US NOT AT WAR WITH ISLAM: OBAMA

S Rajagopalan

20 February 2015

At a summit aiming to beef up the battle against “violent extremism”, President Barack Obama has sought to reassure Muslims across the world that the United States is at war not with Islam, but with people who have perverted Islam.

At the same time, he called upon Muslim leaders to speak up very clearly against the “twisted ideologies” that the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda use to incite people to violence. “Just as leaders like myself reject the notion that terrorists like ISIL genuinely represent Islam, Muslim leaders need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam, that there’s an inherent clash in civilisations,” Obama said at the White House summit on Wednesday.

“Everybody has to speak up very clearly that no matter what the grievance, violence against innocents doesn’t defend Islam or Muslims, it damages Islam and Muslims,” he said.

Obama, who had drawn flak from conservatives for refusing to frame the challenge as one posed by “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremists”, said outfits like ISIS and Al-Qaeda try to portray themselves as holy warriors in defence of Islam and propagate the notion that America, and the West in general, is at war with Islam.

“That’s how they recruit. That’s how they try to radicalize young people,” he said, adding: “We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek.

They are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” “No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism,” he said, noting that these terrorists “do not speak for over a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology”. 

Dealing with the challenge thrown by ISIS, which has been beheading and burning its captives in “unfathomable acts of cruelty,” Obama said the United States has marshalled its “full force” and is working with allies and partners to dismantle the terror outfits.

He, however, spoke of the complexities posed by an enemy that is not a traditional Army, and said: “This work takes time, and will require vigilance and resilience and perspective. But I’m confident that, just as we have for more than two centuries, we will ultimately prevail.”

Thanking Governments and civil society groups from more than 60 countries, including India, that are attending the summit, Obama said nations across the world have to remain relentless in this fight. 

While the first challenge may be to discredit the ideologies articulated by the terror groups and tackle them head on, Obama said: “A second challenge is we do have to address the grievances that terrorists exploit, including economic grievances.”

“Where young people have no education, they are more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and radical ideas…We’ve seen this across the Middle East and North Africa,” he said, adding: “Terrorist groups are all too happy to step into a void. They offer salaries to their foot soldiers so they can support their families. Sometimes they offer social services — schools, health clinics — to do what local Governments cannot or will not do.”