"Political Islam," Islamists and the War on Terror
By Douglas Farah
The U.S. intelligence community has only a single office devoted to understanding political Islam. That is one of the stunning nuggets contained in the recent House Intelligence Committee Report on threats to the United States.
That information, coupled with an interview in Harper's Magazine of Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh, the former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the CIA, seems to me to point a fundamental, residual problem in the government and intelligence community's approach to Islamists.
The House report, while disputed in its timing and presentation by Democrats, nonetheless presents some interesting findings, some that are particularly critical of the administration. The report found "significant shortfalls" in the government's knowledge of Islamist militancy at home or abroad. It concluded that there are "still gaps in our understanding of Islamist extremist groups, which leave America vulnerable."
At the same time, Nakhleh is saying that political Islam "is not a threat." What does political Islam mean? Can you possibly say that and ignore the political decision of the rulers of Saudi Arabia to put billions of dollars into teaching children to hate the wider world, everyone who is not a Salafist and non-religion based knowledge? The Pakistani decision to allow madrasas to continue to funtion as educational institutions when they teach the rote memorization of the Koran, accompanied only by the teachings of hatred. Does political Islam not embrace the (fundamentally political) international Muslim Brotherhood and its broadbased support of armed Islamist movements? The sharia movements in Northern Nigeria? Somalia in its current state? Sudan? My entire blog is here.