In the article being reviewed, Clarke & Papadopoulos (2016) analyze the way in which terrorism has evolved in both Europe and the United States since former President Barack Obama took office in 2008. Their main purpose is to discuss Islamist terrorism from an etiological, ideological and political perspective in order to offer some paths and recommendations for the next administration (it is important to keep in mind that the review was completed before the 2016 presidential election). The authors point out that while terrorism has always been used to trigger specific political and social changes all over the world, the main problem today is that extremist groups are currently using it to advance and promote one of the world’s largest religions, i.e. Islam (Clarke & Papadopoulos, 2016, p. 10). Despite non-Islamist terror groups being just as dangerous and deadly as Islamist ones, the authors believe that Islamist terrorism should be given full priority as it poses the greatest threat to the greatest number of countries.
Over the past decade, Islamist terrorism has disrupted the Arab world, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, numerous Muslim nations across the African continent, Australia, Western Europe and even the United States. Simply put, Islamist extremists’ main goal is to replace most existing states in Africa and the Middle East with a large Caliphate, i.e. a theocratic state that they would run in the name of Islam. The main reason behind their negative perception of the West is that Western nations have been supporting the very “apostate” governments that they have been trying to overturn. Furthermore, being Western values completely incompatible with their own, they tend to pick targets that symbolize Western people’s freedom, independence and mundane lifestyle. In an attempt to identify the root causes of present-day Islamist terrorism, the authors explain how al-Qaeda slowly morphed into ISIS after the United States successfully weakened al-Qaeda Central by killing its leaders along the Durand line. At that point, based on the claim that Iraq’s Shia government was mistreating Sunni citizens, ISIS started a war that ended up attracting thousands of foreign fighters. In the meantime, ISIS’s Syrian branch managed to seize several major cities, thus enabling the group to declare the rise of a new Caliphate (Clarke & Papadopoulos, 2016, p. 13). Within a very short time, ISIS maximized its assets by collecting taxes, selling hostages and selling oil to its neighboring countries, which made it possible for its members to invest heavily in digital marketing. Thanks to a remarkably sophisticated marketing campaign, ISIS succeeded in radicalizing Muslims across the world, thus prompting them to carry out atrocious terror attacks. The “lone wolves” who have planned and / or executed attacks in Western Europe over the past few years include both refugees coming from Muslim-majority countries and Muslims who were born and raised in Europe.
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By depicting Islamist terrorism as an ideological and political phenomenon, Clarke & Papadopoulos (2016) encourage the reader to distinguish terrorist organizations’ political ambition from lone wolves’ ideological motives. On the one hand, extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS are primarily interested in destabilizing Western nations in order to get them from withdrawing from the region that they seek to control and whose resources they wish to exploit. On the other hand, “lone wolves” are individuals who are trained to resent Western nations for the way in which they perceive and treat Middle Eastern people. By persuading moderate Muslims that the only way for them to please their god is to kill anyone who disagrees with them, ISIS has succeeded in turning Islamist terrorism into a long-term threat, thus making it very difficult for Western governments to prevent potential attacks in a lawful manner. As a democratic nation that values tolerance and diversity, the United States cannot simply persecute all Muslim Americans, nor can it spy on every single Muslim citizen in the country. Furthermore, citizens are becoming increasingly concerned about intelligence agencies’ surveillance programs, to the extent that tech companies have been trying to prevent law enforcement agencies from accessing users’ devices by developing more sophisticated encryption systems. Despite intelligence agencies’ efforts to justify their mass surveillance activities, Americans have made it clear that they are not willing to give up their civil liberties – especially their right to privacy – in the name of national security. So how is the U.S. government supposed to fight Islamist terrorism when both domestic and international laws prevent it from attacking its enemies, monitoring U.S. citizens and detaining people who openly support the same values and beliefs as al-Qaeda and ISIS?
As Clarke & Papadopoulos (2016) report, over the past few years many foreign fighters have gone to Syria to join ISIS. Provided that they must have been trained and radicalized by their leaders, it is crucial that the U.S. government should identify and monitor such individuals in order to prevent them from returning to the United States. Moreover, considering that ISIS’s propaganda machine has played a key role in radicalizing numerous moderate Muslims across the Western world, the U.S. government should ban extremist material both online and offline and block access to any kind of content that promotes jihadism. It is important to keep in mind that one of the main reasons why many young Muslims embrace radical Islam is because ISIS’s marketing campaigns are developed specifically to portray Islamist terrorism not only as a just and noble cause, but also an empowering experience. Last but not least, the current administration should seek moderate Imams’ – i.e. spiritual leaders – cooperation when developing highly effective anti-radicalization and deradicalization programs.
- Clarke, R.A. & Papadopoulos, E. (2016). Terrorism in Perspective: A Review for the Next
American President. The Annals Of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 668(1): 8 – 18.
