U.S. fight against extremism, terrorism hobbled by Obama’s qualms about using the term “Islamist”: Critics
Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont-McKenna College, believes President Barack Obama is reluctant to use the term combating “radical Islam” or “Muslim extremism” “because there are an awful lot of good Americans who are Muslims, and we have Muslim allies throughout the world. On the other hand, to deny Islam had anything to do with this is like saying Catholicism had nothing to do with the IRA” (Pitney adds: “Being Catholic, I get to say that”).
Since he took office, Obama has focused on making the conversation about combating extremism of all kinds. Even some supporters of the administration disagree with this attempt at a nuanced approach to the subject. “The thinking is that in the current climate to call it Islamic extremism or violent Islamic extremism is to rub salt in the open wound of the West and the Muslim world,” says Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “That was then, and this is now. It’s hard to deny the evidence when ordinary people read about terrorism, nine times out of ten it’s al Qaeda, or ISIS, or Boko Haram, or Nidal Hasan, or the Tsarnaev brothers.” Galston wants the Obama administration to label the current fight against Islamic extremism, just that. Doing so will allow the U.S. government to focus its resources on the current ideological struggle between moderate Muslims and extremist Islamists, and between extremist Islamists and the rest of the world. At the moment, the extremists are receiving more support to further their ideology. The “Saudis have spent upwards of $100 billion to disseminate it (Wahhabism), building mosques, supplying teachers and training imams,” Galston said.
For Galston, the administration’s reluctance to use the term “Islamist” or “Muslim” (as in “Islamist terrorism,” “Islamist radicalism,” “Muslim extremism”) is not merely a problem of nomenclature, a refusal to employ terminology which may be overly broad or which might be offensive to some. Rather, it exposes a lack of strategic focus, and potentially weakens the government’s hand in the fight. “If you’re willing to use the phrase, then you can focus government resources on the ideological struggle against a named foe,”he told the Daily Beast.“Are we prepared as part of this united front against violent extremism inspired by a misguided interpretation of Islam, are we prepared to confront the Saudis who have played a central role in spreading these tenets?” he asks.
Former Florida senator Bob Graham (D), who chaired the Senate Select Committee which investigated the 9/11 attacks, has urged the Obama administration to declassify twenty-eight pages from the Senate report that document the role of Saudi Arabia in funding and supporting the nineteen Saudi hijackers who partook in the attacks. “If Paris isn’t a turning point in our passivity toward the role the Saudis have played, what will it take?” he told the Daily Beast.
