The West’s four-part strategy to deal with
radical Islam

By Fareed Zakaria

Thursday, January 22, 2015

DAVOS, Switzerland — The conversation
at Davos is often dominated by
economics, and this year it’s no different.
But the shock of the Paris terror attacks
lingers, and discussions at the World
Economic Forum here often turn to
radical Islam. I posited in my previous
column that the solution does not lie in
more American military interventions in
the Middle East. What, then, is the
answer?
The problem is deep and structural (as I
wrote a few weeks after 9/11 in
Newsweek, in an essay titled “Why They
Hate Us”). The Arab world has been ruled
for decades by repressive (mostly
secular) dictatorships that, in turn,
spawned extreme (mostly religious)
opposition movements. The more
repressive the regime, the more extreme
the opposition. Islam became the
language of opposition because it was a
language that could not be shut down or
censored. Now, the old Arab order is
crumbling, but it has led to instability
and opportunities for jihadi groups to
thrive in new badlands.
Over the past few decades, this radical
Islamist ideology has been globalized.
Initially fueled by Saudi money and Arab
dissenters, imams and intellectuals, it
has taken on a life of its own. Today it is
the default ideology of anger, discontent
and violent opposition for a small
number of alienated young Muslim men
around the world. Only Muslims, and
particularly Arabs, can cure this cancer.
That does not leave the United States
and the West helpless. Washington and
its allies can support Muslim moderates,
help their societies modernize and
integrate those that do. But that’s for the
long haul. Meanwhile, Washington and
its allies must adopt a strategy that has
four elements: intelligence,
counterterrorism, integration and
resilience (ICIR).
Intelligence is obviously the first line of
defense, but it’s also essential to the
attack. We have to know where jihadis
and potential jihadis are and what they
are planning. That means using
sophisticated technology to search
through various kinds of
communications, but it also — and
crucially — means developing good
relations with communities. Most law
enforcement professionals will argue
that the key is to develop trust with, and
ties to, local Muslim communities to
identify early on those who might pose a
threat. As the sheriff of Los Angeles
County put it in congressional testimony
in 2010, “Information that is
relationship-derived is more reliable than
information that is twice or more
removed from the original source. ”
Counterterrorism is the natural follow-
up to intelligence. When you know where
the bad guys are, capture or kill them.
It’s easier said than done, but the United
States and other Western nations have
had considerable success with this tactic
— not only in war zones like Afghanistan
and Pakistan but also in intercepting
plots on their way to cities like Paris and
London. All counterterrorism efforts
have downsides. While drone attacks
look seamless from the skies, they
inevitably produce civilian casualties.
Special forces operations are more
surgical, although they risk American (or
other Western) casualties.
In a revealing interview published in
2013 in Foreign Affairs, retired Gen.
Stanley McChrystal said about
counterterrorism, “Americans have got
to understand that. If we were to use our
technological capabilities carelessly — I
don’t think we do, but there’s always the
danger that you will — then we should
not be upset when someone responds
with their equivalent, which is a suicide
bomb in Central Park, because that’s
what they can respond with.”
Integration is something that America
does well and with which Europe
struggles. One of the chief reasons that
the United States has not had as many
problems as many predicted after 9/11 is
that its Muslim community is well
integrated and loyal, and it largely
believes in American values. Europe still
faces huge challenges in integrating
those who are new or different into
societies that have long been defined by
blood and soil.
Finally, resilience. Terrorism is an
unusual tactic. It doesn’t work if we are
not terrorized. Bouncing back and
returning to normalcy are ways of
ensuring that terrorism does not have its
desired effect. We have not always
managed to do this. In recent months,
we have massively overreacted to the
Islamic State execution videos, which
was why they were produced in the first
place.
The Paris attacks were barbaric, as were
those in Ottawa, Sydney, London, Madrid
and Fort Hood. But one way to gain
perspective might be to keep in mind the
numbers. According to the Global
Terrorism Database, in the 12 years
between Sept. 12, 2001, and the end of
2013, the number of Americans who
died on U.S. soil due to terrorism was 42.
(And six of those were from the
gruesome attack on a Sikh temple in
Wisconsin in 2012.) Meanwhile, in one
year alone, 2011, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention reports that
32,351 Americans died because of
firearms. The number who died in traffic
accidents was 33,783. So “keep calm and
carry on” is more than a slogan to wear
on a T-shirt.

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