Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton
November 18, 2015
Force won't succeed until we defeat the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism.
Speaking to a nation grief stricken after the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, President George W. Bush declared that “our war on terror … will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” Now, 14 years later, France has been shaken by an all too familiar horror, and President Francois Hollande has similarly vowed to be “unforgiving with the barbarians (with) all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside.”
The parallels in these responses should simultaneously reassure and give us pause. Absolute condemnation is the only possible reaction to these abominable attacks by those who embrace the universal values of life and liberty. But faced once again with innocent lives taken by a murderous, radical foe, we must re-examine and re-energize our response.
No longer are we unprepared or unaware — as we were on the morning of 9/11. Yet terrorism continues to plague us. The Islamic State terrorist group's combination of territory, resources and global appeal makes it more dangerous than previously acknowledged and more of a threat than al-Qaeda.
We must gird ourselves for the possibility of more attacks. We have been largely successful in protecting our homeland, and those efforts should be intensified. This means increasing surveillance, sharpening intelligence, cutting off illicit financial flows and enhancing intelligence sharing with our allies. And we must marshal a “coalition of the willing” to take the military fight to the enemy with a much more robust effort to deny ISIL a haven in Syria and Iraq, and lead a diplomatic offensive to bring an end to the Syrian civil war.
But we must also reflect on why — after a decade and a half — the threat of Islamist terrorism remains not just undiminished but enhanced.
The 9/11 Commission we chaired argued that in addition to “dismantling the al-Qaeda network,” we must also prevail “over the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism.” Yet the second element of this strategy has been largely ignored.
Predominantly military solutions have been emphasized to what is at its core an ideological challenge. Force can and must be used to degrade ISIL, more than we have done to date, but it cannot destroy the ideas that animate it.
Military might must be combined with all the other elements of U.S. power — political, diplomatic, economic and informational — in a sustained strategy to target terrorism’s ideological foundations. The fundamental strength and dynamism of pluralistic, innovative, liberal societies make us far stronger than our adversaries. Leveraging these strengths and harnessing our soft power will be critical to this ideological struggle. There are concrete steps we can take now to lay the foundation for this approach:
First, we must commit as a nation to this long-term struggle. This begins with Congress passing an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against ISIL to give the president full license to wage that war. We are fighting a group with which al-Qaeda has publicly broken, with legal authorities from the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. They must be updated.
A new AUMF is also critical for building the national will to confront the continued threat of Islamist terrorism. We can neither commit to a long-term engagement nor invest the resources needed to win if we are incapable of acknowledging the nature of the conflict. Debating a new AUMF will inform the American people about what the threat is, how it is evolving and what must be done to meet it — adopting one will signal our resolve to face it.
Second, we must better understand and define our enemy. It is not terrorism that threatens us. That is merely the tactic chosen by our foe. The adversary is a minuscule number of religious zealots among the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. Recognizing this does not in any way impugn an entire religion or the overwhelming majority of its peaceful adherents. It does openly and honestly identify a particular, virulent set of ideas that we must first understand, including why they drive some to commit repeated atrocious acts, if we are to stop their transmission.
Third, we must embrace and propagate, not reject, the universal values that are the foundation of our political systems and the targets of these barbaric attacks. Calls to close our borders to refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict is but the latest manifestation of the impulse to see the openness of our societies as a vulnerability. Sowing such widespread fear is our enemy’s objective.
Welcoming — after thorough screening — those seeking safety from the devastation caused by our enemies is the surest way to demonstrate the superiority of our beliefs and prevent a new generation from being infected by the nihilistic creeds that fester amid desperation and misery. That will demonstrate our support for the vast majority of Muslims, after all they too have suffered at the hands of the same terrorists.
Fourteen years after 9/11, the dangers that first became apparent on that terrible day persist. Indeed, they have been exacerbated. The latest attacks on Paris must be a catalyst for a united effort to move beyond the predominantly military approach to this problem, to confront the ideological roots of this challenge and recommit ourselves to a long struggle ahead.
Former New Jersey governorThomas Keanand former representative Lee Hamilton were9/11 Commissionchair and vice chair. They are co-chairs of theBipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Program.
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