Fighting the Jihad of the Pen: Countering Al Qaeda’s Ideology

Abstract

Al Qaeda’s ideology is not new; their critique of the existing political and social order and vision for how to redeem the Muslim world builds on preexisting argu- ments of several 20th century predecessors who called for an Islamic revolution that would create a new order based on Islam. The persistence of revolutionary Islam suggests that these ideas need to be countered in order to strike at the root of the problem driving Islamically motivated terrorism and insurgency. U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda, however, continue to focus primarily on killing or capturing the leadership, interdicting operations, and defensively bolstering the homeland and U.S. assets against various types of attacks. In order to confront Al Qaeda’s ideol- ogy, U.S. efforts should focus on indirectly fostering ‘‘a market place of ideas’’—the space and culture of questioning and debating—in order to challenge the grievances and solutions proposed by revolutionary Islam.