There’s no ‘extreme vetting,’ no
outreach to moderates, and too much coziness with Riyadh.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Candidate Donald Trump vowed to take a fresh approach to
Islamic extremism. He ditched the politically correct language of the Obama
administration by declaring that we were mired in an ideological conflict with
radical Islam, which he likened to the totalitarian ideologies America had
defeated in the 20th century.
Mr. Trump also promised, as part of his immigration policy, to put in
place an “extreme vetting” system that screens for Islamic radicalism. He vowed
to work with genuine Muslim reformers and concluded with the promise that one
of his first acts as president would be “to establish a commission on radical
Islam.”
Mr. Trump has had more than six months to make good on these pledges. He
hasn’t gotten very far. The administration’s first move—a hastily drafted
executive order limiting immigration from seven Muslim-majority
countries—backfired when it was repeatedly blocked in court.
Worse, subsequent moves have tended to run counter to Mr. Trump’s campaign
pledges. Aside from a new questionnaire for visa applicants, there has been no
clarity regarding the promised “extreme vetting” of Muslim immigrants and
visitors. The promise to work with and empower authentic Muslim reformers has
gone nowhere. The status of the promised commission on radical Islam remains
unclear.
Perhaps most discouragingly, the administration’s Middle Eastern strategy
seems to involve cozying up to Saudi Arabia—for decades the principal source of
funding for Islamic extremism around the world.
Some administration critics have blamed the loss of focus
on Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who became White House national security adviser in
February. The most charitable formulation of this criticism is that military
men who slogged their way through wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have an aversion
to the argument that we face an ideological opponent, as opposed to a series of
military problems.
But I put the responsibility on Mr. Trump. With regard to radical Islam,
he simply seems to have lost interest.
Is all hope of a revamped policy on radical Islam lost? Not necessarily.
Prominent members of Congress—among them Sens. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) and
Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Reps. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) and Trent
Franks (R., Ariz.)—understand that Islamism must be confronted with ideas
as well as arms.
And this need not be a partisan issue. In the early years after 9/11,
Sens. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Chuck
Schumer (D., N.Y.) worked together to analyze the threat of Islamist
ideology. Even President Obama’s former representative to Muslim communities,
Farah Pandith, who visited 80 countries between 2009 and 2014, wrote in 2015:
“In each place I visited, the Wahhabi influence was an insidious presence
. . . Funding all this was Saudi money, which paid for things like
the textbooks, mosques, TV stations and the training of Imams.” In 2016,
addressing the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.)
sounded the alarm over Islamist indoctrination in Pakistan, noting that
thousands of schools funded with Saudi money “teach a version of Islam that
leads . . . into an . . . anti-Western militancy.”
We have already seen one unexpected outbreak of
bipartisanship in Washington this summer, over tightening sanctions on Russia
in retaliation for President Vladimir Putin’s many aggressions.
I propose that the next item of cross-party business should be for
Congress to convene hearings on the ideological threat of radical Islam. “Who
wants America on offense, with a coherent and intelligible strategy?” Newt
Gingrich asked in
2015, when he called for such hearings. Then as now, if the executive branch
isn’t willing—if the president has forgotten his campaign commitments—lawmakers
can and should step up to the plate.
Ms. Hirsi Ali is a research
fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and founder of the AHA Foundation.