U.S. Sees Europe As New Front Against Islamists
Senior Bush Aides Conclude Continent's Muslim Minority Poses Rising Security Threat
By Frederick Kempe
Wall Street Journal
April 11, 2006
The Bush administration has quietly opened what senior officials consider a third front in a global campaign against Islamist extremism, this one aimed at the rising threat from Europe.
The first post-Sept. 11 front was al Qaeda terrorists themselves and their supporters, prompting a war in Afghanistan and a host of international counterterrorist actions. Next came efforts to get at terrorist roots by promoting democratic change across the broader Middle East.
Senior Bush administration officials, following terrorist attacks in Madrid and London and galvanized by Muslim mass protests over Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, have concluded that Europe's alienated Muslim minorities not only endanger Europe's social cohesion but pose an increasing American security threat. Short term, these officials worry that a potential terrorist bearing a European passport may travel visa-free to the U.S. and slip through post-2001 controls. Longer term, they fear that growing, radicalized communities within allied European states could form ever-larger support groups, recruiting grounds and launching pads for extremism.
The administration's evolving thinking came into sharper focus last week during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at which Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried said: "While Islamist extremism is a global phenomenon, we find the nature of the problem in Western Europe to be distinct -- both in its character and its potential to threaten the United States."
What makes the challenge so complex, Mr. Fried said in a subsequent interview, is that the U.S. can't address it through arrests, military campaigns or even greater democracy, but needs to launch a generational "battle of ideas" that would be no less critical in importance than that against communism after World War II. It ultimately will have to rely on European allies who mostly have failed to integrate Muslim minorities.
The evolving U.S. approach adds soft power to the hard power of expanding law-enforcement and intelligence cooperation with European states through increased efforts to combat extremist ideology. That involves engaging the moderate Muslim majority by, among other measures, bringing more Muslims into such existing trans-Atlantic exchanges as the high-profile Fulbright academic-exchange program and the International Visitors Leadership program, whose aim is to identify and cultivate emerging leaders. The State Department also has launched initiatives to bring together U.S. and European Muslims.
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Tom C. Korologos in November convened what he called the first-ever people-to-people exchange between American and Belgian Muslims, who compared notes on coming to terms with secular Western societies. The Islamic Society of North America, the largest U.S. Muslim organization, announced internships, scholarships and exchanges for Belgian imams and Muslim leaders, teachers and students. The mayors of Dearborn, Mich., and Genk, Belgium, formed a sister-city relationship to help link their communities.
Mr. Korologos's initiative, in a country where 5% of the population -- about 500,000 people -- are Muslims, recognized the challenge of tackling radical Islam at a time when European public opinion toward the U.S. is near record lows. Yet Mr. Korologos wagered right that Belgian Muslims' interest in learning from their American counterparts would outweigh their aversion to participating in anything sponsored by the U.S. government. Other embassies are following that lead with similar initiatives.
What the U.S. can't fix, however, are inflexible European social and economic structures that worsen the problem. High unemployment rates leave Muslim youth without jobs. Anti-Muslim discrimination feeds alienation. Existing national identities leave little room for second- and third-generation immigrants to integrate. Aging societies feed fear and anti-immigrant political movements.
With the U.S. locked in its own polarizing debate over illegal immigration, Mr. Fried illustrates the difficulty of the European situation by imagining how much more charged the already-inflamed debate in the U.S. would be "if the Hispanic community, instead of ultimately wanting to be American, had a large number of extremists who espoused [radical anti-American ideology]...or worse, were linked to Latin American terrorist groups."
U.S. recognition of the European problem began with knowledge that the Sept. 11 plot was hatched by a terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany. The view of Europe's potential danger began to crystalize as officials watched the Madrid bombings of March 2004, the grisly murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist radical that November, and the London transit bombings of July 2005. The concern only grew as French ghetto riots late last year were followed by mass demonstrations over the Danish cartoons.
Demographic trends will only increase the problem if European countries can't successfully deal with it. Muslim minorities have grown to 5% of the West European population, triple what it was 30 years ago. That number is likely to double again by 2025. In Germany, immigrants now make up 22% of 15-year-olds, compared with 9% of the overall population.
One senior U.S. policy maker believes that over the next 20 to 30 years, Europe will either become a much more dangerous and divided place or it will see the emergence of "Modern Islam" that is compatible with democracy and Western values. As a point of hope, he notes that Judaism's own encounter with the enlightenment came in Europe and resulted in its reform and modernization. The problem is that moderate Muslims remain largely silent and haven't yet provided the intellectual leaders for such a movement.
Though the American policy cure is certainly insufficient, it's hard to quibble with the diagnosis.
Europe was the central battleground of World Wars I and II and the Cold War. What U.S. official thinking reflects is Europe's unwitting emergence again at the beginning of the 21st century as a decisive stage for a new historic battle with global consequences.
