Ideological tensions overshadow Obama's call to combat extremism
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Version 0 of 1. Barack Obama has called on the Muslim world to reject the notion of a clash of civilisations with the west in a landmark speech on combating violent extremism that nevertheless also committed the US to “unwavering” military intervention in more than half a dozen Islamic countries. Following similar calls to domestic critics of his foreign policy on Wednesday, the president insisted it played into the hands of terrorists to describe the struggle as a “war with Islam” and demanded more vocal support from Middle East allies. “Muslim communities, including scholars and clerics have a responsibility to push back not just on twisted interpretations of Islam, but also on the lie that we are somehow engaged in a clash of civilisations; that America and the west are somehow at war with Islam or seek to suppress Muslims, or that we are the cause of every ill in the Middle East,” Obama told more than 80 foreign government ministers gathered at the State Department. “That narrative sometimes extends far beyond terrorist organisations,” he added. “That narrative becomes the foundation upon which terrorists build their ideology and by which they try to justify their violence, and that hurts all of us, including Islam and especially Muslims who are the ones most likely to be killed.” Yet just minutes earlier, the president referenced the ongoing military conflicts that many foreign critics of the White House believe is a contributory factor in fuelling radicalisation: hinting at continued US deployment in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Muslim regions of west Africa. “We must remain unwavering in our fight against terrorist organisations,” said Obama. “In Afghanistan, our coalition is focused on training and assisting Afghan forces, and we’ll continue to conduct counterterrorism missions against the remnants of al-Qaida in the tribal regions.” “When necessary, the United States will continue to take action against al-Qaida affiliates in places like Yemen and Somalia... [and] push back against groups like al- Shabaab and Boko Haram,” he added. “In Iraq and Syria, our coalition of some 60 nations, including Arab nations, will not relent in our mission to degrade and ultimately destroy Isil.” The tension between rejecting the notion of a broad ideological struggle, and satisfying domestic hawks calling for a more robust response has overshadowed much of this week’s White House summit. Obama has been fiercely criticised by Republicans and much of the US media for failing to emphasise the Islamist roots of much of the “violent extremism” that the summit was designed to address. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani even accused the president of “not loving” America in remarks that criticised Obama’s alleged unwillingness to sufficiently back Christian and Jewish victims of terror. At the same time, some Islamic American groups have criticised the administration for not acknowledging the root causes of resentment and radicalisation even at home in the US, pointing to the killing of Muslim students in North Carolina and cutting off remittances from Somali expatriates. Muslim political experts agree that the White House needs to acknowledge the ideological component of the war against Islamist extremism, but question whether it the US is capable of pursuing it. “This is not the administration’s war, any administration’s war,” Marwan Muasher, a Jordanian politician now overseeing research on the Middle East at the US-based Carnegie Endowment, told the Guardian. “It is not equipped to do it; it cannot do it.” Related: Chapel Hill 'hate crime' response criticised by Muslim lawmaker But he agreed with Obama that moderate voices in the region needed to do more to oppose the ideological support for the Islamic State. “The Arab world needs to take the lead on this,” added Muasher in a discussion with reporters ahead of the speech. “The Americans can lead on the military front, they cannot lead on the ideological front. They are not capable of doing so and the region does not want them to do so. The question is, is the region capable of taking the lead ideologically.” Yet Middle East experts in Washington are also wary of simply passing the buck. “I think there is a real danger of kicking the ideological war to the clerical authorities in the Arab world,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Carnegie researcher recently returned from Libya. “Because of the credibility gap, these authorities are tied to the regimes, they don’t have resonance among those who are at risk.” “This [Isis] ideology is going to stay with us for a while and is going to become even more violent and more barbaric than what you have seen,” added Muasher. The theme was echoed by US secretary of state John Kerry, who told the Washington summit that the struggle against violent extremism was the “defining challenge of our generation” Obama also acknowledged the high stakes. “As we speak, Isil is terrorising the people of Syria and Iraq and engaging in unspeakable cruelty, the wanton murder of children, the enslavement and rape of women, threatening religious minorities with genocide, beheading hostages,” he said. “Isil-linked terrorists murdered Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula, and their slaughter of Egyptian Christians in Libya has shocked the world. Beyond the region, we’ve seen deadly attacks in Ottawa, Sidney, Paris and now Copenhagen.” |