“When It Comes to The Middle East, I’ve Been Wrong Enough Times to Know That It’s Important to Keep an Open Mind.”

A Matter letter series between Foreign Affairs deputy managing editor Justin Vogt and managing editor of NOW Hanin Ghaddar

Dear Hanin,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I found it insightful and illuminating — and also a little bit frustrating. It seems to me that although we mostly agree about the basic realities of the situation — which is no small thing, given how polarizing debates about terrorism tend to be — we disagree about the motives and interests of the main parties involved and we have different ideas about what’s possible when it comes to resolving the Syrian civil war. At a more fundamental level, we hold pretty divergent views about American intentions and about the proper U.S. role in the Middle East.

Let’s start with the issue of ISIS and Islam, and the now-familiar question: “How Islamic is the Islamic State?” I agree with you that it’s important to acknowledge the religious dimension of the ISIS phenomenon. Some American commentators, mostly on the left, have sought to minimize the extent to which religion motivates the group’s adherents, and have insisted that jihadist violence in general is mostly a political reaction to Western neo-imperialism. The implication is often that if the United States would just alter its policies in the Middle East — reduce its support for Israel, say, or take a harder line on the authoritarian regimes that Washington buttresses — the threat of jihadist terrorism would diminish. Now, there are plenty of good reasons why Americans should consider such policy changes. But reducing the danger of religious extremism isn’t really one of them: even if the U.S. government behaved differently in the Middle East, jihadists would still target Americans. It’s sort of condescending to argue otherwise by downplaying the religiosity of ISIS members: doing so ignores what they say about their own motives. If you simply listen to them, it becomes quite clear that they are Muslim supremacists who believe they are engaged in a divinely sanctioned war against nonbelievers. To be sure, they are also political (and economic) actors. But they appear driven at least as much by religious fervor and cosmic ambitions as by banal earthly things like money and power.

Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s quite right to state definitively that “ISIS derives all its laws and rules from Islam,” as you write, or that the group’s most brutal acts are “permitted by the Quran.” What scripture permits and forbids is a contentious issue in every religion, and perhaps especially in Islam, which lacks the kind of institutional authorities that arbitrate such matters in many other faiths. And scripture, of course, is only part of what defines a religion: the way holy texts are interpreted and put into practice by the faithful is at least as important. Given your background, you surely have a better understanding of Islamic scripture and practice than I do. But even as a non-Muslim, I feel confident that the term “Islam” should refer not only to the Quran and the hadith but also to the actual lived religious experience of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, very few of whom subscribe to the salafi-jihadist interpretations promoted by groups such as ISIS, and ever fewer of whom actually commit acts of violence out of religious zeal.

The truth is that all of the world’s major faiths and their texts have inspired (or have been used to justify) violence, murder, and conquest. And, sadly, all of the world’s religions will probably play that role again in the future: belief systems that claim to offer exclusive access to universal truth can sometimes produce pretty nasty behavior.

So although it’s important to recognize the role that Islamic scripture and belief play in motivating and justifying ISIS’ violence, arguing that ISIS represents a natural outgrowth of Islam — rather than a marginal, perverse mutation — risks legitimizing the group’s extremism. Insisting on the specifically Islamic character of ISIS’ brutality allows the group and its allies to redefine Islam in a way that is totally at odds with the faith as it is overwhelmingly practiced today. Allowing ISIS to speak for Islam also risks alienating the only people who can truly defeat ISIS and fight the extremist beliefs that fuel such movements: Sunni Muslims.

That bring us to your interesting ideas about how to best combat extremism. I agree with you that it would be difficult for Muslim religious authorities — to the extent that they even exist — to credibly do so. And you’re absolutely right that jihadist groups have thrived by filling a void produced by venality, corruption, and tyranny in Muslim-majority states and by exploiting the failure of Western governments and societies to adequately integrate Muslim immigrants and citizens.

You write that, even taking such factors into account, “weakening religious institutions that promote radical Islam is a must.” I’m curious to know which institutions you have in mind, how would they be weakened, and by whom. You also suggest that combating ISIS will require authorities to prevent hateful and sectarian ideas from spreading through mosques, schools, and media outlets. That seems like a sound suggestion, and I’d love to hear more about how you believe governments could do that without crossing into counterproductive repression.

I’m glad you went into detail about the civil war in Syria, which I gave short shrift in my first letter. I especially appreciate your point about how ISIS and the Assad regime are “frenemies.” That’s certainly true — for now. But at some point, if they both manage to survive and overcome the other groups vying for control in Syria, those two forces will come into direct conflict.

Your larger argument, though, is that the Syrian war will never be resolved — and thus ISIS will never be truly defeated — so long as Assad stays in power. You might be right, but how does that square with your position that “another war is not the solution?” How, other than through war, do you think Assad can be removed? He and his patrons in Tehran and Moscow have made it pretty clear that they are willing to fight to keep him — or at least the Alawite-dominated regime that has ruled Syria for decades — in place, and that they will not accept a negotiated outcome that would imperil the regime’s short-term or even medium-term survival. Recent military gains by the pro-Assad coalition have only strengthened that determination, and the peace talks in Geneva have basically fallen apart.

