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The key issue to state therefore is that in the West there is a great deal of opposition to not just the violent means of groups such as Al Qaeda, but also its eventual goals and ends. These goals are, to invert Chris Brown‘s quote, an anathema to Western secularists. Charles Hill, Chief of Staff at the State Department in the Reagan administration, echoed this when he warned that “the states of the region (Middle East) are jeopardized by bad governance and an Islamist ideology that would abolish states and re-create the caliphate”
Though many Muslims reject the use of violence to enact political change, many more of them do support the goals of an Islamic political entity such as the caliphate and oppose the secular basis that underpins western values. To declare war then on ‘Islamist Terrorism’ as the 9/11 commission seeks to do , using a term that is unknown within the Islamic lexicon but which they define as “an Islamic militant, anti-democratic movement, bearing a holistic vision of Islam whose final aim is the restoration of the caliphate” does no favours in fostering an honest or productive debate. It however has the pernicious effect of stigmatising many millions of Muslims from the start who may believe in the restoration of the caliphate. In not adequately separating between means and ends, the 9/11 commission like the current Bush administration falls into the trap of fomenting strategic ambiguity. Yet as the 9/11 commission concedes implicitly, the ‘war’ cannot be won by military tactics alone. For example one of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission is to allocate funds for the building of primary and secondary schools in Muslim states . On page 363 and 364 of the report it outlines the choice of strategies more starkly when it states, “The first phase of our post 9/11 efforts rightly included military action to topple the Taliban and pursue Al Qaeda. This work continues. But long-term success demands the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort.”
However on the basis that the commission also concludes that the opposing side can only be “destroyed or utterly isolated” as there is no room for negotiation , it can only be assumed that the use of diplomacy, foreign aid, law enforcement and educational funding strategies of the ‘war’ are not there to coax the likes of bin Laden to the negotiating table, but designed to win the battle for ideas amongst the masses in the Muslim world. It is clear that the current ’war’ is therefore as much about transforming the ideas and values of the Islamic world than about defeating the men of violence, the issue that most preoccupies the global media. It is this new perspective that a new ideological struggle needs to be fought rather than a mere military one, which is now dawning on more and more western commentators. David Brooks writing in the New York Times alludes to this when he says, “Most of all, we need to see that the landscape of reality is altered. In the past, we've fought ideological movements that took control of states. Our foreign policy apparatus is geared toward relations with states: negotiating with states, confronting states. Now we are faced with a belief system that is inimical to the state system, and aims at theological rule and the restoration of the caliphate. We'll need a new set of institutions to grapple with this reality, and a new training method to understand people who are uninterested in national self-interest, traditionally defined. Last week I met with a leading military officer stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose observations dovetailed remarkably with the 9/11 commissioners. He said the experience of the last few years is misleading; only 10 percent of our efforts from now on will be military. The rest will be ideological. He observed that we are in the fight against Islamic extremism now where we were in the fight against communism in 1880.”
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