erected in their memory.
We Are at War
In short, just as totalitarian communism and fascism were the main ideological threats of the twentieth century, the totalitarian ideology of violent extremist Islamism wars against the world today. Based on the words and deeds of the terrorists themselves, we are very much at war. In 1998, Osama bin Laden made an open declaration of war that ended with the command “to kill the Americans and their allies—civilian and military, in any country where it is possible to do it.”21 In the decade following, bin Laden and his cohorts have done precisely that, plotting against the entire global system of security, safety and prosperity.
Their efforts belie the scope of the current struggle. We are at war with an ideology that is every bit as fanatical and ruthless as that of fascism or communism. Spread by a sinister network of cultlike entities that spans the world, this fanatical worldview sanctifies the torture and slaughter of innocents; it denies the dignity and humanity of its opponents; and it includes among those it targets mainstream Muslims who dare to reject its pseudo-religious message of intolerance and bigotry.
These extremists have proved themselves quite capable of waging the war that they have declared. They have been helped in part by twenty-first-century technology, which has provided even small groups with enormous capability for destruction and damage. Radicals affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban or other similar extremist groups—from North Africa to Iraq and South Asia—are fighting for, and sometimes achieving, control of territory that they use to train, assemble advanced weaponry, and perform experiments to develop ever deadlier ways of killing their enemies, and over which they impose their own vision of repressive law and seek to dominate local life.
And finally, through atrocities like the 9/11 bombings, the radicals have demonstrated that they are quite capable of visiting consequences upon us every bit commensurate with war. Their goal is clear; what our enemies want is “a dialogue with bullets and the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction.” These are not my words; they are from an Al Qaeda training manual.
The nature of our enemies and the ideological threat we face brings to mind Winston Churchill's famous dictum, uttered in 1946 in reference to a different threat, that of the Soviet Union, but equally applicable here: “There is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness.”22 Simply put, this is how ideological fanatics view the world. Whether it is Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, Osama bin Laden, or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, for every fanatic, weakness is provocation. That is why we must never fool ourselves into thinking that submissiveness is a path to peace.
The United States has heeded this counsel. Following 9/11, President Bush took decisive action, striking back against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, deploying our intelligence assets across the globe, capturing or killing terrorists on nearly every continent, and partnering with our allies on shared intelligence against this common menace. Without such steps, the United States would have doubtless faced other, equally devastating attacks over the past eight years.
But there is another element in this struggle that is as important as strength: resolve. In his day, Ronald Reagan counseled that the United States should be “not warlike, not bellicose, not expansionist—but firm and principled in resisting those who would devour territory and put the soul in bondage.”23 Today, we can heed this advice by preventing our foes from attaining two monumental goals that they seek to achieve.
The first is the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, chief among them nuclear weapons. Simply put, we cannot allow such a capability ever to pass into the hands of a global network of terror. For bin Laden and his fellow travelers are at war, not just with America or the West, but with the values and principles, the habits and institutions of modern civilization. These extremist ideologues aim to destroy the modern world by unleashing the tools of modern technology. Make no mistake: this enemy, if it ever obtains a modern nuclear weapon, has every intention of using it.
The second goal of our ideological foes is to gain possession and control of nation-states. Just like the Nazis before they seized power in Germany or the Marxists before they took over in Russia, our enemies are seeking countries to conquer because they desire platforms from which they can launch other kinds of attacks. As we know, Al Qaeda ran Afghanistan through its surrogate, the Taliban, and that malignant alliance is part of what made 9/11 possible. Today, Islamic radicals seek to recreate such a safe haven in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere. And that is why we must continue to work to ensure that they never acquire those platforms.
We are fighting a battle not only of armaments but of ideas. And therein lies our greatest strength. Our enemies are animated by a fanatical ideology in which prejudice is lionized instead of condemned, and solving disputes through bombings is viewed as the preferred path to achieving consensus. We, on the other hand, believe in the power of reason, the great legacy bequeathed to us by our intellectual ancestors, including the forefathers of this country. In contrast to our enemies, many of them believed that when we look at the world through reason, we are not betraying faith in the Almighty, but are obeying a divine call to pursue knowledge and truth wherever they lead. Through the liberation and exercise of reason, humanity has achieved more in the last three centuries than in all of its history. We have birthed modern science, we have conquered ancient diseases, we have freed people from poverty and starvation, we have triggered the information age, and we have made the world a better and brighter place.
We are heirs to the age of reason, locked in a struggle for hearts and minds over this very matter, a struggle whose outcome might well determine the fate of our civilization and this globe. We dare not walk away from this battle, and we cannot allow fanatics to drag parts of the world into a dark age of ignorance and fear, degradation and servitude, disrespect for women, and prejudice and contempt for those with whom there is disagreement.
We are not in a battle against religion, because, as we have seen in the lives of some of the greatest men and women of our age, there is no necessary conflict between reason and faith. But we are indeed in a fight for our future, and it is this fight to which we must dedicate ourselves.
Combating the New Totalitarianism
How, then, should the United States combat its current ideological foes?
First, we should encourage more Muslim scholars and clerics to make clear to the world—especially the Muslim world—that extremist Islamism is not Islam, but a politicized perversion. We must also help amplify the voices of scholars and clerics that have already been raised, making sure their message is heard throughout the world
Second, we should make clear that we ourselves understand that radical Islamism is not true Islam because we recognize its poisonous roots only too well, having opposed them in World War II and throughout the Cold War. We must emphasize how these roots can be traced to the West's own backyard, to ideologies that deify the state, threatening mainstream Islam as well as Western democracy. And we must fight radical Islamist ideology as we fought its Western predecessors, with a complete array of tools, including developmental and humanitarian assistance to despairing people and nations that remain vulnerable to the terrorists' message.
Third, as an alternative to this radical tyranny, we should continue our efforts to support democracy and the rule of law throughout the Muslim world and across the globe. In this sense, we must stress that the embrace of democracy, when coupled with respect for rule of law, need not be inimical to Islam. On the contrary, the principle of rule of law squares with Islam's understanding that no reign—including that of the majority—should be absolute because no ruler is divine. Democracy makes room for precedent and tradition, holds rulers accountable, and empowers constructive reform not destructive revolution. Understood in this way, it can fit with mainstream Islam.
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