Why We’re Losing to Radical Islam
Newt
Gingrich
The United States has been at war with radical Islamist terrorism for
at least 35 years, starting with the November 1979 Iranian seizure of the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran and taking of 52 American hostages. President Jimmy
Carter , in his State of the Union address two months later, declared the
American captives “innocent victims of terrorism.”
For the next two decades, radical Islamist terrorism grew
more powerful and more sophisticated. On Sept. 11, 2001, a remarkably
sophisticated effort by Islamist terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans in
New York City, Washington, D.C., and western Pennsylvania.
In response to the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor,
President George W. Bush told a joint session of Congress: “Our war on terror
begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every
terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
We have clearly failed to meet that goal. After more than 13 years of
war, with thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands of Americans
wounded, and several trillion dollars spent, the U.S. and its allies are losing
the war with radical Islamism. The terrorists of Islamic State are ravaging
Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram is widening its bloody swath through Nigeria, al
Qaeda and its affiliates are killing with impunity in Somalia, Yemen and
beyond, and the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan. The killings in Paris at Charlie
Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket are only the most recent evidence of the
widening menace of radical Islamism.
Confronted with the atrocities in Paris, French Prime
Minister Manuel Valls told his people on Jan. 10 that they were at war: “It is
a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against
everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity.”
Yet France, like the U.S. government, doesn’t have a strategy for
victory in this war. Ad hoc responses to attacks have failed to stop
the growing threat.
We remain vulnerable
to a catastrophic attack (or series of smaller attacks) that would have dark
and profound consequences for the American people and for freedom around the
world.
The U.S. and its allies must now design a strategy to match a global
movement of radical Islamists who sincerely want to destroy Western
civilization.
Congress should lead the way, first by convening hearings that outline
the scale and nature of the threat. Additional hearings should seek
advice from a wide range of experts on strategies to defeat radical Islamists.
Understanding the global threat, outlining strategies that might lead
to its defeat, identifying the laws and systems that need to be changed to
implement those strategies—all are complex problems that will require months to
sort out. But the American people will rise to the challenge if they are given
the facts about the real dangers we face.
Here is an outline of
the sequence of topics that Congress should investigate:
1. The current strength and growth rate
of radical Islamists around the world. We need a detailed sense of the total
picture. The scale of the threat from this nihilistic global movement, I
suspect, will be stunning.
2. The country-by-country danger.
Americans simply don’t realize how dire the situation is in specific areas.
Boko Haram has killed thousands more people in Nigeria alone than Ebola has in
all of Africa, according to data compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations
and the Centers for Disease Control. One or more hearings should focus on each
center of radical Islamism, including Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
3. The role of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The group is vital to the global radical Islamist movement, yet so little
understood by Washington elites that it deserves its own set of hearings.
4. The primary sources of radical Islamist
funding, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran.
5. The Arab countries—including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco,
Tunisia and Algeria—that have successfully contained and minimized radical
Islamists. We must learn how this was accomplished and what aspects should be
replicated.
6. Radicalization in mosques and on social
media. How are young Muslims being drawn into terrorism? What can be
done to counter a seductive message that has reached deep into Europe and the
U.S. and inspired jihadists by the thousands to travel to the Middle East for
terrorist training that can be exported back home?
7. The Islamist cyberthreat. The
hacking of the U.S. Central Command’s social-media accounts this week
apparently didn’t inflict serious damage, but the episode was evidence of a new
front in the fight against terrorism.
Once congressional
hearings have outlined the scale of the challenge, it is essential to turn to
the sources of our enemies’ strategic thinking and doctrine. Doing so will be
controversial, but it is vital to understand the motivations and assumptions of
the radical Islamist movement.
On Feb. 22, 1946, U.S. attaché to Moscow George Kennan sent
what became known as the “Long Telegram.” In 8,000 words, he outlined the
nature of Soviet Union communism with clarity and force. His analysis shaped
much of the American transition to a policy of containing the Soviet Union. It is
a tragedy, if not a scandal, that nearly 14 years after 9/11, we are still in
need of an equivalent “Long Telegram” about the nature of radical Islamism.
The terrorists are immersed in Islamic history and doctrine. It
is extraordinary that the political correctness of Western elites has discouraged
the study of what inspires those who dream of slaughtering us. Congress
should hold hearings on the historic patterns, doctrines and principles that
drive the radical Islamists. No doubt these facts will make some of our elites
uncomfortable. They should. We must understand the deep roots of
Islamist beliefs, like the practice of beheading, if we are going to combat
them.
Finally, having held
hearings on the enemy and its thinking, Congress must hold hearings on
strategies for achieving victory.
Once the hearings are complete, preferably this year,
Congress should form a commission of the wisest witnesses it heard and charge
them with designing a national strategy for winning the global war against
radical Islamists. If the current administration doesn’t embrace the strategy, then it can
become part of the 2016 presidential campaign: Who wants to get America on
offense, with a coherent and intelligible strategy, against those who would
destroy us?