At this point, it seems to me that the only thing that would compel Assad to step down would be the intervention of a military force strong enough to defeat (or at least deter) the coalition that currently protects him. And it’s difficult to imagine who would provide such a force. So, awful though it might sound, the best possible outcome in Syria — not the best outcome, but the best possible one — might be a negotiated settlement in which Assad stays in power, at least in the short term, but makes significant concessions to the opposition (perhaps in the form of a “federalist” system that would give more autonomy to Sunni, Kurdish, and Turkmen populations in Syria) and agrees to a plan for a transition to a more representative government. (For what it’s worth, elections might not be the best way to get there, at least at the outset.)

A solution of that kind would theoretically allow all the outside actors — Russia, the United States, Iran, the Gulf states, Jordan, and Turkey — to focus their efforts on eliminating ISIS, which poses a threat to all of them. And, in the long term, it might even spell the end of the Assad regime, which would get short-term survival at the expense of a political opening that could doom it in the long run. (No guarantee of that, of course.)

You might object to that idea because it would involve cooperation, rather than confrontation, with Iran. And that’s another area where we fundamentally disagree — as evidenced by how differently we perceive the nuclear deal. You write that, in the wake of the deal, Sunnis in the Middle East believe that “the U.S. seems to have allied with Shiite Iran.” Sunni-led regional powers, especially Saudi Arabia, have grown accustomed to the complete isolation of their Iranian rivals, and it must be alarming for them to see Americans and Iranians talking after decades of hostility. But it’s difficult to see how levying punishing sanctions against Iran in order to force the regime to essentially give up its nuclear program (at least for around 15 years) — all while covertly sabotaging that program — is the equivalent of creating an alliance. Avoiding a war with your adversaries is hardly the same as converting them into friends.

I know you think another American-led war in the Middle East would be a bad thing. But wasn’t an American-led war against Iran the only real alternative to the deal? If you think the United States and the other world powers that agreed to the deal with Iran should not have done so, what do you think they should have done instead?

I think the root of some of our disagreements lies in our diverging views of how American power affects the region. The lines in your letter that most struck me were these:

ISIS may not threaten your national existence at this point in time, but it does threaten mine. And eventually, the majority of people in the region will see how the U.S. gave them false promises, and ignored their national existence. This — in the long run — is bad to the U.S., and will threaten its national existence.

That is a helpful reminder of how irritating it must be for people in the Middle East to hear an American like me — or, for that matter, like Obama — seem to minimize the threat posed by ISIS. But it would actually be quite good for the United States and for the Middle East if America’s allies and partners in the region come to realize that Washington will protect its core interests but not necessarily theirs, and that they need to shoulder more of the responsibility for finding sustainable solutions to their common problems. We agree that the threat posed by Islamic extremism — whether Sunni or Shiite — can ultimately be diminished only by Muslims and by the governments of Muslim-majority states. It should be clear by now that the United States just isn’t very good at fixing what’s broken in the Middle East — even (perhaps especially) in cases where the Americans were the ones who broke things in the first place.

Moreover, it’s hardly as if Washington has disappeared from the scene. You write that the “total absence of the U.S. in the name of ‘strategic patience’ is unsettling.” Sure, U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq in 2011, and the United States refuses to send ground troops to Syria. But Washington has carried out almost 10,000 airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. The United States maintains huge military bases throughout the region; patrols the Persian Gulf; provides massive economic and military aid to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan; sells all kinds of military equipment to the Gulf monarchies; conducts deadly drone strikes aimed at suspected terrorists; and closely cooperates with the intelligence agencies of many of the region’s countries, often with the goal of preventing Iranian meddling. So it’s difficult for me to see Americans as somehow absent from the Middle East.

You go on to argue that “Obama’s ‘strategic patience’ could make sense … if it was accompanied by two things: targeting Iran’s terrorism in the region, and empowering an alternative rhetoric of citizenship and liberal values.” But the United States already does more to combat Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard than any other country except Israel. And although it would be wonderful if Washington could somehow promote the spread of good governance and liberal values in the region, the American track record on that front inspires little confidence. The Iraq War was partly an effort to achieve those goals but was a colossal failure, leading directly to some of the problems we’re now puzzling over. In 2009, when the Green Movement emerged in opposition to the Iranian regime, Obama chose not to embrace it, fearing that it would hardly help the dissidents if they appeared to be American stooges. It’s hard to know whether that was the right call, but if the United States had openly supported the Green Movement, the regime likely would have crushed the opposition even more ruthlessly than it did. What’s more, overt American intervention in Iran’s domestic politics likely would have precluded any negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program.

Two years after the protests in Iran, Arabs across the region revolted against their own authoritarian rulers. Unlike in 2009, Obama embraced the dissidents (in most cases), calling on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (and Assad) to step down and lending U.S. military might to the fight against the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. But despite (or maybe to some extent because of) those attempts to use American influence to promote liberalism, precisely the opposite happened: an even more authoritarian regime in Egypt, civil war in Syria, and chaos in Libya. So as far as Washington pushing more aggressively for liberal change in the Middle East — well, as the kids say: “How’s that working out for you?”

Still, I’m curious to know how you think the United States could better promote the kind of deep political and social change that you and I both believe is the only sustainable solution to the region’s chaos and the rise of ISIS. I remain skeptical. But when it comes to the Middle East, I’ve been wrong enough times to know that it’s important to keep an open mind.

Best,

Justin

Photograph via Getty Images.