By Frederick Kempe
Wall Street Journal
April 11, 2006
The Bush administration has quietly opened what senior officials consider a third front in a global campaign against Islamist extremism, this one aimed at the rising threat from Europe.
The first post-Sept. 11 front was al Qaeda terrorists themselves and their supporters, prompting a war in Afghanistan and a host of international counterterrorist actions. Next came efforts to get at terrorist roots by promoting democratic change across the broader Middle East.
Senior Bush administration officials, following terrorist attacks in Madrid and London and galvanized by Muslim mass protests over Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, have concluded that Europe's alienated Muslim minorities not only endanger Europe's social cohesion but pose an increasing American security threat. Short term, these officials worry that a potential terrorist bearing a European passport may travel visa-free to the U.S. and slip through post-2001 controls. Longer term, they fear that growing, radicalized communities within allied European states could form ever-larger support groups, recruiting grounds and launching pads for extremism.
The administration's evolving thinking came into sharper focus last week during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at which Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried said: "While Islamist extremism is a global phenomenon, we find the nature of the problem in Western Europe to be distinct -- both in its character and its potential to threaten the United States."
What makes the challenge so complex, Mr. Fried said in a subsequent interview, is that the U.S. can't address it through arrests, military campaigns or even greater democracy, but needs to launch a generational "battle of ideas" that would be no less critical in importance than that against communism after World War II. It ultimately will have to rely on European allies who mostly have failed to integrate Muslim minorities.
The evolving U.S. approach adds soft power to the hard power of expanding law-enforcement and intelligence cooperation with European states through increased efforts to combat extremist ideology. That involves engaging the moderate Muslim majority by, among other measures, bringing more Muslims into such existing trans-Atlantic exchanges as the high-profile Fulbright academic-exchange program and the International Visitors Leadership program, whose aim is to identify and cultivate emerging leaders. The State Department also has launched initiatives to bring together U.S. and European Muslims.
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Tom C. Korologos in November convened what he called the first-ever people-to-people exchange between American and Belgian Muslims, who compared notes on coming to terms with secular Western societies. The Islamic Society of North America, the largest U.S. Muslim organization, announced internships, scholarships and exchanges for Belgian imams and Muslim leaders, teachers and students. The mayors of Dearborn, Mich., and Genk, Belgium, formed a sister-city relationship to help link their communities.
Mr. Korologos's initiative, in a country where 5% of the population -- about 500,000 people -- are Muslims, recognized the challenge of tackling radical Islam at a time when European public opinion toward the U.S. is near record lows. Yet Mr. Korologos wagered right that Belgian Muslims' interest in learning from their American counterparts would outweigh their aversion to participating in anything sponsored by the U.S. government. Other embassies are following that lead with similar initiatives.
What the U.S. can't fix, however, are inflexible European social and economic structures that worsen the problem. High unemployment rates leave Muslim youth without jobs. Anti-Muslim discrimination feeds alienation. Existing national identities leave little room for second- and third-generation immigrants to integrate. Aging societies feed fear and anti-immigrant political movements.
With the U.S. locked in its own polarizing debate over illegal immigration, Mr. Fried illustrates the difficulty of the European situation by imagining how much more charged the already-inflamed debate in the U.S. would be "if the Hispanic community, instead of ultimately wanting to be American, had a large number of extremists who espoused [radical anti-American ideology]...or worse, were linked to Latin American terrorist groups."
U.S. recognition of the European problem began with knowledge that the Sept. 11 plot was hatched by a terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany. The view of Europe's potential danger began to crystalize as officials watched the Madrid bombings of March 2004, the grisly murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist radical that November, and the London transit bombings of July 2005. The concern only grew as French ghetto riots late last year were followed by mass demonstrations over the Danish cartoons.
Demographic trends will only increase the problem if European countries can't successfully deal with it. Muslim minorities have grown to 5% of the West European population, triple what it was 30 years ago. That number is likely to double again by 2025. In Germany, immigrants now make up 22% of 15-year-olds, compared with 9% of the overall population.
One senior U.S. policy maker believes that over the next 20 to 30 years, Europe will either become a much more dangerous and divided place or it will see the emergence of "Modern Islam" that is compatible with democracy and Western values. As a point of hope, he notes that Judaism's own encounter with the enlightenment came in Europe and resulted in its reform and modernization. The problem is that moderate Muslims remain largely silent and haven't yet provided the intellectual leaders for such a movement.
Though the American policy cure is certainly insufficient, it's hard to quibble with the diagnosis.
Europe was the central battleground of World Wars I and II and the Cold War. What U.S. official thinking reflects is Europe's unwitting emergence again at the beginning of the 21st century as a decisive stage for a new historic battle with global consequences.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:36 AM
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