by Raymond Ibrahim*

As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it would do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tactics—from engaging in da’wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavement—have been subverting Mexico in order to empower Islam and sabotage the U.S.

According to a 2010 report, “Close to home: Hezbollah terrorists are plotting right on the U.S. border,” which appeared in the NY Daily News:

Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana … closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S. In this, it has shadowed the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran, which has been forging close ties with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who in turn supports the narcoterrorist organization FARC, which wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the region.

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by Wahabuddin Ra’ees*

U.S. president Barack Obama entered office with a bold plan to combat Afghanistan’s escalating insurgency, empower its government, encourage a political resolution of the conflict, and secure the cooperation of neighboring Pakistan—all in time for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2014.

This new Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) policy has yet to deliver on its promise. While the U.S. military surge swept insurgents out of their southeastern strongholds, the rebels have responded with terror attacks and assassinations reaching into the heart of Kabul. Washington has accelerated its training of Afghan security forces, but most U.S. aid still circumvents the central government, weakening its authority. With a political settlement nowhere in sight and Pakistani support for armed extremists unabated, Washington’s options for preventing a Taliban takeover have narrowed.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Is the problem Islam or Islamism? Muslims or Islamists?

These and related questions regularly foster debate (see the exchange between Robert Spencer and Andrew McCarthy for a recent example). The greatest obstacle on the road to consensus is what such words imply; namely, that Islamism and Islamists are “bad,” and Islam and Muslims are good (or simply neutral).

Some observations in this regard:

Islamism is a distinct phenomenon and, to an extent, different from historic Islam. The staunch literalness of today’s Islamists is so artificial and anachronistic that, if only in this way, it contradicts the practices of medieval Muslims, which often came natural and better fit their historical context.

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

Does the recent successful killing of American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki vindicate US policy towards Yemen, or is a change in approach needed? The question is particularly relevant as Awlaki has been an online figure of inspiration for many jihadists and their sympathizers (e.g. the failed “Christmas Day” bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who may have received training in Yemen as well).

Contrary to all expectations, President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has recovered from severe injuries suffered during a rocket or bomb attack back in June and has returned from Saudi Arabia to the country’s capital of Sanaa. What are the implications for the outside world? Currently, the main concern of US officials is the presence of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which they fear will use Yemen as a base to launch attacks against Western targets. Are these concerns valid?

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by Amitai Etzioni*

The 2001 attacks on the United States have intensified the debate that has existed since the dawn of Islam: How is the West to respond to the followers of Muhammad? Some — most famously Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington — held that the contest is between two rather monolithic civilizations that are bound to clash. In a 2007 award acceptance speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Lewis described a history of clashes between Islam and the West. He stated that at first Muslims sought to spread their nascent faith through conquest throughout the then-Christian world; then the Christians invaded the Muslim world (the Crusaders); then the Muslims pushed back into Europe (the Golden Age of Islam); then the West retaliated by colonizing the Muslim world; and now the Muslims are again rising against Christendom by terrorism and flooding Europe with immigrants.[1] Huntington argued that “Islam’s borders are bloody, and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”[2] By contrast, President George W. Bush stated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that “Islam is peace,”[3] while British prime minister Tony Blair argued that the problem was not Islam but “extremists trying to hijack it for political purposes.”[4]

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by Jonathan Schanzer*

In its final report of July 22, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (commonly known as the 9/11 Commission) charged that Congress had failed America. In the commissioners’ judgment, Congress had “adjusted slowly to the rise of transnational terrorism as a threat to national security. In particular, the growing threat and capabilities of [Osama] bin Laden were not understood in Congress … To the extent that terrorism did break through and engage the attention of the Congress as a whole, it would briefly command attention after a specific incident, and then return to a lower rung on the public policy agenda.” Indeed, the commission was unequivocal about “Congress’s slowness and inadequacy in treating the issue of terrorism in the years before 9/11.”[1]

