Brookings Institution’s New Idea: Try Failed Solutions Again

cia_vet_bruce_riedel_the_brookings_institutionBruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Institution’s Intelligence Project, published a piece in the Daily Beast last Sunday with the provocative title, “Why’s Al Qaeda So Strong? Washington Has (Literally) No Idea.” That is certainly true, but Riedel’s recommendations for how the political establishment can get a clue and finally defeat the jihadis are nothing but tired retreads of analyses that have been tried and have failed again and again. Coming from a think tank as influential as Brookings, this goes a long way toward explaining why neither party seems able to reevaluate and discard political points of view and plans of action, no matter how many times they lead to disaster.

Riedel rightly faults the U.S. for not meeting the ideological challenge that groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State pose, but then he advocates essentially what mainstream analysts on both the Left and the Right have advocated for years: establishing a State of Palestine, supporting “reform and justice” in Muslim countries, and working to end Sunni-Shi’ite sectarianism. These solutions have been tried, repeatedly, and every time they failed abysmally.

While Riedel is correct that the U.S. hasn’t countered the ideology of jihad groups, he shows no sign of knowing what that ideology really is. In fact, he demonstrates that he shares the same false premises that have led the U.S. government to its abysmal failure to understand why jihad groups are so strong and how they can be countered. Both Riedel and Washington policymakers assume that the appeal to Muslims of the stated goals and motivations of jihad groups — establishment of the caliphate, destruction of non-Sharia regimes, and ultimately global Islamic dominance — can be blunted, if not extinguished altogether, by essentially giving jihadis and Islamic supremacists some of what they want. They assume that in that event, the larger aggregate of Muslims will respond the way Westerners in secular democracies would respond: by accepting the compromise and rejecting more extreme solutions.

We have the record of the last thirteen years and more to show that this assumption is false.

First and foremost among Riedel’s faulty analyses is his scapegoating of Israel for the failure to achieve peace with the Palestinians. “Unfortunately,” Riedel laments, “for six years the Obama team has tried to push the two-state solution without any success. It rightly blames both Israeli and Palestinian intransigence for its failure. But the core issue is Israel’s refusal to end the occupation of the West Bank.”

One word exposes the falsity of this analysis: Gaza. Anyone who still thinks after the Gaza withdrawal that a Palestinian state would bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians (and yes, I know they are legion, and in both parties, and in all the corridors of power in the U.S. and Europe) hasn’t been paying attention. We were told in 2005 that “occupation” was the problem, and if Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Gazans would turn to peaceful pursuits. Only a few people, including me, warned that Gaza would just become a jihad base for newly virulent attacks against Israel. Events proved us correct.

Now Riedel wants Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, and assures us that this withdrawal from this “occupation” is really the one that will finally bring peace and take the wind out of the jihadis’ sails. A Palestinian state, he says, will “severely undermine” al-Qaeda’s appeal “and over time dry up its base” — and he claims this even after acknowledging that “Israel’s destruction” is al-Qaeda’s goal.

Why would the establishment of a Palestinian state now, after the Arab Muslims rejected it in 1948 and the “Palestinians” rejected it in 2000 (and other times) bring peace when the goal of Israel’s total destruction, which Hamas has repeatedly and recently reiterated, would remain? Why would another Israeli withdrawal accomplish what earlier Israeli withdrawals — not just from Gaza, but also from Sinai and southern Lebanon — did not?

Riedel doesn’t consider these questions. He can’t, because any honest answer would show his analysis to be false and based on wishful thinking.

Then Riedel goes on to advocate another failed remedy, claiming that “the extremists’ narrative argues that only violent jihad can bring about change and justice in the Islamic world. They argue the Arab spring proves that peaceful protests and demonstrations, elections and democratic change don’t work in Arabia and the world of Islam. The failure of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt is cited as evidence that ‘moderate’ Islam is too weak to fight the Zionist-Crusader conspiracy and it’s [sic] Quisling allies like Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian army.”

Consequently, he says, “chaos and failed states, not democracy, are what the foreseeable future holds for Arabia. But a Western policy that is blind to the urgent need for reform and justice is certain to end in catastrophe. More immediately, it cedes the ideological battle to al Qaeda’s simple solution that only jihad brings change. Close attachment to autocratic regimes by the West pays short-term dividends but will antagonize generations of Muslims.”

Yet this was precisely the Obama Administration’s policy when it turned against Hosni Mubarak and warmly endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. This was the analysis Obama was following when he aided the Libyan jihadis against Gaddafi and the Syrian jihadis against Assad (although in the latter case the rise of the Islamic State has exposed his Syria policy as confused and incoherent).

