The war on Islamic extremism can only be won with the help of moderate Muslim groups, in particular dissidents in Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, who are the natural enemies and the most frequent victims of Islamic extremism, former U.S. governor and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge wrote on Friday in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The following is the full text of Gov. Ridge’s article:
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Commentary: The path to victory in war against extremists
April 15, 2016
By Tom Ridge
Striking in the very heart of Europe, the Brussels bombings sent another reminder of the threat that terrorism poses to the free world. Such tragedies have given Westerners a horrific glimpse of what it means to live in a war zone. And the ever-globalizing world is, indeed, becoming a borderless battleground for extremists.
In the face of such amorphous danger, our most critical task is to properly distinguish between allies and enemies.
All must recognize that this war of extremism is not between Muslims and non-Muslims. Nor is it a conflict between Middle Eastern and Western cultures. No, this phenomenon is a contest between extremists and moderates. It is a fight between those who want peace and those whose ideologies and claims to power benefit from the perpetuation of war.
The tragedy of the 34 deaths and more than 300 injuries in Brussels last month cannot be overstated. But as we grieve, let us not lose sight of the fact that the primary victims of Islamic extremism are, and always have been, ordinary Muslims. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Iran, Iraq, and Syria, other regions of the Middle East, and Africa want nothing more than to live peaceful, normal lives. They have families to feed and jobs to attend to, just as we do.
Tragically, their moderate worldview, and their commitment to the fundamental Muslim principle that religion is not a matter of compulsion, make them the targets of extremists. And in their thirst for revenge and power, such militants would have the entire world believe that Islam and Western democracy are fundamentally incompatible.
Only if we recognize that moderates in both the West and the Muslim world are suffering at the hands of the same radical ideologies – and come together as one force – can we strike a crucial blow against the Islamic State and its ilk. And ordinary people contribute to this mission every time they refuse to discriminate and instead offer sympathy and openness.
In the aftermath of Brussels, a poignant expression of sympathy came from the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, who describes the theocracy in Tehran as the “godfather” of the Islamic State. Said Rajavi, speaking of the Iranian people who have languished under extremist ideology for 37 years, “we are quite familiar with these atrocities and understand the feeling of the peoples of Belgium and Europe in these difficult moments.”
Sympathy and cross-cultural support may in fact be the best weapons that moderates possess in this conflict. Sadly, the knee-jerk reaction by people on both sides of the Atlantic is to blame an entire religion or culture out of fear and ignorance. Suggestions of temporarily barring all Muslims from entering the United States or increasing patrols in Muslim communities send a corrosive signal of fear to our fellow citizens, confusing the real battle lines and unraveling progress in this fight against terror.
It is clear that, however strong a country or group may be, it cannot win a culture war if it views 1.5 billion people as enemies. And moreover, such rhetoric plays directly into the hands of Islamic extremists.
In the same vein, we cannot win if we act through alliances of convenience rather than common values. Dallying with Iran and Hezbollah in hopes of defeating the better-publicized threat of the Islamic State – essentially pitting one group of extremists against another – undermines the critical task of supporting moderates and fails to strike at the root of the issue. Our strongest sources of hope and support end up stranded in the middle, often forced to take sides out of fear for their lives.
This war on extremism can only be won with the help of moderate Muslim groups. And our most important friends in these fights are moderate dissidents in Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, who are at once the natural enemies and the most frequent victims of Islamic extremism.
If we can identify where the real fault lines are in this conflict, not only when they shake us at home, but also on distant shores, and stop victimizing people who don’t look like us, then we will find victory.
Tom Ridge was the nation’s first secretary of homeland security and a governor of Pennsylvania.