Naming the War on Terrorism, Continued

Spurred by the 9/11 Commission Report, I've commented before on the need for a better name for the war on terrorism. Daniel Pipes weighs in with some cogent commentary on the Report's findings. He suggests the "War on Islamism" as a good name for our current conflict. That sounds plausible, inasmuch as it identifies the threat as the ideology of radical Islam rather than any particular manifestation of it.

In praising the report, Pipes makes an important point about the source of radical Islamism: "In contrast to those analysts who wishfully dismiss the Islamists as a few fanatics, the 9/11 commission acknowledges their true importance, noting that Osama bin Laden's message 'has attracted active support from thousands of disaffected young Muslims and resonates powerfully with a far larger number who do not actively support his methods.' The Islamist outlook represents not a hijacking of Islam, as is often but wrongly claimed; rather it emerges from a 'long tradition of extreme intolerance' within Islam, one going back centuries and in recent times associated with Wahhabism, the Muslim Brethren, and the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb."

And he praises the Report for positing dual threats to America and the West: "The commission carefully distinguishes between the enemy's twofold nature: 'al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists' and the 'radical ideological movement in the Islamic world.' It correctly finds the first weakened, yet posing 'a grave threat.' The second is the greater concern, however, for it is still gathering and 'will menace Americans and American interests long after Usama Bin Ladin and his cohorts are killed or captured.' American strategy, therefore, must be to dismantle Al Qaeda's network and prevail over 'the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism.' In other words, 'the United States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of people.'"

This means we're in for a long struggle that will, as the Report says, rely upon Muslims who favor pluralism and change to change the minds and hearts of their fellow believers. Educational programs like those proposed by Democracy Project can play a crucial role in this process. Absent knowledge of the foundational elements of civil society -- rule of law, a free press, property rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech -- Muslim societies will remain susceptible to the Sirens' song of the Islamists.

As others have argued, the ideological dimensions of this war are comparable to those we enjoined in the Cold War and during WWII. We still live in an age of ideology, and once again ideologues want to kill and enslave us. Recognizing that ideology is at the heart of the terrorists' threat is a necessary first step to working for its defeat. It's time to devote considerable energy and talent to dissecting this malignant -ism so that it can be driven into obscurity.