The Ceaseless Call for Engagement with Radical Islam

"Islamophobia," BR23, by David Sanger
Book review of Engaging the Muslim World by Juan Cole

The title of the review, "Islamophobia," should give you an idea of how apologist academic Juan Cole views most staunch opposition to radical Islam. And using Bush's callous application of the neologism "Islamofascism," Cole makes the case for Engaging the Muslim World.

While reviewer David Sanger does give Cole entirely too much credit, he does call out the University of Michigan historian on one glaring flaw that should leave readers skeptical of Cole's work:

[Cole] compares the 9/11 hijackers to Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who read white supremacist works before bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. To Cole, the two men “bear a number of striking similarities to members of such radical Egyptian groups as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Grouping of the Blind Sheikh.” They all railed against “Jewish control of the U.S. government” and attacked tall buildings that were symbols of power. They all belonged to “fringe, if significant, movements.”

Did they? George W. Bush may have overinflated the power of Islamofascism, but certainly the radical Muslim movement, in all its incarnations, has a membership that is bigger and better financed than the American fringe groups, and with a presence in more countries than those home-grown extremists who threaten domestic terrorism.

There is a reason that we have tens of thousands of American troops on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan: to stop radical groups from taking over either state, which would create a sanctuary for planning attacks around the world, and — in the case of Pakistan — to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons. Those are problems of a vastly different scale than apprehending the next Timothy McVeigh. And they explain why a new president who came into office as the anti-Bush, ready to use diplomacy first, is extending American military action in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A logically sound scholar would not overreach with such a preposterous analogy, as Cole does. He seems unwilling to comprehend that a real struggle exists between Islamists and the United States that cannot simply be resolved through clever U.S. diplomacy and concessions.

While it may be an overreach to label Islamists as "Islamofascists," it does not obscure the the totalitarian nature of these radical groups that wish to eliminate U.S. influence in the region (See Terror and Liberalism, by Paul Berman). Under such conditions, the success of engagement does not bode well.