Trump Gets One Right

Those of you who follow me on social media know that I’m not a fan of Donald J. Trump, but that I’m always delighted to give credit where credit is due when he gets one right.

Yesterday he got one right.

Mr. Trump’s speech at the Riyadh summit hit the bulls-eye. He called out terrorists for what they are, “barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life.” In an uncharacteristically Churchillian flourish, he urged the assembled nations to “Drive. Them. Out. Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive the out of your holy land, and Drive them out of this earth.” And in a room full of Muslims, he stood up for the rights of women, Jews, and Christians.

My right-of-center friends are kvelling. My left-of-center friends are unusually quiet. What a welcome change from the cringing, apologetic tone of Mr. Obama! Indeed our former president sometimes seemed unwilling to even say the word “terrorism.” In the past day, better commentators than I have contrasted the two men at length, and I don’t think I can add anything to what they have already said. Instead, I’d like to focus on another aspect of the speech.

Mr. Trump mentioned ideology six times. He said that the Middle East can have a prosperous and peaceful future, “but this future can only be achieved through defeating terrorism and the ideology that drives it.” He challenged Muslim nations not only to defeat terrorism, but to “send its wicked ideology into oblivion.” And, “Starving terrorists of their territory, their funding, and the false allure of their craven ideology, will be the basis for defeating them.” (Emphasis mine)

In speaking of ideology, Mr. Trump showed real insight into the War on Terror: it's a War of Ideas. Terrorists become terrorists because they accept an ideology that tells them to become terrorists.

Mr. Trump did not go into the nature of this ideology, but at its core is the Quran, which says of unbelievers, “Kill them wherever you find them and drive them out where they drove you out.” (Chapter 2, verse 191. Yes, I appreciate the irony that Mr. Trump’s speech echoes this verse). Some modern interpreters are quick to argue that the verse refers to the enemies of Islam during Muhammad’s lifetime and does not apply today. Jihadists disagree. They believe that the Quran is the literal and final testament of God, binding on all mankind for all time.

The truth is, most Muslims don’t support terrorism. We see that in the hundreds of thousands of #NotInMyName tweets that follow major terrorist attacks. We see it in the generally positive reception of Mr. Trump's visit within the Muslim world. But large numbers of Muslims do accept the divine origin of every word in the Quran. I don't argue that Muslims should reject the Quran. But I do argue, in step with many Muslim reformers, that they should reject a literalist interpretation of their scripture, as most post-Enlightenment Jews and Christians have done. In accepting a literalist interpretation, they accept the underlying ideology of terrorism, and become its unwitting enablers.

For example...

I watched the speech on Fox News. During the pre-game show they had a Muslim expert on—I didn’t catch her name—who insisted that the Quran is a peaceful document and that the key to defeating terrorism is to return to what the Quran “really” says—the Islam of Muhammad and the Companions. In my humble opinion, she has it exactly backwards. Jihadists understand the Islam of Muhammad and the Companions perfectly well, and that’s the problem. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, for instance, says that when he was interrogating suspects in the first World Trade Center bombing, he would ask them about their motivations and they would quote this or that verse of scripture to justify themselves. Mr. McCarthy would go look it up, and sure enough, it said exactly what the jihadists said it said. Indeed, the approach that the Fox News expert proposed, a return to the Islam of the founding generation, has been around since the 18th century and is called Salafism. It gave birth to jihadism.

Of course, in the end, my opinion and Andrew McCarthy’s opinion aren’t what matter. It’s up to Muslims to reform the Muslim religion. As Mr. Trump said in his speech, “Muslim-majority countries must take the lead in combating radicalization.” To that end, after his oration, he joined King Salman of Saudi Arabia and President al-Sisi of Egypt in opening something called the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. It remains to be seen exactly how the Center’s work will play out. As far as I can tell, it’s a boiler room for countering jihadism on social media. Given that the Saudi government is a key player, I am not optimistic that it will work along the lines I suggested, and there’s something creepily Orwellian about the whole thing. The "Hail Hydra" photo making its rounds on the Internet isn't helping. But nevertheless, any recognition that the War on Terror is a War of Ideas is a step in the right direction.

Michael Isenberg writes about the Muslim world, medieval and modern. His forthcoming novel, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092 and depicts the battle for the Muslim soul between those who embrace science and tolerance on the one hand, and those who throw in their lot with mysticism and persecution on the other.