Riedel mentions the fall of the Ikhwan regime in Egypt as part of the jihadis’ recruitment rhetoric, but he misses its real import: when the U.S. followed his recommendations and stopped backing dictators in Muslim countries, favoring instead popular revolutionaries and the “democratic process,” the result was not stability and the weakening of jihad groups, but chaos and anarchy in Libya, unrest and instability in Egypt, and the strengthening of jihad groups the world over. The Brotherhood regime in Egypt fell because many secular Muslims don’t want to live under Sharia oppression. However, Sharia advocates are numerous in Egypt and other Muslim countries — so the result of backing “democracy” in Egypt and other Muslim countries was not the establishment of peaceful, stable Sharia regimes (which would not be a desirable outcome anyway, cf. Saudi Arabia and Iran), but more violence. The dictators were bloody and reprehensible; the “democratic process” in all too many Muslim countries has resulted in regimes that are scarcely less bloody and far less stable.

Nonetheless, Riedel says, “Full speed ahead.” What would he say if there were a free election in Iraq and Syria now and the Islamic State won, or even got a significant percentage of the vote? He seems to assume, as George W. Bush and so many others assumed, that elections in Muslim countries would lead to the establishment of pro-Western, secular, stable republics. It has never happened. Why will it happen next time?

Riedel then offers yet another faulty analysis: “The extremist message also encourages sectarianism and intolerance. The Shia are portrayed as false Muslims and brutally attacked to encourage Sunni-Shia hatred. Sectarian strife now empowers the civil wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and Al Qaedaism flourishes in the chaos. The West says far too little about the cancer of sectarianism.”

Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this about it in 2007: “There’s still a tendency to see these things in Sunni-Shia terms. But the Middle East is going to have to overcome that.” The Bush Administration tried in numerous ways to help them overcome it in Iraq. It held one-person, one-vote elections that resulted in a Shi’ite regime in Baghdad — an outcome that was absolutely predictable, since Shi’ites are a majority in Iraq. That regime was supposed to include Sunnis. It was absolutely predictable also that it did not manage to do so, both because it didn’t want to and Sunnis didn’t want to participate anyway.

The Sunni-Shi’ite divide is 1,400 years old. The history of Islam is filled with occasions when it erupted into violence. The idea that the non-Muslim West can heal this or should even try to do so is as hubristic as it is myopic, and shows that Riedel (and Condoleezza Rice, and myriad others) have no idea of the history or beliefs of either group.

That is no surprise. The real reason why the U.S. and the West in general haven’t confronted the ideology of jihad groups is because they refuse to admit that it even exists. They insist that Islam is peaceful and that groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have nothing to do with Islam. They don’t have any curiosity about how this supposed misunderstanding of Islam came to be so widespread and powerful, and they have never pressed Muslim groups that ostensibly reject it to do anything to blunt its appeal for young Muslims.

So Riedel is right: Washington has no idea why al-Qaeda is so strong. Neither does he. And a strong indication of why is Riedel’s affiliation with Brookings, a Qatar-funded group that publishes justifications for jihad terror and gives jihad terror supporters and enablers access to the world’s most powerful people. It also is strongly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel.

Brookings is responsible to an immense degree for the application of these failed policies over the last few years. It should be recognized for what it is and not allowed to lead the U.S. over the cliff yet again.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Subscribe to Frontpage’s TV show, The Glazov Gang, and LIKE it on Facebook.

  • Bamaguje

    “But the core issue is Israel’s refusal to end the occupation of the West Bank” – Bruce Riedel.

    Rubbish, utter rubbish!!
    It is unfortunate that most Western leaders and intellectuals don’t get that the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is Islamic antisemitism and intolerance.
    Muslims don’t want a Jewish nation in the Middle east, which they consider Islamic territory (Dar-ul Islam). No amount of Israeli concessions can change that.

    That is why all peace processes have failed. Nothing short of destruction of the Jewish nation would do. Palestinians and their fellow Arabs have said so several times, but the Riedels, Obamas and other willfully blind non-Muslims pretend not to hear.

    During the first two decades following Israel’s independence (1948-67), West bank & Gaza were in Arab hands.No attempt was made to establish another Palestinian state (Jordan is the first). And Palestinians did not demand for any.

    In fact article 24 of PLO’s 1964 founding charter specifically renounces any claim to West bank and Gaza. The only “Palestine” PLO was interested in “liberating” was Israel.

    • pupsncats

      It isn’t simply anti-Semitism but anti-Western civilization or anti anything other than Islam.

