this period, religious hatred was violently spread both at home and abroad.

In both cases, the UK side bears some of the blame. In the Middle East, Britain blocked the creation of a united Arab state under the rule of the progressive, secular Hashemite dynasty in the 1920s. In the case of Pakistan, Britain undermined the progressive and inclusive Indian independence movement of the 1940s by dividing the country along religious lines.

The first mistake allowed Saudi Arabia, with its vast oil wealth, to promote fanatical Wahhabi Islam through the mosques, religious schools, and Islamist parties it sponsored in Africa and Asia (such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which later founded Hamas). I was able to spread the word.

Secular nations united against their own Islamist “Pakistani ideology,” and the country’s ruling military sponsored extremist groups to quash domestic dissent and use them as proxies against India and Afghanistan. Because Pakistan was considered an important Cold War ally, the U.S. government did not raise any serious opposition.

After 9/11, America’s fundamental mistake was that a lasting victory over jihadism would require a break with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in order to restart plans for the modernization of Islamic countries, and that only the effects of terrorism could be overcome. The problem lies in the failure to recognize that the “war on terror” was not the target. A huge pollution of the minds of those countries. Our refusal extended to subsidies to Pakistan as Pakistan continues to support the Taliban, who are now predictably back in Kabul.

While the current crisis is dangerous, it also presents new opportunities.
‘Return pilgrimage’ to seek freedom for people in the Islamic world resumes
A reliable alternative to holy war rooted in the necessities of modern life.

The U.S. government must abandon an unsustainable foreign policy orthodoxy that seeks to achieve stability by acting only through supposedly friendly autocrats in the region and forcing them to normalize relations with Israel. No.

Deradicalization never happens at the hands of historical radicalists. The only answer to Muslim anger towards Gaza that avoids a significant increase in jihad is to promise a better future not just for the Palestinians but for the entire Islamic world after the war ends.

Continuing to urge Israel to move to a more restrained and focused war effort,
And the Biden administration vows to lead post-war reconstruction.
Stop limiting diplomatic outreach to leaders and foreign ministers, and instead meet with responsible opposition leaders, civil society leaders, religious moderates, feminists, and dissident journalists, even those in exile. do.

Washington should announce that it supports a more equitable distribution of political and economic power in Muslim lands, starting with political democratization and extending to the distribution of wealth derived from oil and other natural resources. .

It requires a clever combination of focused hard power and pragmatic soft power. Honest self-criticism is the only way to project a truth that people in other countries can believe: America’s strength as a provider of freedom.

Freelance journalist Vanni Cappelli is the president of the Afghanistan Foreign Press Association.