Decision Brief: A Commission on Radical Islam

Decision: The President should appoint a Presidential Commission on Radical Islam consisting of experts on radical Islam/Islamist ideology[1], members of the American Muslim Reform movement, and members of the U.S. Counterterrorism and Homeland Security community, in order to review the U.S Government’s approach to addressing the ideology of radical Islam, identify points of failure and make recommendations for how the U.S. government should address the role of Islamist ideology in indoctrinating American Muslims to fight abroad or become what the U.S. government currently, but inaccurately, describes as “Homegrown Violent Extremists” (HVE).

Reason: During his campaign speech in Youngstown, Ohio in August of 2016, then candidate Donald Trump declared that one of his first acts as President would be to establish a Commission on Radical Islam which would undertake to examine the threat posed by radical Islam and address failed policies of the Obama administration, particularly the “Countering Violent Extremism” program which inadequately addressed the nature of the radical Islam threat, and routinely partnered with groups beholden to the very radical ideology the program was intended to address.

President Trump noted,

“The goal of the commission will be to identify and explain to the American public the core convictions and beliefs of Radical Islam, to identify the warning signs of radicalization, and to expose the networks in our society that support radicalization. This commission will be used to develop new protocols for local police officers, federal investigators, and immigration screeners.

The Trump Administration has moved forward on improving immigration screenings, particularly following implementation of Presidential Proclamations 9645 and 9983 imposing travel restrictions on countries of concern. There has still be minimal movement on training immigration screeners to identify signs of adherence to Islamist ideology however. The administration has also taken limited steps to address issues with the CVE program, by emphasizing a new terminology of “Terrorism Prevention,” and ending some DHS grants of concern. But the program makes no mention of radical Islam and does not specifically identify radical Islam as a threat.

A Commission on Radical Islam, as the President called for during the campaign, would help realign American homeland security priorities on the most significant terrorism threat, provide resources for training and education for the government on the nature of the threat, and provide a platform for reform-minded Muslims to combat the ideology of radical Islam in their local communities.

Background: Following the events of 9/11, the U.S. government instituted The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission). The commission emphasized the importance of successfully defining the threat posed to the United States:

“But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism—especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.

The Commission noted that this ideology existed within the Islamic tradition stretching back to at least Ibn Tamiyyah (d. 1383), and noted the particular influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Brotherhood thinker Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) on its dramatic spread.  The Commission recognized Al Qaeda (and related terror groups) operated within a broader network of ideologically aligned Islamists, represented most significantly by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Opposition to this view began towards the second term of the Bush Administration and reached its zenith in the Obama Administration. Military and law enforcement trainers who lectured on this threat were censored or removed. Analysts and investigators were told they could not consider religious motivations of Islamist terrorists or use the appropriate terminology to discuss the phenomena in favor of less accurate alternative terminology. Investigations into Brotherhood networks in the United States were shut down. The Obama Administration promoted the concept of “countering violent extremism,” highlighting the “vagueness” which the 9/11 Commission warned against. The CVE narrative conflated the threat from radical Islam with a wide variety of both ideological and non-ideological threats. Instead of viewing Islamist terrorists as operating with the milieu created by “networks supporting radicalization,” as President Trump accurately described the threat, CVE treated ideological supporters of radical Islam as allies in helping to deradicalize violent extremists, resulting in the delivery of U.S. government grants and statements of support to groups which had previously been investigated as part of the terrorism-supporting network. This has continued to take place throughout the U.S. government despite the President’s demonstrated strong public call to address and correct these policies.

Pushback:  Expect pushback from across the government bureaucracy, which has continued to insist on utilizing violent extremism language despite the Trump administration’s shift in language and priorities.

Governing Laws and Regulations:

The President has the ability to establish a Commission on Radical Islam through executive order. The operation of Presidential commissions is largely governed by the Federal Advisory Commissions Act (FACA).[i]

Rebuttal of Policy Objections: Policy objections will hinge on the entrenched bureaucracy’s intransigence to consider addressing the motivations of jihadist terrorism and the broader ideological threat posed by radical Islam.  Commission on Radical Islam will provide a valuable resource to advise the president on these matters. It will provide an important platform for Muslim reformers, providing the stature necessary for them to oppose the spread of radical Islam in their communities.

The Bottom Line: The president should move immediately to fulfill his campaign promise of establishing a Commission on Radical Islam, and staff it with knowledgeable experts.

[1] Radical Islam, as used here, refers to an ideology sometimes identified as Islamism or political Islam, and referring in the broadest sense to a political movement seeking to order all elements of society in accordance with Islamic Law (Sharia). As the 2017 National Security Strategy identifies the belief system of the various jihadist terror groups against whom the U.S. has fought since 2001 as, “a barbaric ideology that calls for the violent destruction of governments and innocents they consider to be apostates. ­These jihadist terrorists attempt to force those under their influence to submit to Sharia law.”

[i] 5 U.S. Code, “Federal Advisory Commissions Act as amended,” General Services Administration, https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/FACA-Statute-2013.pdf