  • Hi there

    Even in Israel, there is a leftist narrative that if not for the establishment of the State of Israel , Sephardic Jewry would still be living happily in Arab lands.
    Except
    1. They never lived happily. Dhimmitude is not fun.
    2. Arabs should face up to their anti-Semitism, creating pogroms when a Jewish State was established, and killing non-Zionist Jews, creating a massive exodus to Zion. It is not the State of Israel’s fault that in order to become sovereign, the Arabs would become even more racist than they already were. The British would be proud of how terrorism is rewarded by blaming the victims. They began this trend by locking immigration to Jews after Arabs went on slaughtering sprees. Today, the entire MSM and State Department are continuing in this step.
    3. The establishment of Arab countries based on imperial wishes was making the ME dangerous. State of Israel or not, Jews could be facing the same kind of treatment that the Yazidis and Kurds receive today. It’s clear that having entry to Israel is what saved them this fate.
    It’s time we recognize the Arab/ Muslims for the racism that they harbor, for their intolerance to other Muslims, and for their great capacity for cruelty. Blaming Israel is so stupid, and so wrong. Settlements are not the issue and never were. Waaay before the settlements, with a besieged tiny Israel, the Arabs had thrown out their Jewish neighbors, robbed them, and stripped them of any human rights. And Israel is credited with way more power than it really has. 1300 years of infighting and jihad in the Muslim world had nothing to do with Israel, which didn’t exist, and calling this all its fault, is believing the old ‘Elders of Zion” kind of Jewish conspiracy. Jews don’t have all that much power. Look at AIPAC and compare it to Brookings or CAIR. And tell me who is more successful at conspiring for world dominion.

    • Well Done

      That Islam even claims Jerusalem as an Islamic holy site, proves that the problem is Islam. Look around the world; every, I mean every, Islamic holy site was once a holy site of the indigenous religion. Buddhist, Animist, Christian, Catholic, whatever. The only true Islamic holy sites are in Saudi Arabia.

    • Bamaguje

      Beautifully stated.

  • marlene

    Every time the Brookings’ Stink Tank opens its stupid mouth, its brain shuts down. Things always being the opposite of what they seem, it’s the “palestinians” who occupy Israel. They are a cancerous tumor that need to be excised. And this of course is just one fallacy among many within our failed policies. Demonizing Israel is what demons do. Islam needs to be put to sleep, once and forever. And these ignorant talking heads need to role.

    • carpe diem 36

      Apparently there is only enough blood to cover one thing at a time, either the brain or the mouth. I love the description Stink Tank, how appropot.

  • Larry Larkin

    Time and time again the left proves that by Einstein’s definition of insanity that they are insane.

    • pupsncats

      Just wanted to point out it isn’t only those on the left who seem to have lost their minds when it comes to Islam. Remember Bush said Islam is a religion of peace and he thought the Muslim Middle East could be reformed by establishing Western ideas of democracy and individual rights when we know it is really impossible to do so.

      • Fed Up

        Well, I am willing to give Bush a little wiggle room. I thought the Iraq war worth a try precisely because of all the middle-east, it actually had a record of pluralistic democracy something like as we define it as recently as the ’50s. They even had Jews in their government back then. I thought if we could establish a working model and alternative to all the others in that God forsaken part of the world it just might take. It just might show them the way.

        But they, both in Iraq and all the surrounding lands who came together to defeat the attempt, have proven we are on a fool’s errand trying to lift them up from the stone ages. Even had Obama not bugged out, the place would have reverted to form within a decade or two after we finally did. All of their 1400 year history’s founding texts, jurisprudence, cultures, traditions and customs weighed against any attempt to westernize those benighted lands.

        Now? I say put ‘em all on notice if we get hit in a big way again we’re just gonna nuke ‘em all. Forget this “good cop, bad cop” game they run on us. They’re going to make us do it anyway someday.

        Again, not because I say so, but because they do to any who have ears to hear and eyes to see.

        • pupsncats

          Consider the fact that even the U.S. is leading towards totalitarianism with rule and enslavement of the masses by the minority. The Constitutional Republic has been dying almost from the moment the ink dried on signing of our Constitution.

      • Well Done

        I don’t see how saying Islam is peaceful and conflicts can be resolved is in any way wrong… but it doesn’t seem to matter what Bush said, it’s always “wrong” according to some people… and always relevant no matter how long ago he said it and how off topic the mention of his word is. Tell us, pup, would you have preferred Bush to dismiss Islam as a sham front for Arab Imperialism that needs to see about 20% of its adherents destroyed? Would that have been the thing to say?

        • johninohio1

          It would have been the truth, but we all know that politicians are allergic to the truth.

          And no, I think 20% is kinda low.

  • RM Russell

    Brookings never gives up! One of its minions writes for a paper in Maine and is so pleased with the gig,after pushing agenda 21 on the State,butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!(an old “country saying”..)