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September 11: A Decade Later

by Dov S. Zakheim*

Everyday American images of the war on terror — the legacy of 9/11: Government buildings surrounded by ugly concrete blocks. Pennsylvania Avenue, the street that the White House — once known as the “people’s house” — faces, no longer open to traffic. ID cards required everywhere. Airline passengers waiting patiently in line to take off their shoes, belts, jewelry — and to have their bags searched and perhaps their bodies as well. Fans searched as they enter football stadiums. People on the watch for suspicious characters — including those who might take photos of bridges and tunnels. People fearing to retrieve lost bags in case they are booby trapped. Increased government surveillance of individual Americans, including their telephone calls overseas.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Three weeks after 9/11, I wrote an article titled “Why This American Feels Safer” in which I noted that, unlike the 2/3s of my fellow countrymen who felt “less safe” than before the atrocities, I felt more secure. Twenty-two years after radical Islam started making war on the United States (counting from the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979), Americans finally took this threat seriously. “The newfound alarm is healthy, the sense of solidarity heartening, the resolve is encouraging.”

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by Daniel Pipes*

With trumpets and drum rolls, the White House in early August released a policy paper on methods to prevent terrorism, said to have been two years in the making. Signed personally by Barack Obama and with rhetoric vaunting “the strength of communities” and the need to “enhance our understanding of the threat posed by violent extremism,” the document looks anodyne.

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by Phyllis Chesler

There they all stand, guilty as sin, Afghan Taliban terrorists disguised in women’s burqas — but exposed when they were captured by the Afghan Border Police. Their photo (or rather photos) were taken by an Afghan photographer somewhere near Jalalabad and have just been seen worldwide.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Now that Ayman Zawahiri has assumed leadership of al-Qaeda, it is important to end the widespread perception that he is a dour intellectual who is disconnected from young, would-be jihadists. The fact is, Zawahiri is a wily, dangerous and imposing leader who should be considered no less of a threat — and perhaps even more so — than his predecessor.

Like Osama bin Laden, the Egyptian Zawahiri has jihadi bona fides and served in the Afghan war against the Soviets, primarily as a physician. Moreover, Zawahiri’s imprisonment and torture after the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Islamic Jihad, which he headed, seems to have hardened him more than bin Laden. From his prison cell he memorably delivered a passionate speech — in English no less. Seeing a video of it dispels any notion that he is an uncharismatic leader.

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By Barry Rubin

“Please release me let me go
for I don’t love you anymore
To waste our lives would be a sin
Release me and let me love again.”

–”Please Release Me Let Me Go”

Perhaps the most important policymaking development of the last month has been President Barack Obama’s increasingly visible loss of a lot of the foreign policy elite, including considerable segments of the State and Defense departments. Why this is happening is one of the most interested-and highly neglected-stories of this period.

Consider the factors involved:

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by Steven Shamrak

Editor’s note: This article is in response to a PBS interview with CIA Director Leon Panetta regarding the targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden.

1. That targeted killing of terrorists is an effective and acceptable way to deal with terrorists and state enemies. (Despite the fact that Israel was constantly vilified by international bigots, even for the assassination of Sheik Yasin, founder of Hamas.)
   

   “The authority here was to kill bin Laden” - CIA Director Leon Panetta

2. That covert military operations in a sovereign country can produce desired results and be met with overwhelming international support and cheers. (As long as it is not Israel targeting the Iraqi nuclear reactor.)

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by Daniel Pipes*

Although the execution of Osama bin Laden was mainly a symbolic and psychological act of counterterrorism, its most immediate consequence, ironically, affects U.S.-Pakistan relations.

• In response to Pakistani upset about their national sovereignty being trespassed, the Zardari government severely condemned what it called “an unauthorized unilateral action.”
• Members of U.S. congress, already disappointed in the use of American aid to Pakistan, are so upset about apparent Pakistani government protection for bin Laden, they talk of cutting back on the annual assistance, which came to almost $4.5 billion in 2010.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Recent comments by U.S. officials on the threat posed by “radicalized” American Muslims are troubling, both for their domestic and international implications. Attorney General Eric Holder states that “the threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.” The situation is critical enough to compel incoming head of the House Committee on Homeland Security Peter King to do all he can “to break down the wall of political correctness and drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization.”

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