TWO WARS and six years later it was clear that something was fundamentally lacking in U.S.counterterrorism strategies in the war on terror. The primary flaw appears to be the misconception that terrorism can somehow be eradicated through military means without addressing its significant ideological component. This is an inimical belief, since no matter how much hard power is placed into disrupting terrorist cells, a regeneration of terrorists will ensue if nothing is done to combat the appeal of their ideas.
Indonesia's counterterrorism experiences as the world's most populous Muslim nation, as well as several Southeast Asian scholars, have offered some critical lessons for the United States in this regard. Courting moderate elements and religious clerics, as well as sapping terrorists' "religious oxygen" through propaganda-driven foreign and domestic policies are two powerful strategies which the US can pursue against global terrorism.
The Indonesian government's main triumph has been its ability to pit moderate Islamic factions and religious scholars against their more radical associates, in order to de-legitimize the messages sent by Jemaah Islamiyah (J.I.), the most lethal Southeast Asian terrorist group.
For instance, while most Western governments decried the release of Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of J.I., from prison this year, he subsequently proceeded to delegitimize radical elements within his own organization, calling them "misguided fighters", according to the Jakarta Post. Another J.I. militant, Nasir Abbas, since his arrest in 2003, has testified against other militants and advocated the belief that while war against an occupying force is legitimate, it is religiously incorrect to target innocent civilians, as terrorists do, in a peaceful area like Indonesia.
Theological experts and religious scholars have also joined this campaign. Uztaz Muhammad Hanif Hassan, and Luqman Muhammad Ba'adbuh, for example, have launched theological rebuttals of J.I. militant Imam Samudra's book "I Fight the Terrorists," written during his time in an Indonesian prison. They use scholarly interpretations of Quranic teachings to debunk myths by terrorists -- such as the fact that suicide bombings are "martyrdom operations."
The Bush administration's record in this regard is dismal. There has not been, to this day, a concerted attempt to ally with moderate religious forces against radical Islam within the United States. In Southeast Asia, moderate scholars are not only popular but internationally acclaimed, including Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Another critical strategy is eliminating the "religious oxygen" and undermining the "story" which terrorists use to justify their actions. Southeast Asian scholar Kumar Ramakrishna of the Institute of Strategic and Defense Studies has championed this approach which seeks to reduce the space for radical terrorist ideas and attacking the very basis of their existence. In the case of Indonesia, the "story" advanced by terrorists has been that the Indonesian government has aligned with the Judeo-Christian forces to oppress Muslims. In order to suppress this "story," the Indonesian government has taken several foreign and domestic actions.
At home in April 2002, Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, Jusuf Kalla, championed the signing of a peace accord between Muslim and Christian delegates in South Sulawesi, one of the most violent regions of Muslim-Christian unrest in Indonesia. Just last year, on August 15, 2005, the Indonesian government signed a peace agreement with the Free Aceh Movement (FAM), long known as a "struggle center" for an Islamic state in Indonesia. In terms of foreign policy, the Indonesian government has distanced itself from the United States, particularly on issues that are the source of Islamic militancy. Last week, the Australian newspaper The Age, reported that Indonesia disagreed with Washington's increased troop deployment to Iraq, and instead preferred to see a Muslim peacekeeping force established -- no doubt an attempt to preempt any radical Islamic outcry at Indonesian support for U.S. military maneuvers.
The United States must replicate Indonesia's strategy of undermining the story of terrorist organizations, instead of abetting them. WhenAl Qaeda pointed out to U.S. double standards in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the occupation of holy sites in Saudi Arabia, the Bush administration got involved in yet another illegitimate war. Domestically, there are still countless stories of discrimination against Muslims, be it long interrogation periods or denials of visas. All the administration has done thus far to address this is to point to the negative correlation between freedom and security.
If the United States wants to see an end to the threat of radical Islam in the near future, then it must address the problem at its root, or it will continue to exhaust itself in wars that construct an image not so far from that portrayed by the terrorists themselves. The war on terrorism is, above all, a war of ideas, and we are losing.
Prashanth Parameswaran's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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