  • wjr123

    There is a route to peace in the Middle East. That route is the peace of the grave.

    Applied vigerously and with the same resolve that our fathers and grandfathers demonstrated and without the angst of political correctness.

    Recognize that the problem is, has been historically and always will be Islam in all of its’ twisted forms. Moderate Islam is an oxymoron.

  • cree

    And we, who completely understand Spencer’s and many other’s duplicate message also fail over and over again to convince the intellectual elite they have no common sense. It amazes and frustratingly mystifies for a solution.

    Some people are so blind although they can see. Many people like Riedel assume from false conclusions what the answers are but like Robert points out, their answers prove wrong. Why some human minds can’t acknowledge obvious error even when common sense has the answer reveals a very common human flaw of reasoning. It is rejection of credibility. Bibi Netenyahu has the credibility. It is rejected. Answering why (not just an explanation) to change minds might get us a solution; hopefully, other than war. Any reverse psychologists out there? The world is approaching towards catastrophe.

  • Fed Up

    “…supporting “reform and justice” in Muslim countries, and working to end Sunni-Shi’ite sectarianism.”

    Good Gawd! Is there a better encapsulation of western condescension and arrogance than that line? That we can instruct and reform the religion of peace? That they really want to be like us and see the world as we do but simply need to prune away the cultural thickets and underbrush of 1400 years?

    We keep waiting for a “reform” and moderation but I’m one who believes, as Mark Steyn asks, that the re-emergence of imperial islam by bloody jihad IS their reformation. That the last 250 years or so was a period of dormancy and stalemate the west was able to impose by virtue of leaving islam in the dust in every material way possible. And had it not been for oil we’d scarcely ever hear of them save for an occasional PBS documentary on backward and savage peoples that time forgot.

    A commodity they’ve grown wealthy selling us that was right under their feet but they didn’t discover, had no use for, couldn’t get out of the ground and still can’t on their own, have developed not one machine or technology that uses it to this day or otherwise moved the ball of human progress forward on inch. A wealth they don’t even have the sense to use for enlightened education and advancement but to enrich a few made-up “royal families” and strongmen who in turn pay off the holy men to propagate the murderous faith that have kept them in the dark of ignorance those 1400 years. But what that wealth has enabled them to do is regroup and gear up to go back on the march to spread that black faith through conquest, rapine, enslavement and murder.

    We are witnessing a force of history that, like a volcano, has reawakened in violence and destruction. At best we can hope to reimpose a stalemate under which the two worlds remain within and respect each others’ borders, more or less. They are serious about conquering all the world for islam, killing all who resist or dying in the trying. Not because I say so but because they do and they are not going to stop. Until we stop them.

    • pupsncats

      You have nailed it. The simplicity of the conflict is, as you point out, the reality of the Islamic who can never, who will never, accept the ideology and ways of Western man. Mark Steyn is absolutely correct in his assessment that the re-awakening of the true fruits of Islam- violence, brutality, jihad-are the only “reform” the world is going to experience from them.

  • carpe diem 36

    I believe that even if there were no Israel at all, if there were no Jews anywhere in the middle east things would have been as they are now, with all the killings and fighting. This is the nature of those people, and only those who will not see this will be fooled to think that if there were no Israeli “occupation” – whatever they include in this false statement, which they do not detail – those who fight each other are still going to do that. Just look at Syria: there are no Jews in Syria , there is no mention of Israel is the fighting in that country, they are Moslem on Moslem, and ISIS is what they are fighting over, and it has NOTHING to do with Israel. So it is time to leave Israel out of this fight, no one can mediate between those two forces, and I would only wish that both sides win!!

  • SoCalMike

    Bruce Reidel makes me sick to my stomach.
    This clown gets paid to think and with the lives of the free and persecuted world at stake, he can’t think his way out of a paper bag.

  • johninohio1

    People like Riedel aren’t stupid. He made it clear that he understands the position of anti-jihadists. His one paragraph about this, if taken out of context, would sound as if it came from Spenser’s mouth or that of most people on this blog.
    No, the problem with those people is that they know the only recourse to their failed nostrums that can succeed is all out war against Islam. At this point, because of procrastination and half measures, the magnitude of such a war would approach that of WWII. That’s what they’re closing their eyes and minds to. They are in denial either because they rightly abhor the death and destruction this would logically entail, or because they’re cowards of the first order.

    All out war is inevitable. The only question is when, and how tough for the West to win it?

  • reyol

    This fellow is rather sophisticated, isn’t he? Doesn’t let reality intrude upon his intellect. Failed ideas are never failed ideas – they simply haven’t been properly implemented.