Winning the War for Muslim Minds

[Lithos]

The Criterion Collection recently released a three-disc DVD of The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo's astonishing 1966 political thriller about the Algerian uprising against French colonial rule. Among the set's many "special features" is an interview with Richard Clarke and Michael Sheehan—the famous former White House counterterrorism chief and his ex-counterpart in the State Department—in which they discuss the film's relevance for the war on terrorism today.

There are lots of differences between the two conflicts (their causes and ideals are completely different), but Clarke and Sheehan note one crucial and disturbing similarity: The French army defeated the Algerian insurgents on a tactical military level, but the insurgents won in the long run because the French lacked a "political strategy." The two analysts worry that the United States might be following a similar pattern—military victories but ultimate defeat—in its approach to fighting al-Qaida.

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For the moment, the combination of Bush's war in Iraq and his disavowal of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process—which many Muslims see, however misleadingly, as two fronts of a broad U.S. war on Islam—has gravely diminished the very concepts of democracy. Gilles Kepel writes in his new book, The War for Muslim Minds:

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One way to do this is to deprive the Islamic militants of the propaganda that the West is waging a war on Islam—and that means, among other things, re-engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Even if it's true (and it may well be) that neither side of that conflict is much interested in comprehensive negotiations at the moment, it would be good for the United States' reputation at least to appear to be interested and involved. (It is worth noting that in the last 100 pages of his otherwise highly influential book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, Kenneth Pollack outlined several steps the United States had to take before toppling Saddam Hussein by force; one was to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or at least to try, precisely in order to ward off charges of hostility to Islam.)

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Gilles Kepel notes, "The most important battle in the war for Muslim minds during the next decade will be fought not in Palestine or Iraq but … on the outskirts of London, Paris, and other European cities, where Islam is already a growing part of the West." Most of these Muslims emigrated to the West not to export terror, but to earn a living. If they're given an opportunity, maybe Muslims everywhere will take notice and wonder if the West is really as bad as the Bin Ladens say.

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