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What are the goals of militant Islam?

Sunday, September 08, 2002

By Dan Simpson, Post-Gazette Associate Editor

Because Daniel Pipes has studied Islam in its various forms and settings for 30 years, it's no surprise that his new book probes that culture, including its presence and role in the United States, with courage and incisiveness.

	"Militant Islam Reaches America" By Daniel Pipes. Norton. $25.95.

He makes the major and defining distinction between Islam -- a religion practiced by a fifth of the world's population -- and militant Islam, which he believes poses a serious threat to the U.S. as a society.

Garden-variety Islam and its adherents, both around the world and in the United States, are the ones that President Bush and other U.S. leaders urged the American people to absolve for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Pipes estimates these Muslims to constitute 85 percent to 90 percent of the billion or so in the world.

The militant Islamists -- Osama bin Laden and his ilk in the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and the United States itself -- are the ones who constitute the threat. The problem is not who they are, or what they believe, but what their goals are.

The author states that these militants are pursuing a major transformation of American society and government; they are organized, and they are not squeamish about how they carry out their agenda.

The Sept. 11 attacks obviously constitute "Exhibit A," but Pipes also puts forward a catalog of other statements of intent and actual acts -- including attacks -- as clear evidence of what militant Islam has in mind.

He does not understate the global appeal of militant Islam, calling it "the most vibrant and coherent ideological movement in the world today." He also believes it's a dangerous successor to communism and fascism.

The critical battle, as Pipes sees it, is within Islam, not without. It's a "clash of civilizations, between moderate Muslims and the militant Islamists."

Key battleground countries include Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and America, the juiciest plum of all. American vulnerability comes from our proudest traditions of freedom, which, unfortunately, also make America a happy hunting ground for those desiring to take advantage of its freedoms to work against it, such as the Sept. 11 attackers.

Pipes takes on what he considers to be some myths. One that he considers to be false is the "depraved because they are deprived" argument which goes: "Militant Islam is rooted in poverty and thus can be extirpated through economic development."

He says that impression is simply not true, citing the profiles of various Islamic extremists across the world, including Osama bin Laden and the Sept. 11 joy boys, who were hanging out in Florida and Arizona.

He tackles the politically sticky question of to what degree militant Islam has found a home in the United States in principally African-American Islamic organizations such as the Nation of Islam. He concludes that the Nation of Islam is "a folk religion with strong Christian overtones and hints of science fiction; it has little in common with normative Islam," a conclusion that probably surpasses the bounds of what is considered to be political correctness in this country at this time.

The book has a couple of flaws. The first is that Pipes doesn't say whether or not he thinks Sept. 11 represents a turning point in how Americans in general and American authorities in particular deal with Islam -- especially militant Islam -- in the United States.

Part of the reason for that lacuna in his line of argument is that some of the book was written before Sept. 11.

He suggests that to some degree our leaders still don't perceive the threat of militant Islam to the United States for what it is.

They certainly did not understand what was going on before Sept. 11, Pipes says, citing the manifest bungling of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of State and the FBI in dealing with militant Islamists, bungling that permitted them to cook up the Sept. 11 attacks right under our noses.

The second flaw lies in the fact that his comments about Islam in general and Muslims in the United States -- both Americans and foreigners -- have aroused the wrath of U.S.-based Muslim organizations.

He cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has criticized him and which has some adherents who have actively threatened him.

This is not to say that these attacks have caused Pipes to exaggerate the threat militant Islamists pose to the United States. It is fully understandable if he has added a certain poignancy from personal experience to some of his analysis. That is, after all, part of what writers do.

Finally, although this is basically an analytical book, Pipes offers suggestions to deal with the threat posed by militant Islamists.

He is skeptical about the efficacy of the war on terrorism, given what he considers to be its flawed conceptual underpinnings. He points out quite correctly that terrorism is a military tactic, and asks, pertinently, exactly how does one make war on a tactic?

U.S. policy should take account of the fact that the war against what he considers to be the enemy, militant Islam, is being waged actively and effectively by certain governments in the world -- Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan and, particularly, Turkey.

Pipes' depth of understanding of Islam and Muslims and his courage in challenging iconic views of the religion and its adherents have produced a book that requires us to examine carefully and critically what we are told, and what we know directly of Islam in the world and in the United States.